Does African Urban Policy Provide a Platform for Sustained Economic Growth?

Buckley, Robert M.; Kallergis, Achilles

doi:10.4324/9780203387832.ch17

Cited by 9 publications

(15 citation statements)

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“…Noting our own ambiguous standpoint on what if any thing sets the African city apart from cities elsewhere, 1 the purpose of this intervention is not to resolve whether or what constitutes a universal urban condition, but to probe a more inclusive research agenda that makes African urban research legible and influ ential internationally. Given the clear uncoupling of urbanization and industrialization across much of Africa (Potts, 2009;Fox, 2012;Buckley and Kallergis, 2014), our notion of cityness is unlikely to ever align with that outlined by Scott and Storper (2015). Their somewhat dated position, like that of the World Bank's (2009) landmark report, recen tres economic agglomeration above all other expressions of urbanism and is, by impli cation, either dismissive or ignorant of most Southern urban realities, character ized by economic informality, multiplicity, marginality and dispersion, not agglomera tion (Rigg et al, 2009;Turok and McGranahan, 2013;Buckley and Kallergis, 2014;Turok, 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Translational Global Praxis: Rethinking Methods and Modes of African Urban Research

Parnell

Pieterse

2015

Int J Urban Regional Res

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Advancing global urbanism depends upon making Africa's cities a more dominant part of the global urban narrative. Constructing a more legitimate research agenda for African cities, however, necessitates a repositioning of conventional modes of research. To achieve intellectual and political traction in what are typical African research conditions-where human needs are great, information is poor, conditions of governance are complex and the reality is changeable--we reflect on the experiences of the African Centre for Cities where (alongside conventional use of theory, methods and data) a translational mode of working has been adopted. The notion of translational urban research praxis captures more than the idea of applied research or even co-production, and encompasses integrating the research conception, design, execution, application and reflection--and conceiving of this set of activities as a singular research/practice process that is by its nature deeply political and locationally embedded. In this way we suggest that African urbanism can be both usefully illuminated by global theories and methods, and can simultaneously be constitutive of the reform of the ideas through which cities generally are understood.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Translational Global Praxis: Rethinking Methods and Modes of African Urban Research

Parnell

Pieterse

2015

Int J Urban Regional Res

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“…The obstacles identified below are apparent to a greater or lesser extent in cities throughout the world, although they tend to be more acute in Africa (AfDB, 2013;Buckley & Kallergis, 2014;Foster & Briceno-Garmendia, 2010;Palmer & Berrisford, 2015;UN-Habitat, 2014. The outcome is a kind of low-income, low-investment equilibrium in many African cities.…”

Section: The Urban Land-infrastructure-finance Nexusmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…Africa's burgeoning urban population and physical expansion pose daunting challenges for communities, enterprises, ecosystems and governments (African Development Bank [AfDB], 2013;Buckley & Kallergis, 2014;Cartwright, 2015;UN-Habitat, 2014. A fundamental difficulty is that urbanization is happening at much lower levels of GDP per capita than occurred elsewhere (Jedwab, Christiaensen, & Gindelsky, 2015;Leipziger, Freire, & Lall, 2015;World Bank, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Getting urbanization to work in Africa: the role of the urban land-infrastructure-finance nexus

Turok

2016

Area Development and Policy

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The serious social and environmental problems and risks associated with large-scale urbanization in Africa are widely recognized. However, the potential for urbanization to strengthen economic growth and development across the continent has only recently been grasped. The stakes are high for efforts to ensure that urbanization reinforces rather than retards prosperity, yet urban policies are frequently ambivalent and piecemeal. The development trajectory of cities hinges on the quality of their physical foundations, which underpin functional efficiency and will endure for many decades. Realizing the opportunities of urbanization therefore requires more concerted efforts to plan and manage the form of urban growth. This means reformed arrangements governing the allocation and taxation of land, major investment in urban infrastructure and stronger local institutions to coordinate land and property development. ARTICLE HISTORY RESUMENEn general, se reconocen los graves problemas sociales y medioambientales y los riesgos relacionados con la urbanización a gran escala en África. Sin embargo, solo hasta hace poco se ha comprendido el potencial de la urbanización para reforzar el crecimiento económico y el desarrollo en el continente. Es mucho lo que está en juego para garantizar que la urbanización fortalezca y no retrase la prosperidad; no obstante, las políticas urbanas son muchas veces ambivalentes e irregulares. La trayectoria hacia el desarrollo de las ciudades depende de la calidad de sus fundamentos físicos, que potencian la eficiencia funcional y perdurarán durante muchas décadas. Por consiguiente, para aprovechar las oportunidades urbanísticas son necesarios esfuerzos más concertados con el fin de planificar y gestionar la forma del crecimiento urbano. Esto se traduce en programas reformados para poder administrar la asignación y la fiscalidad del suelo, grandes inversiones en infraestructura urbana e instituciones locales más sólidas para coordinar el desarrollo del suelo y la propiedad. PALABRAS CLAVEUrbanización, África, Suelo, Infraestructura, Finanzas públicas АННОТАЦИЯ Серьезные социальные и экологические проблемы и риски, связанные с масштабной урбанизации в Африке, получили широкое признание. Тем не менее, потенциал урбанизации в укреплении экономического роста и развития на всем континенте был осознан не так давно. Важно добиться, чтобы урбанизация усиливала, а не тормозила рост благосостояния, но городская политика нередко носит довольно неоднозначный характер. Траектории развития городов зависят от качества их физической основы, которые будут определять их функциональную эффективности на протяжении многих десятилетий. Чтобы в полной мере реализовать возможности урбанизации, требуются более согласованные усилия по планированию и управлению ростом городов. Это подразумевает реформирование механизмов, регулирующих распределение и налогообложение земли, крупных инвестиций в городскую инфраструктуру, а также сильные местные институты для координации развития территорий и недвижимости.

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“…To be fair, nothing he describes does not exist, and in many cities conditions are far worse than his evocative if un-nuanced account of poverty in the cities of the global South suggests (Buckley and Kallergis, 2014). The most pressing point to emerge from Davis's account is that dystopia is not an imagined unfair urban future; it is the dominant form of urban life today.…”

Section: Twentieth-century Utopian Thinking On the Citymentioning

confidence: 99%

Rethinking sustainable cities: Accessible, green and fair

Simon¹

2016

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This book is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits adaptation, alteration, reproduction and distribution for non-commercial use, without further permission provided the original work is attributed. The derivative works do not need to be licensed on the same terms. British Library Cataloguing in Publication DataA catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested.

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Does African Urban Policy Provide a Platform for Sustained Economic Growth?

Cited by 9 publications

References 1 publication

Translational Global Praxis: Rethinking Methods and Modes of African Urban Research

Translational Global Praxis: Rethinking Methods and Modes of African Urban Research

Getting urbanization to work in Africa: the role of the urban land-infrastructure-finance nexus

Rethinking sustainable cities: Accessible, green and fair

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