(Mis)Understanding Urban Africa: Toward A Research Agenda on the Political Impact of Urbanization

Abstract

The last decade has seen a growing consensus around two aspects of Africa's changing demographic and socio-economic profile and their impact on the continent's development. The first area of agreement is that "Africa's future is urban" (ISS 2016). Whereas the continent was overwhelmingly rural in the early years of independence, a majority of citizens will live in urban areas by 2050. The second area of convergence is that this demographic shift will have profound political and economic consequences (Murali et al. 2018), including kick-starting stalled processes of democratization (Anku & Enu-Kalu 2019). It is easy to see why so many