The Cities of Sub-Saharan Africa: From Dependency to Marginality

Africa’s urbanisation: Implications for sustainable development

“…According to this view, the prevalence of political and ecological crises such as drought and civil wars, coupled with unhelpful socio-cultural practices such as female genital mutilation (FGM) have contributed to rural-urban migration considerably. To support this view, many studies indicate that civil strife and political instability in Africa increase internal displacements of population and the number of refugees in cities (e.g., Clapham, 2006;Iliffe, 2007;Stren & Halfani, 2001). A case in point is Sierra Leone where the population of Freetown increased over 217% during the country's civil war between 1991 and 2001 (Africa South of the Sahara, 2002).…”

“…In addition to the above-discussed causes of rural-urban migration, recent studies on Africa view insecurity and conflict as other drivers of migration (e.g., Clapham, 2006;Iliffe, 2007;Stren & Halfani, 2001). According to this view, the prevalence of political and ecological crises such as drought and civil wars, coupled with unhelpful socio-cultural practices such as female genital mutilation (FGM) have contributed to rural-urban migration considerably.…”

Urbanization as a Global Historical Process: Theory and Evidence from sub‐Saharan Africa

“…the mortality decline that began in the late colonial era continued, while fertility rates remained exceptionally high, resulting in population increase of historically unprecedented scale. 13 many countries experienced a surge in rural-to-urban migration in the early independence period due to the elimination of residence restrictions on africans in urban areas and a sharp increase in urban employment opportunities at- tributable to the expansion and africanization of civil service administrations and investments in urban public works (miner 1967;Stren and Halfani 2001;iliffe 2007). i refer to this phenomenon in the statistical analysis below as a "postcolonial adjustment effect."…”

Business and Climate Change Governance

“…These types of informal enterprise are a common feature of the urban African economic landscape -providing key services such as employment, shelter, transportation and various other social services (Stren and Halfani, 2001). Here, the informal sector is understood as the extra-legal and unregistered activities that constitute the informal city (Hansen and Vaa, 2004) and that circumvent state regulation (Lindell, 2010;Castells and Portes, 1989).…”