The Spatial Organization of Residential Areas in Accra, Ghana, with Particular Reference to Aspects of Modernization

Abstract

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. Clark University is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Economic Geography.In much of the developing world, capital cities are interfaces between cultures epitomized by the hoe and digging stick and those dominated by the machine. These cities are centers of cultural contact, innovation, and diffusion, and it is appropriate to refer to them as foci of the processes of modernization revolutionizing traditional societies [12, 13, 14]. Nevertheless, for many of these cities, including the post-colonial capitals of West Africa, the rate of change has created serious problems of internal ad- justment [5, 15, 18, 20]. Indeed, it was not until after World War II that urbanbased industries were established in any significant numbers in West Africa [8].It is not surprising, therefore, that the impress of modernization on these cities is so uneven at present, and even the casual observer is struck by the conspicuous areal variations in the trappings of modernity in these metropolises.1 Thus, while it is proper to refer to these nodes generally as "seats of modernization," close attention should be paid to the problems of disequilibrium and social stress within them. Accra, the capital of Ghana, was selected as a laboratory in which to examine the spatial dimensions of the transformations exhibited by a rapidly 2 For a general statement of the legacy of urbanization imposed upon the indigenous African landscapes by the Europeans see Southall [24].

Segregated by neighbourhoods? A portrait of ethnic diversity in the neighbourhoods of the Accra Metropolitan Area, Ghana

“…The costs of land, property and rent are very high in these high-class residential neighbourhoods, and they are usually quoted in foreign currencies such as the US dollar and Euro. Cantonments and Airport Residential Area were planned, fi nanced and compulsorily acquired by the colonial government for expatriate civil servants or leased to European businesses for their employees (Brand, 1972). After the attainment of independence in 1957, Ghanaian top civil servants occupied these suburbs.…”

Neighborhoods and Fertility in Accra, Ghana: An AMOEBA-Based Approach

“…“Characteristic of the rigid social structure of the colonial period were the sharp boundaries between these elite preserves and the bordering slums and squatter settlements. Administrative divisions created highly visible ecological barriers in Accra” (Brand 1972:297). At the same time, however, a more middle class neighborhood, Adabraka, was established in the 1920s as a new residential and commercial area to the northwest of the older parts of the city (Pellow 1977).…”

Internal transmigrants: A Dagomba diaspora

“…The cocoa boom and port activity produced an “economic revolution” in Accra (Arn 1996). Separate neighborhoods were created, eventually resulting in the de facto segregation of foreign and native residence and activities (Brand 1972; Grant 2009; Pellow 2008). In many ways, the sociospatial disparities observed between the country's North and South have been mimicked at the local level in Accra, in local and foreign enterprises, facilities, and lifestyles.…”