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This paper offers an overview of mixed-income housing in African cities, emphasising its importance, challenges, and potential solutions. As urbanisation increases, mixed-income housing becomes crucial for addressing housing inequality, fostering social inclusion, and promoting sustainable urban development. However, its application in African contexts is under-researched. Through bibliometric analysis and systematic review, the study utilised VOSviewer to examine existing research, identifying publication trends, dominant themes, emerging trends, and mapping out research gaps of mixed-income housing in the African context. The study highlights geographical biases and calls for diverse research settings to understand mixed-income housing complexities across different African cities. The emerging trends further underscore the need for tailored policies, community integration, sustainable financing, and long-term impact assessments. However, gaps remain in understanding environmental sustainability, economic impacts, and community dynamics in mixed-income housing. The paper concludes with recommendations for future research, advocating interdisciplinary collaboration and mixed-method approaches to formulate a comprehensive strategic framework. Addressing these gaps can guide evidence-based policies to promote inclusive, sustainable mixed-income housing in African cities, aligning with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and fostering resilient urban futures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is growing scholarly interest in notions of ecological gentrification – whereby environmental improvements drive up real estate prices, with the subsequent displacement of low-income residents – particularly in the global North. Drawing on an integrative review of extant literature on African urbanism, urban greenery encroachment and gentrification, this paper argues that the Western notion of ecological gentrification has little or no application in African cities, which are confronted with rapid encroachment on urban wetlands amidst burgeoning urbanization and its attendant increasing demand for property development. We conceptualize the African variant on ecological gentrification as "wetland gentrification". It occurs when land scarcity and rising property values in African cities cause indiscriminate depletion of urban wetlands for property development, leading to the destruction of ecological resources and displacement of human populations. This paper discusses, among other topics, the implications of wetland gentrification for urban governance and vice versa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, the impacts of climate variability/change on water supply in three urban sprawl communities were examined. Using historical satellite climate datasets and social surveys, the study assesses the water stress during different seasons in urban sprawl communities. The primary data was gathered through structured questionnaires and focused group discussions (FGDs) in various communities throughout the study area. The stress of accessing drinking water was evaluated in different seasons and during climate extreme events. The correlation analysis was used to further examine the relationship between specific variables and people's perceptions of major observed climate change as they induce water stress. The results from local people's perception of climate change impacts on safe drinking water supply reflect meteorological analysis, which indicates that the mean minimum temperature has increased, 1.0° 1.3°C in the urban sprawl communities. The results indicate that age and time living in the neighbourhood have a significant influence on how people perceive and understand climate change as they induce water stress. These have resulted in much stress for women, who are forced to walk a long distance to fetch drinking water for the households, during the extremely dry seasons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers an overview of mixed-income housing in African cities, emphasising its importance, challenges, and potential solutions. As urbanisation increases, mixed-income housing becomes crucial for addressing housing inequality, fostering social inclusion, and promoting sustainable urban development. However, its application in African contexts is under-researched. Through bibliometric analysis and systematic review, the study utilised VOSviewer to examine existing research, identifying publication trends, dominant themes, emerging trends, and mapping out research gaps of mixed-income housing in the African context. The study highlights geographical biases and calls for diverse research settings to understand mixed-income housing complexities across different African cities. The emerging trends further underscore the need for tailored policies, community integration, sustainable financing, and long-term impact assessments. However, gaps remain in understanding environmental sustainability, economic impacts, and community dynamics in mixed-income housing. The paper concludes with recommendations for future research, advocating interdisciplinary collaboration and mixed-method approaches to formulate a comprehensive strategic framework. Addressing these gaps can guide evidence-based policies to promote inclusive, sustainable mixed-income housing in African cities, aligning with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and fostering resilient urban futures.

Abstract Housing is a fundamental human need, yet access remains a significant challenge in Africa, particularly for low-income families. Rapid urbanization exacerbates this issue, highlighting the need for innovative and sustainable housing strategies that can support urban growth and improve living conditions for these families. This study employs a rapid review methodology to identify and analyze sustainable innovative affordable housing (SIAH) strategies suitable for low-income families in African cities. Through a comprehensive literature search and thematic analysis, the review explores housing strategies such as mixed-use developments, incremental housing, low rental housing, inclusionary housing, 3D printing, upcycling, micro-housing, community-led housing, co-housing, and green building practices. These approaches/strategies are not mutually exclusive and can often overlap or be integrated to address housing challenges comprehensively. The findings highlight that these strategies can significantly enhance spatial justice and promote sustainable urban development. However, challenges such as material scarcity, regulatory complexities, and societal resistance must be addressed. The study emphasizes the need for policy support, public–private partnerships, community engagement, financial incentives, and capacity building to ensure successful implementation of these strategies. The paper contributes to the existing body of knowledge by providing actionable recommendations for policymakers, urban planners, and housing advocates, aiming to foster inclusive, equitable, and sustainable cities in Africa. Future research could delineate the strategies into distinct categories based on their nature and purpose (strategy, method/tool, practice etc.), providing a clearer framework for understanding and implementation.

Based on ethnographic research on Chinese migrants in Nigeria, Botswana, and Namibia from 2011 to 2015, this article has three lines of argumentation and contribution. First, it proposes a framing of migrant geographies from a humanistic comparative perspective in order to complement the political economy approaches in geographies of migration. Second, lying in the intersection of urban studies and migration studies, it illustrates the different positionalities of cities in three aspects of migrant geographies – migrant space, network, and belonging – echoing the multiscalar analysis of city-making in migration processes. Third, specifically in the context of Chinese migrant geographies, three African cities, Lagos, Gaborone, and Windhoek, are placed in three migrants' geographic worlds, not always according to their positions in multiscalar power structures, but partly through migrant experiences in which top-down power horizontally works. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within global debates, decentralization with respect to renewable electricity is positioned as pivotal in overlapping calls for decarbonization, energy access and just transitions. The promise is that technologies that are smaller and distributed will deliver a range of benefits, including enabling infrastructural innovations and expanding sustainable access, notably by empowering local authorities. While shifting to low-carbon systems is imperative, in this paper we call for attention to the complexity, opportunities and risks of commonly celebrated experiments in distributed electricity technologies when applied to African contexts. We draw on the case of Uganda, unpacking a series of four innovative electricity projects currently under way. For each case, we look at the actors involved and the imagined relationship between the projects and the incumbent grid. From these cases, we argue that, in this African context characterized by contested urban governance and fragmented networks, careful attention to supporting urban scale institutional and infrastructural development is necessary, although in many cases bypassed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Calls for humanity to act on environmental changes are becoming increasingly critical. The growing polycrisis including the impact of ongoing conflicts in contested geopolitical spaces and the struggles for ways to sustain a livelihood in areas of precarity and poverty, are just some of the intersecting challenges which have given rise to a Code Red alarm by the United Nations surrounding issues related to climate change. Rich narratives and stories of climate actions from Africa offer examples of potential paths. This paper explores how such narratives inform local development and climate action. A key message is that stories and narratives, created by various peoples, disciplines, and systems of knowledge, can all be powerful genres and sources for agentic change that can inspire and embolden development practice and action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Irrigated urban agriculture using various water sources has been consistently present throughout Maputo's history. Grounded in Infulene Valley, we delve into how urban planning has evolved since 1960 and trace the implications of these policies on urban farming and the livelihoods dependent on it. Documenting the imaginaries of the city over four eras of Maputo's development, we find that agriculture occupied a prominent place in the post-colonial city, and continues to be significant, despite its vague recognition within urban planning, after the shift to neoliberalism. We advocate for acknowledging urban irrigated agriculture as an intrinsic feature of the city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the example of Nairobi, this article calls for planning practitioners in, and scholars of, African urban spaces to reflect on the role of the police as infrastructure and managers in cities on the continent. While this function is recognized, to a great extent, in other regions of the globe, I argue that both formal urban practice and scholarship on African cities have not duly accounted for how the police are involved in city processes in ways that far exceed their mandate to 'serve and protect.' Such recognitions, I contend, will allow for an urban governance that is not only cognizant of and shaped by the experiences of the majority, but also one that seeks to limit the increasingly normalized and problematic urban functions of the police. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transdisciplinary research has gained traction globally for mapping pathways for sustainable urbanisation. The involvement of local communities is believed to central to knowledge co-production needed to address sustainability challenges. But working with local communities can be challenging. This paper is structured around the authors’ personal reflections on undertaking transdisciplinary household energy conservation projects in Ghana and South Africa. The paper reflects on the assumptions and challenges of doing transdisciplinary research in urban Africa and suggests some guidelines for consideration when doing transdisciplinary projects. An inductive analysis of our reflections showed five key challenges: lack of integration, divergent problem identification, tensions in knowledge co-production, asymmetrical power relations, and distrust and managing expectations. We draw on our collective experiences to develop guidelines for conducting transdisciplinary research in urban Africa. These guidelines are not prescriptive but can be useful for a growing and broader audience interested in undertaking transdisciplinary research.

Transdisciplinary research has gained traction globally for mapping pathways for sustainable urbanisation. The involvement of local communities is believed to central to knowledge co-production needed to address sustainability challenges. But working with local communities can be challenging. This paper is structured around the authors' personal reflections on undertaking transdisciplinary household energy conservation projects in Ghana and South Africa. The paper reflects on the assumptions and challenges of doing transdisciplinary research in urban Africa and suggests some guidelines for consideration when doing transdisciplinary projects. An inductive analysis of our reflections showed five key challenges: lack of integration, divergent problem identification, tensions in knowledge co-production, asymmetrical power relations, and distrust and managing expectations. We draw on our collective experiences to develop guidelines for conducting transdisciplinary research in urban Africa. These guidelines are not prescriptive but can be useful for a growing and broader audience interested in undertaking transdisciplinary research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper converts the six reasons for inclusive development proposed by Gupta into a heuristic device for evaluation of inclusive development in road infrastructure projects in Nairobi. The Gupta Rationale entails six key evaluative elements of, that is, whether the project has achieved: Welfare of the poor and marginalized, Human rights, Economic Sustainability, Human security and livelihood support, Inclusive decision-making and Non production of poverty. This study subjected the Nairobi-Thika Road Improvement Project to this evaluative criterion as case study. The results of the evaluation are that the project mainly focused on enhancing the comfort of the private motorist, no serious violations except on few occasions when structures used by informal SMEs were demolished without offers of viable alternatives, the project led to improved infrastructure with significant economic benefits, densification and crowding occasioned by high land prices has led to overstretched infrastructural services thereby threatening the human security in the neighbourhoods along the corridor, the project was not inclusive in terms of decision-making but was a top-down outfit that did little to incorporate local governments and communities, and that it caused production of poverty by destroying livelihoods of petty traders and employees of SMEs that were operating along the corridor. The paper demonstrates that the Gupta Rationale can clearly assess the extent of inclusive development in a project and help to reach the conclusion as to whether a particular project's processes and outcomes engender inclusive development. In the case of Nairobi, for instance, the device has helped reach a rational decision that development is not inclusive. Recommendation is made that the Gupta Rationale should be used in the ex-ante and ex-post evaluation of road improvement projects or any other urban development project for that matter. This would help mainstream inclusive urban development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The advent of smart and digital cities is bringing data to the forefront as a critical resource for addressing the multifaceted transitions faced by African cities from rapid urbanization to the climate crisis. However, this commentary highlights the formidable considerations that must be addressed to realize the potential of data-driven urban planning and management. We argue that data should be viewed as a tool, not a panacea, drawing from our experience in modeling and mapping the accessibility of transport systems in Accra and Kumasi, Ghana. We identify five key considerations, including data choice, imperfections, resource intensity, validation, and data market dynamics, and propose three actionable points for progress: local data sharing, centralized repositories, and capacity-building. While our focus is on Kumasi and Accra, the considerations discussed are relevant to cities across the African continent.

Since the 1950s, African cities in a quest for modernity and prosperity have been urgently playing catch up to deal with the increasing demand for adequate urban systems and infrastructure. At the turn of the 21st century, many spatial planning models, technological trends, environmental challenges, and socio-economic realities are influencing African cities’ dynamics largely causing confusion and a lack of consistent planning policies. To efficiently guide a coherent and coordinated vision, frame an integrated long-term spatial logic, and give a precise direction for sustainable urban development, this paper aims to develop a localized and contextualised analysis of urban planning challenges and development strategies shaping African cities. The study provides a broad perspective looking at the potentiality of spatial planning practices to envision and transform urban life by prospecting integrated urban planning and development strategies to face increasing urban challenges in Africa. Through Systematic Literature Review (SLR) and machine-learning tools, the study brings, for the first time, consolidated and updated knowledge of urban planning practices in Africa. We analysed 243 urban studies, published between 2000 and 2023, in 107 African cities. We identified and scrutinised 17 most pressing urban challenges and 16 most applied urban strategies to address those challenges. Accordingly, the study’s findings suggest shifting the spatial planning paradigm towards urban resilience as an interoperable system of different spatial planning policies and their relevant urban development strategies. Furthermore, the study’s key arguments are to improve urban infrastructure and optimize existing cities to reverse environmental degradation and guide urban fast transformation to adapt and mitigate growing climate change catastrophes.

Keywords: racial capitalism; Black masculinity; African cities; hegemony; crises; informal economies; F54 colonialism; imperialism and postcolonialism; N79 regional and urban history: Africa and oceania; Z1 cultural economics; economic sociology and economic anthropology EN racial capitalism Black masculinity African cities hegemony crises informal economies F54 colonialism imperialism and postcolonialism N79 regional and urban history: Africa and oceania Z1 cultural economics economic sociology and economic anthropology 2259 2271 13 10/17/23 20231001 NES 231001 Connected crises: masculinity, empire and hustling in Abidjan *Correspondence: isabel.pike@graduateinstitute.ch Jordanna Matlon's I A Man among Other Men i is a sweeping account of how racial capitalism shapes masculine identity in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, focusing on two groups of men who I se débrouillent i [hustle] in the city once known as the Paris of West Africa. These works represent important advances in identifying the institutional foundations that enable racialized capitalism by identifying key institutional structures of global capitalism, much as Matlon does in I A Man among Other Men i . In this I took Abidjan and the Abidjanais that Matlon worked with not as a case from which to explore racial capitalism but Abidjan as a particular nodal point in the geography of racial capitalism from which we can see its wider operation. [Extracted from the article]

The aim of the study was to evaluate spatial connectivity and socioeconomic status of African cities using street network datasets and geospatial methods. The drivable street network was collected from OpenStreetMap, and spatial connectivity has developed at the cityscape level and central business districts (CBD). At the cityscape level, almost all studied cities have minimum spatial connectivity as illustrated by metrics like betweenness centrality, average node average and intersection density metrics where maximum values were 0.11, 6.28 and 359 nodes/km2 respectively. The spatial connectivity of CBD was higher compared cityscape level, which indicated the availability unbalanced growth of drivable street network in the sample cities. Moreover, the study has also founded relationship between spatial connectivity and socioeconomic status of cities which in turn have implications to the sustainability of urban areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban flood risk is significantly shaped by ground conditions and the built environment, which are constantly modified and transformed by human actions. This paper examines the intertwinement of flood risk and unregulated urban expansion processes in three selected sites in Accra's expanding periphery. All three sites have been included in Accra's urban extent since the 1990s, but differ with regard to the timing of development and socio-economic characteristics of residents. The research illuminates how flood risk is produced and "built-in" to the urban fabric through widespread practices associated with unregulated urban expansion processes, especially the persistent encroachment on water retention areas, wetlands and riparian zones and the highly fragmented provision of transport infrastructure in emerging residential areas in the periphery. Such harmful development practices are neither confined to homebuilders from poorer segments of the urban population nor spatially concentrated in low-income areas. The research highlights how the actions and inactions of a wide range of social groups and actors engaged in urban land administration and development contribute to flood risk in various ways, making flooding an increasingly alarming issue of citywide concern. Different stakeholders highlight fragmented urban governance as an underlying root cause for the obstruction of sustainable land and water management. Overall, the study calls for a more robust recognition of spatial planning and transport infrastructure provision in flood risk mitigation and highlights the urgent need for planning and governance practices that challenge the existing fragmentation of urban governance systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A range of innovative off‐grid sanitation technologies have been developed and deployed to improve sanitation in cities where networked sanitation by publicly managed sewers is insufficient. Studies of such technologies tend to consider toilets as static, where technologies are chosen once, at the project onset and in isolation from each other. In this study we explore off‐grid sanitation as heterogeneous infrastructure configurations of people and toilets, roles and responsibilities, costs and benefits. Using two cases from Kampala, we emphasise that there are relationships between the different parts of infrastructure, and that these relationships vary over time and space. Urban residents rework configurations by changing a toilet and changing which toilets are used in order to meet their diverse sanitation desires. We demonstrate technological diversity, connect this diversity to the preferences of users by showing linkages between toilets that are proximate to each other, and show the importance of considering relations between toilets over time. Our analysis demonstrates how operations, cultural orientations, payment mechanisms, and limitations have a significant bearing on feasibility, scalability, and integration into city‐wide sanitation, and that this is often not foreseen in planning phases. We thus conclude that sanitation configurations that enable flexibility rather than trying to predict needs may well enable more reliable infrastructure. A range of innovative off‐grid sanitation technologies have been developed to improve sanitation, but studies of these technologies tend to consider toilets as static. In this study we explore two examples of off‐grid sanitation as heterogeneous infrastructure configurations in Kampala. We demonstrate technological diversity, connect this diversity to the preferences of users by showing linkages between toilets that are proximate to each other, and emphasise the importance of considering these relations between toilets over time. We thus conclude that sanitation configurations that enable flexibility rather than trying to predict needs may well enable more reliable infrastructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growth of cities and urban population in Africa is inducing an increase in informal housing building, growth of poverty and inequality, limited access of citizens to basic services and urban infrastructure, growth of the informal economy, etc. These problems arise largely due to the lack of proper urban development planning, insufficient action coordination at different levels of government, lack of funding for urban projects.The books presented in the review contain studies of transformation processes in African cities seen in the global, national and local contexts. Deepening understanding of urbanization in African countries, its driving forces, dynamics and interactions between urban actors, the authors of the publications point out the need to develop targeted and inclusive policies that would unite local, national and regional efforts in the field of urban development. Among the key elements of such policy, experts highlight coordination of development projects at the national and local levels and improving the quality of their management; investing in basic service infrastructure, including the areas of informal housing; empowering local authorities as key players in shaping local strategies for socio-economic development.

Southern cities have become increasingly inscribed in broader postcolonial and neoliberal development forces. In tandem with global pandemics, digital threats, and migration and climate crises, these forces have posed critical implications for all residents, decimating the middle class, widening the gap between elites and masses, deepening the cost of living for the urban majority, and making it harder to rise through the ladder. In such an environment, navigating everyday life increasingly becomes synonymous with survival, constituting a proactive process of inhabiting the city, where the self and the urban are always in the making. This paper examines prominent accounts of the urban way of life as survival. We take one large city of Nairobi in eastern Africa as a representative case, highlighting manifold rhythms and ensembles of survival, such as how residents make ends meet, optimize for a soft life, niche social infrastructures, and cultivate technological infrastructures. In their material manifestations, these rhythms and ensembles demonstrate the role and centrality of urban residents as proactive producers and co-creators of multiple urban forms. They draw us to a mode of survival that is continuous rather than intermittent and of inhabitation that is reparative rather than castigatory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emissions from vehicular traffic are one of the key drivers of urban environmental air pollution, degrading the ambient air quality in many African cities and across the globe. This study sought to assess the impact of traffic mobility measures on the emission levels of air pollutants from vehicle exhaust in Lagos, Nigeria. Traffic flow and vehicle mix were collected daily during morning, afternoon, and evening peak periods along selected arterial and two-lane collector roadways. Simultaneously, five (5) air pollutants from vehicular traffic emissions were observed at distinct monitoring stations along the roadways using portable gas detectors. The traffic flow and mobility measures were inputted into a multiple exponential model to estimate the concentration of each pollutant. The result of the vehicle fleet composition revealed 3.5%, 4.5%, 57%, 32%, 1.5%, and 2% for motorcycles, tricycles, personal cars, minibuses, large buses, and heavy goods vehicles, respectively, on the two-lane road and 10%, 35%, 27%, 10%, and 18% for motorcycles, personal cars, minibuses, large buses, and heavy goods vehicles, respectively, on the arterial. The results of a multiple exponential regression model (MER) showed significant contributions from traffic flow, speed, vehicle fleet proportion, and pollutant concentration (p

This study provides a synthetic overview of thirty years of research devoted to urban climate change in Africa. Which cities in Africa are being researched on the impacts of climate change affecting them? What are the main social and urban issues and how are they linked? Is the development of climate services envisaged for these cities? Related to which local issues? Some answers are drawn by text mining the metadata of more than a thousand articles published in the 1991–2021 period and recorded in the Web of Science. The evidences produced are based on the design and exploitation of a taxonomy of keywords forming a set of issues and on their articulation in a network based on their co-occurrences in the articles' metadata. Forty-eight African countries and 134 cities are cited, Cairo, Dar es Salaam, Cape Town, Accra, Lagos, Durban, Nairobi, Addis Ababa, Kampala and Johannesburg being the cities deferring the largest number of studies. The salient urban climate change issues-health, water, energy, social issues and governance, followed by agriculture and food, mitigation, heat, urban territories, risks and hazards-are generally addressed in their interdependences. Urbanization and the implementation of associated policies, as well as the management of water resources, floods health and energy, and land use and land cover changes to a less extent, are proving to be the most pressing challenges. In view of the intricacy of these issues, climate services appear underdeveloped in African cities and barely confined to the acquisition and modeling of environmental data for decision-making in adaptation planning.

Academic discourse has recently opened viewpoints that appreciate the qualities of "African cities" and have called attention to overlooked and neglected knowledge on formative socio-cultural systems. Yet, the scholarly literature falls short on the diversity and specifics of morphological/spatial characteristics and their interplay with spatial practice. We aim to understand factors, which contribute to the contingencies of African cities, by looking at Addis Ababa and Kumasi and the extent to which these factors are shaping their morphology and spatial form. We approach and understand the city through the analysis of the alley/access roads as the smallest constitutive unit to the city. The results show that despite initially similar morphologies, the persisting historical urban cultures and land management regimes influencing the conceived and lived experience of the spaces play out differently. These insights can contribute to a contextualized and nuanced urban planning and development and consciousness of urban heritage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Master plans have long been criticized by critical planners who have argued in favour of more strategic, collaborative and relational forms of spatial planning that can more adequately respond to local needs and realities, especially in the context of the global South. Rather than critiquing master planning, this paper seeks to interrogate its recent rise in urban Africa. Building on a review of international planning trajectories, the paper seeks to challenge dominant narratives in the Western literature around the rise and decline of master planning. Planning experiences from across the African continent illustrate how master planning was a limited practice under colonialism and emerged more strongly in early post-colonial years, while persisting through a quiet period of planning and proliferating in recent times. By exploring the diversity in the influences and approaches to master planning for new and existing cities in Africa over time, the paper positions master planning as the product of a complex array of transnational circuits and multiple local actors and ambitions which intersect across different scales. The study of master planning should therefore be considered as an important entry point into understanding and rethinking the contemporary politics of urban planning, implementation, and development in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Smart cities are becoming a popular urban development strategy to address complex and multiple challenges confronting cities globally, including in Africa. Using the 3RC framework, this paper critically analyses smart cities using experiences from Nairobi (Kenya), Johannesburg (South Africa), Lagos (Nigeria), Kigali (Rwanda) and Casablanca (Morocco). Are smart cities a panacea to Africa's quest for sustainable urbanization? Our analyses demonstrate that, if carefully planned and implemented, smart city interventions have the potential to transform the ways African cities are planned, managed, and governed. At the same time, smart city interventions in Africa are being implemented in contexts characterized by socio-economic inequalities, chaotic transport systems and massive governance failures among other challenges. We demonstrate that if ineffectively deployed, smart urban technologies might deepen existing inequalities and amplify spatial exclusion through privatization and marketization of urban space. Therefore, the adoption of smart city ideas in Africa must be rooted in contextual realities and properly calibrated to create urban spaces that are sustainable and inclusive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores everyday travel behavior among urbanites in Accra's periphery and unpacks how travel choices and preferences are conditioned and constrained in a context of rapid urban expansion, unregulated residential sprawl, infrastructural deficits, congestion and changing socio-economic conditions. The paper draws on qualitative interviews (n = 48) and a travel survey (n = 2107) targeting economically active adults residing in peripheral neighborhoods. Their travel behavior is characterized by a high proportion of adults who regularly travel outside their neighborhoods, over relatively long distances (10+ km) and mainly using motorized transport. The paper proposes "high mobility lifestyles" as a metaphor to capture key aspects of travel behavior in the peripheries and explores how travelers navigate the opportunities and constraints associated with living in the peripheries. As a unique feature, spatially explicit destination data are used to map the predominant destinations and long distances travelled from Accra's peripheral neighborhoods. The research illuminates how infrastructural deficits, long distances, severe congestion and rising transport costs combine to make high mobility lifestyles exceedingly strenuous, costly, and time-consuming. Ultimately, in-depth understanding of travel behavior, embedded in contextual conditions, can provide insights on how travel choices may be changed and how transport, systems may be made more sustainable and inclusive. • High mobility lifestyles predominate in Accra's peripheral neighborhoods • Unregulated residential sprawl conditions and constrains high mobility lifestyles • Travel is strenuous due to infrastructural deficits, long distances and congestion. • High mobility lifestyles are under pressure in changing socio-economic conditions [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The twin reality of Africa as the world's demographically youngest and most rapidly urbanising continent should, by default, make it a hotspot for youth-centred urban research. And yet, the voices of young Africans remain grossly absent in public discourse, policy debates and mainstream research on issues that directly affect them. This lacuna propelled the conceptualisation of this themed volume, entitled Urban Youth -- Engaging young people and their futures in African cities. Showcasing submissions that not only push the envelope in terms of conceptual debates but also reflect in unconventional ways on experimental methods of co-production, this volume contributes to contemporary youth scholarship in three ways: firstly, by bringing together empirically rich, theoretically profound and collaborative scholarship from Africa; secondly, by showcasing cities in general and African cities in particular as productive, epistemological and relevant socio-political settings; and thirdly, by highlighting the importance of collaborative, multimodal research with youth that takes seriously their agency, aspirations and lived experiences, as much as the everyday structural challenges they face. To situate the volume, we first look briefly at common representations of young people, and particularly young Africans, within global media and policy discourses. To outline the broader knowledge project this volume connects to, we then discuss a few basic epistemological overlaps between the emerging fields of Global South Youth Studies and Southern urbanism. Introducing the rich array of creative, rigorous, experimental and propositional practices and research-based contributions that make up this themed volume constitutes the heart of this editorial. In conclusion, we argue that to secure our common urban future, it is pivotal to centre the voices of Africa's youth. For this, creative multimedia approaches to knowledge coproduction and representation will be needed, as will robust, multimodal Afro-centric partnerships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Remote sensing has been used for decades to produce vector-borne disease risk maps aiming at better targeting control interventions. However, the coarse and climatic-driven nature of these maps largely hampered their use in the fight against malaria in highly heterogeneous African cities. Remote sensing now offers a large panel of data with the potential to greatly improve and refine malaria risk maps at the intra-urban scale. This research aims at testing the ability of different geospatial datasets exclusively derived from satellite sensors to predict malaria risk in two sub-Saharan African cities: Kampala (Uganda) and Dar es Salaam (Tanzania). Using random forest models, we predicted intra-urban malaria risk based on environmental and socioeconomic predictors using climatic, land cover and land use variables among others. The combination of these factors derived from different remote sensors showed the highest predictive power, particularly models including climatic, land cover and land use predictors. However, the predictive power remained quite low, which is suspected to be due to urban malaria complexity and malaria data limitations. While huge improvements have been made over the last decades in terms of remote sensing data acquisition and processing, the quantity and quality of epidemiological data are not yet sufficient to take full advantage of these improvements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the mobility disruptions experienced by urban residents in relation to heavy precipitation and flooding of roads. The empirical focus is Accra, Ghana, a rapidly growing African city with discernible challenges in its transport system and a longstanding history of recurrent flood hazards, which are likely to be exacerbated by climate change in the future. In a context where there is very little mobility data available from official sources, the paper utilizes data from a large mobility survey (n = 1053) conducted through in-person interviews in July–August 2021 in 10 selected neighborhoods in Accra's sprawling periphery. The survey targeted economically active adults, who are travelling regularly in relation to their income-generating activities. The survey recorded respondents' experiences with a wide range of mobility disruptions caused by heavy precipitation and water on the roads. The analysis of survey data is supplemented with insights from qualitative interviews with a range of local key informants (n = 75). The research illuminates the diversity of mobility disruptions experienced by Accra's residents during and after heavy precipitation events and the adverse implications for livelihoods and access to markets and services. The results highlight that mobility disruptions related to heavy precipitation are an extremely commonplace experience for residents in Accra's periphery, across a diverse collection of neighborhoods and across travel patterns and traveler characteristics. While existing research tends to privilege the most dramatic and disastrous flood events and the associated destruction of property, this research, however, draws attention to the somewhat under-researched topic of mobility disruptions to everyday activities and their implications for livelihoods and access to markets and services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Grounded in a postcolonial, liberationist urban vision, this article lamented the theological and political paralysis of urban denialism that fails African cities and African urban populations. Considering different possible urban trajectories towards 2063 – ranging from floundering to flourishing, implosion to explosion, and apocalyptic disaster to complete rebirth – it then proposed theologies of African urban citizenship, as response. It sought to articulate a vision of citizen-driven African cities, remaking cities ‘from below’, through interconnected and intersectional urban movements. It considered urban citizenship not as the decent and orderly conduct of subjects of the nation-state but as the disruptive and transformative presence and participation of citizens of God’s new city, breaking into cities across the African continent. While it bemoaned the absence of ‘Africa’s urban revolution’ from mainstream theologies and politics practised in the African context, and the insufficient attention paid to it even by the Africa 2063 manifesto, it dared to evoke hope, in spite of evidence to the contrary. This should be viewed as a conceptual contribution, fusing literature study with deep urban immersion. Contribution: Grounded in a postcolonial, liberationist urban vision, this article lamented the theological and political paralysis of urban denialism that fails African cities and African urban populations, contemplating theologies of African urban citizenship instead.

The twin reality of Africa as the world’s demographically youngest and most rapidly urbanising continent should, by default, make it a hotspot for youth-centred urban research. And yet, the voices of young Africans remain grossly absent in public discourse, policy debates and mainstream research on issues that directly affect them. This lacuna propelled the conceptualisation of this themed volume, entitled Urban Youth – Engaging young people and their futures in African cities. Showcasing submissions that not only push the envelope in terms of conceptual debates but also reflect in unconventional ways on experimental methods of co-production, this volume contributes to contemporary youth scholarship in three ways: firstly, by bringing together empirically rich, theoretically profound and collaborative scholarship from Africa; secondly, by showcasing cities in general and African cities in particular as productive, epistemological and relevant socio- political settings; and thirdly, by highlighting the importance of collaborative, multimodal research with youth that takes seriously their agency, aspirations and lived experiences, as much as the everyday structural challenges they face. To situate the volume, we first look briefly at common representations of young people, and particularly young Africans, within global media and policy discourses. To outline the broader knowledge project this volume connects to, we then discuss a few basic epistemological overlaps between the emerging fields of Global South Youth Studies and Southern urbanism. Introducing the rich array of creative, rigorous, experimental and propositional practices and research- based contributions that make up this themed volume constitutes the heart of this editorial. In conclusion, we argue that to secure our common urban future, it is pivotal to centre the voices of Africa’s youth. For this, creative multimedia approaches to knowledge co- production and representation will be needed, as will robust, multimodal Afro-centric partnerships.

Urban fringe food production plays a critical role in bridging the urban demand-supply gap by reducing the distance between the markets and farms, making food affordable in cities. Studies show that urbanisation is hampering agriculture activities at the fringes of African cities due to the intense competition for land between developers and farmers. However, the interface between staple food crop production at the urban fringes and urbanisation has not been given sufficient scholarly attention in Ghana. This study draws evidence from Wa, Ghana to examine how urbanisation pressures affect staple food crop production using the mixed research method approach. Data were collected from 408 farmers supported by key informant interviews involving chiefs, family heads, lead farmers, leaders of women groups, and relevant officials of relevant state institutions, while pictures were taken to validate participants’ claims. The quantitative data were analysed using descriptive statistics, cross tabulation, and the Wilcoxon Signed Rank test, whereas key informant interviews were subjected to thematic analyses. The findings show that urbanisation pressures have adversely affected staple crop production through declining land availability, low crop harvest, and the dropping of some crops. Therefore, the farmers resorted to cultivating on isolated patchy plots, intercropping, sub-division of small plots, and fertiliser applications to sustain production. However, high inputs cost, climate change, and land tenure insecurity limited food production. Planning schemes should make provision for food crop production, while the Municipal Assembly liaises with NGOs and the Department Agriculture Department to assist farmers to prepare organic fertiliser using local materials to boost production.