Colonial Planning

Colonialization has never failed to provoke discussion and debate over its territorial, economic and political projects, and their ongoing consequences. This work argues that the state-based activity of planning was integral to these projects in conceptualizing, shaping and managing place in settler societies. Planning was used to appropriate and then produce territory for management by the state and in doing so, became central to the colonial invasion of settler states. Moreover, the book demonstrates how the colonial roots of planning endure in complex (post)colonial societies and how such roots, manifest in everyday planning practice, continue to shape land use contests between indigenous people and planning systems in contemporary (post)colonial states.

Cities in Sub-Saharan Africa are unequally confronted with social, economic and environmental challenges, particularly those related with population growth, urban sprawl, and informality. This complex and uneven African urban condition requires an open discussion of past and current urban planning practices and future reforms. Urban Planning in Sub-Saharan Africa gives a broad perspective of the history of urban planning in Sub-Saharan Africa and a critical view of issues, problems, challenges and opportunities confronting urban policy makers. The book examines the rich variety of planning cultures in Africa, offers a unique view on the introduction and development of urban planning in Sub-Saharan Africa, and makes a significant contribution against the tendency to over-generalize Africa’s urban problems and Africa’s urban planning practices. Urban Planning in Sub-Saharan Africa is written for postgraduate students and advanced undergraduates, researchers, planners and other policy makers in the multidisciplinary field of Urban Planning, in particular for those working in Spatial Planning, Architecture, Geography, and History.

‘At the centre of the world-economy, one always finds an exceptional state, strong, aggressive and privileged, dynamic, simultaneously feared and admired.’ - Fernand Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism, 15th–18th Centuries This, surely, is an apt description of the British Empire at its zenith. Of Planting and Planning explores how Britain used the formation of towns and cities as an instrument of colonial expansion and control throughout the Empire. Beginning with the seventeenth-century plantation of Ulster and ending with decolonization after the Second World War, Robert Home reveals how the British Empire gave rise to many of the biggest cities in the world and how colonial policy and planning had a profound impact on the form and functioning of those cities. This second edition retains the thematic, chronological and interdisciplinary approach of the first, each chapter identifying a key element of colonial town planning. New material and illustrations have been added, incorporating the author's further research since the first edition. Most importantly, Of Planting and Planning remains the only book to cover the whole sweep of British colonial urbanism.

With a multidisciplinary perspective, Planning Power examines British and French colonial town and country planning efforts in Africa. Drawing out similarities in the colonial administrative and economic strategies of the two powers, rather than emphasizing the differences, the book offers an unusually nuanced view of African planning systems in a time of upheaval and political change. In showing how the colonial authorities sought to gain political and social control in Africa, it can be seen how their will to exert political power influenced every area of planning practice during this era. This unique comparative analysis of British and French colonial town planning – covering the entire sub-Saharan African region – takes theories from a wide range of disciplines, including political science, history, urban and regional planning, economics and geography to paint a comprehensive picture of the subject. Written by a prolific researcher and writer in the political-economy of urban and regional planning in Africa, Planning Power is valuable reading for students and academics in a range of disciplines.

Colonial Planning (1958) breaks new ground in its study of colonial development plans on a comparative basis. It starts with a summary of the statistical data for the 70 odd territories studied, including territorial incomes, capital accumulation, origin and size of planning finances and metropolitan contributions, both within and outside the plans. This section also discusses the validity and comparability of the data. The author then selects, with the help of the many contributions to the study of the problems of economic growth, those problems which seem especially relevant to administrative planning. After an outline of the historical developments which have led to the widespread acceptance of colonial planning in its then-current forms, he analyses the various types of planning machinery established both in the metropolitan centres and in the territories, traces their connections and attempts a classification of their organisational problems. Finally, he analyses and classifies the plans themselves, giving special attention to attempts at solving the problems of priorities. This work is based on administrative documents, and especially on the various colonial development plans put forward since the war: colonial development planning so far has been mainly an administrative exercise and its problems, methods, scope and aims can be best understood if studies within an administrative context.

Incorporating more than 3,000 illustrations, Kornwolf's work conveys the full range of the colonial encounter with the continent's geography, from the high forms of architecture through formal landscape design and town planning. From these pages emerge the fine arts of environmental design, an understanding of the political and economic events that helped to determine settlement in North America, an appreciation of the various architectural and landscape forms that the settlers created, and an awareness of the diversity of the continent's geography and its peoples. Considering the humblest buildings along with the mansions of the wealthy and powerful, public buildings, forts, and churches, Kornwolf captures the true dynamism and diversity of colonial communities - their rivalries and frictions, their outlooks and attitudes - as they extended their hold on the land.

At once an engaging portrait of a cosmopolitan African city and an exploration of colonial irrationality, Urban Design, Chaos, and Colonial Power in Zanzibar opens up new perspectives on the making of modernity and the metropolis.

Colonialization has never failed to provoke discussion and debate over its territorial, economic and political projects, and their ongoing consequences. This work argues that the state-based activity of planning was integral to these projects in conceptualizing, shaping and managing place in settler societies. Planning was used to appropriate and then produce territory for management by the state and in doing so, became central to the colonial invasion of settler states. Moreover, the book demonstrates how the colonial roots of planning endure in complex (post)colonial societies and how such roots, manifest in everyday planning practice, continue to shape land use contests between indigenous people and planning systems in contemporary (post)colonial states.