Globalization And Urbanization In Africa

In this book scholars present new interpretations of African cities, from the pre-colonial to the modern, set in the context of national and international economy, politics and culture. While providing insights into the evolution of African cities, they also raise issues of vital importance to the survival of African cities. The chapters capture the mixed legacies of colonialism and the lingering consequences of neo-colonialism in a so-called age of globalisation.

This report, based on the Africapolis geo-spatial database (www.africapolis.org) covering 7 600 urban agglomerations in 50 African countries, provides detailed analyses of major African urbanisation dynamics placed within historical, environmental and political contexts.

This title was first published in 2000: This text demonstrates the mutual effects of, and interconnections between, globalization, urbanization and rural stagnation, both theoretically and empirically. It places its comprehensive empirical investigation on two levels of urbanization - the peri-urban and the fully urbanized areas - and includes the analysis of the rural conditions into the context of the Southern African region, and also into the context of global processes in an historical and interdisciplinary perspective. The text analyzes the magnitude of the two gaps and the process of social change between the three areas objectively, by showing the changing social interaction patterns, the differences in housing and other socio-economic variables, and subjectively, through showing the judgement of the people of these variables the degree of satisfaction and depression. As the majority of variables reveal poverty, the root causes for it in Mozambique, Africa and the Third World are analyzed and aspects of an alternative development and an alternative globalization are presented.

In this work, scholars examine the growth of the largest cities in Africa. It is revealed that the new phase of globalization has reinforced the continent's marginalization, impoverishment, indebtedness, and lack of policy autonomy, rather than leading to economic growth and diversification.

This book equips readers with a deeper understanding of the challenges posed by radical socioeconomic, environmental, and cultural changes due to globalization and describes effective, sustainable solutions to these challenges. The focus is especially on the rapid urbanization processes in countries of the Global South, which are giving rise to dramatic new problems of spatial and social inequality and difficult environmental challenges in relation to climate change. Readers will gain skills and knowledge that will help them to develop an integrated, multidisciplinary approach to planning, design, and management of urban settlements and territories in contexts with a high level of social, economic, territorial, and landscape vulnerability. The coverage includes, for example, strategies to promote social inclusion, improve housing quality, ensure adequate education, protect cultural heritage, enhance risk management, and address issues in the food-energy-water nexus. Among the authors are leading experts from the Polytechnic University of Milan, where a multidisciplinary set of studies and research projects in the field have been undertaken in recent years.

The first comprehensive work on globalization within the context of sustainable development initiatives in Africa.

Most research on globalization has focused on macroeconomic and economy-wide consequences. This book explores an under-researched area, the impacts of globalization on cities and national urban hierarchies, especially but not solely in developing countries. Most of the globalization-urban research has concentrated on the "global cities" (e.g. New York, London, Paris, Tokyo) that influence what happens in the rest of the world. In contrast, this research looks at the cities at the receiving end of the forces of globalization. The general finding is that large cities, on balance, benefit from globalization, although in some cases at the expense of widening spatial inequities.