African Cities Africa-Europe Group for Interdisciplinary Studies
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African Cities Africa-Europe Group for Interdisciplinary Studies Editorial Board Leo de Haan, ASC, Leiden Ulf Engel, Leipzig Mirjam de Bruijn, ASC, Leiden Daniel Bach, Bordeaux Harry G. West, SOAS, London Holger Bernt Hansen, Copenhagen John Lonsdale, SOAS, London Alexander de Waal, Cornell University, USA Robert Kappel, GIGA, Hamburg William Beinart, Oxford, UK Angelica Baschiera, SOAS, London VOLUME 3 African Cities Competing Claims on Urban Spaces Edited by Francesca Locatelli Paul Nugent LEIDEN • BOSTON 2009 Th is book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data African cities : competing claims on urban spaces / edited by Francesca Locatelli, Paul Nugent. p. cm. — (Africa-Europe Group for interdisciplinary studies, 1574-6925 ; 3) Includes index. ISBN 978-90-04-16264-8 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Urbanization—Africa. 2. Land use, Urban—Africa. I. Locatelli, Francesca. II. Nugent, Paul, 1962- III. Title. IV. Series. HT384.A35A32 2009 307.76096—dc22 2009012828 ISSN 1574-6925 ISBN 978 90 04 16264 8 Copyright 2009 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, Th e Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to Th e Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands CONTENTS Figures, Tables and Maps ................................................................. vii Introduction ........................................................................................ 1 Francesca Locatelli and Paul Nugent Hinges and Fringes: Conceptualising the Peri-urban in Central Africa ................................................................................ 15 Th eodore Trefon Angolan Cities: Urban (Re)segregation? ........................................ 37 Cristina Udelsmann Rodrigues Who Control the Streets? Crime, ‘Communities’ and the State in Post-Apartheid Johannesburg ...................................... 55 Claire Bénit-Gbaff ou African Cities: Competing Claims on Urban Land ..................... 81 Paul Jenkins Contesting for Space in an Urban Centre: Th e Omo Onile Syndrome in Lagos ....................................................................... 109 Rufus T. Akinyele ‘Water Wars’ in Kumasi, Ghana ...................................................... 135 Tom C. McCaskie Coping with Water Scarcity: Th e Social and Environmental Impact of the 1982–1992 Droughts on Makokoba Township, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe .................................................................... 157 Muchaparara Musemwa Dealing with ‘Strangers’: Allocating Urban Space to Migrants in Nigeria and French West Africa, End of the Nineteenth Century to 1960 ................................................ 187 Laurent Fourchard vi contents Beyond the Campo Cintato: Prostitutes, Migrants and ‘Criminals’ in Colonial Asmara (Eritrea), 1890–1941 ............ 219 Francesca Locatelli Th e Urban Melting Pot in East Africa: Ethnicity and Urban Growth in Kampala and Dar es Salaam ................................... 241 Deborah Fahy Bryceson Popular Music, Identity and Politics in a Colonial Urban Space: Th e Case of Mwanza, Tanzania (1945–1961) .............. 261 Maria Suriano List of Contributors ........................................................................... 291 Index .................................................................................................... 299 FIGURES, TABLES AND MAPS Figures 11.1: City population, 1910–2000 ................................................... 255 Tables 2.1: State actors and services ............................................................ 24 8.1: Comparisons of water infl ows, dam levels and consumption details from 1989 to 1994 .................................... 162 Maps 5.1: Th e city in 1876 .......................................................................... 86 5.2: Th e city in 1903 .......................................................................... 89 5.3: City centre land cadastre map 1940 ........................................ 91 5.4: Sommerschield concession ....................................................... 92 5.5: 1952 Urban Plan ......................................................................... 93 5.6: 1977 Master Plan ........................................................................ 95 5.7: Urban expansion 1969 ............................................................... 98 5.8: Urban expansion 1979 ............................................................... 98 5.9: Urban expansion 1989 ............................................................... 98 6.1: Metropolitan Lagos .................................................................... 111 6.2: Population densities in Lagos ................................................... 116 9.1: Cities and colony headquarters in West Africa (fi rst half of the 20th century) ..................................................... 193 11.1: Dar es Salaam. Urban growth 1945–1998 ............................ 257 Pictures 12.1: “We are not satisfi ed unless all Africa is free!” TANU supporters in Makongoro road (Mwanza), late 1950s ............ 285 12.2: Th e former Community Centre, Uhuru Street, Mwanza ........................................................................................... 286 INTRODUCTION Francesca Locatelli and Paul Nugent Competing Claims on Urban Spaces On a daily basis, the media and bodies such as the Commission for Africa and United Nations agencies stress the ‘new’ urbanisation and predict the coming of Africa as an urban continent. Th ere is of course a tremendous history of European ‘discovering’ African processes that have long since existed and urbanism is one of them. African urbanism is certainly not a new phenomenon and in the last few decades historians of urban Africa have been tracing trajectories of African urban growth, challenging the notion of Africa as a ‘rural’ continent. Th e outstanding contributions of historians such as Cooper, Anderson and Rathbone, Salm and Falola, Coquery-Vidrovitch, Burton, Parker and more recently Freund, just to mention a few, have opened up new analytical horizons on the variety of urban forms developed over centuries in Africa, their multifaceted functionalities, alongside the complex historical dynamics which contributed to their shape. Th e rapid growth of African cities in the recent past has, however, prompted further debates among scholars, politicians, aid workers, international donors and organisations on the development and future of urbanism in the continent. Moving to the city has been a global trend throughout the twentieth century and recent fi gures regarding the new millennium predict an almost uncontrollable urbanisation. It has been calculated, for instance, that at worldwide level the urban population, that already witnessed an increase from 13 percent in 1900 to 29 per- cent in 1950 and reached 49 percent in 2005, is destined to constitute 60 percent of the global population (UN-Department of Economic and Social Aff airs-Population Division, World Urbanization Prospects. Th e 2005 Revision). Th ere are, however, major diff erences if we consider the regional dimension of urbanisation. According to the United Nations, “in 2005, 74 percent of the population of the more developed regions was urban, compared to the 43 percent in the less developed regions” (UN 2005). Africa appears as the least urbanised continent in the statistics of the 2 francesca locatelli and paul nugent international organisations. Nevertheless, there is an element that makes urbanism in developing countries, and mostly Africa, particu- larly unique: the unprecedented rapidity that has characterised urban development since the last few decades. Cities dramatically expanded in terms of population and space, with Lagos, for instance, being “forty times larger” than it used to be in 1950 (Davis 2006: 2) and with a population that, according to UN projection will reach approximately 24 million by 2015 (Akinyele: pp. 109–133). Cities have been transformed into megacities and new urban spaces have emerged, such as Touba in Senegal, alongside much older settlements like Mogadisho in Somalia. Th ese transformations however have been mostly taking place within an economic and social context dominated by lack of industrialisation or even economic development, contradicting the major assumption that urbanisation and urbanism are phenomena related to the imple- mentation of an industrial economy. Urbanisation without development is what has contributed to the image of African cities as degrading, irrecoverable and hopeless places. To external observers, African cities are perceived as ‘dangerous’, cha- otic, dysfunctional and non-productive. Th ey are (too!) oft en considered as symbol of the general failure of African states (Freund 2007: 156). Th e international focus on, or obsession for, the corrupted nature of African governments, the lack of national developmental strategies in absorbing and integrating the ever-growing urban masses