Africa’s rapid urbanisation is set to reshape its economic and social landscape by 2050, but experts warn that without deliberate planning, strategic investment and effective urban governance, the continent risks turning its cities into centres of congestion, poverty and environmental stress.
This warning formed the central message surrounding the Akinlawon Mabogunje third public lecture, organised by PALM Foundation, on Tuesday, in Lagos, where attention was focused on the urgent need for African countries, and Nigeria, in particular, to rethink urban development and build cities capable of supporting sustainable growth, economic prosperity and improved living standards.
Stephen Ajadi, a founding principal of Ruban Architecture Office, and lecturer at the third Mabogunje public lecture, titled; “Palimpsest and Provenance: The Identity and Trajectory of the African City”, said that African urbanism has a fragmented history.
He emphasised that colonialism and conflict have proven to be major mutative social forces, erasing and overwriting the initial urban trajectory of Africa across the sectors of development, so that African cities stand as urban palimpsests of Western influence and sometimes control. However, he identified an open window of turning things around for the continent, when he said, “There is hope, the window for a macro-calibration is now open.
Most of the city Africans will live in by 2050 is unbuilt, most of the world’s new urban land will be African, and its builders have a median age of 19. “The new African city must stand on its own land, finance, designers and technology chosen in our lifetime.
For the first time, we’re at a period where spatial reorganisation of urban space can occur on the terms of Africa itself, deviating from the text of the Berlin Conference,” he said.