The Urban Age turns its ‘reflexive lens’ to Africa after a series of international conferences that have allowed us to assess selected cities in hotspots of urban growth and change across the world.
For 15 years, the Urban Age project has conducted a worldwide investigation into the future of cities, holding conferences, generating research, curating exhibitions, publishing books (most recently Shaping Cities in an Urban Age) and producing newspapers like this one to explore the relationship between the design of cities – how we live, move and work – and how they can be better governed and managed to tackle the challenges of, for example, uncontrolled sprawl, inequality and climate change.
The final leap towards an ‘urban age’ requires urgent exploration. 2.5 billion more people will be living in cities by 2050, the vast majority in Africa and Asia. Yet, much of the infrastructure to support this urban expansion is yet to be built. To contribute to the exploration, the Urban Age has carried out new research on African cities in the build-up to the Addis Ababa conference on Developing Urban Futures. The dynamics of growth and change of ‘young’ sub-Saharan African cit