[0] https://asteriskmag.com/issues/07/want-growth-kill-small-bus...
Anyway, yes... Think America is the land of infinite suburban sprawl ? Meh - Africa is where it's at, with the obvious severe negative impact on urban development, mass transportation etc. Similar challenges as the USA, but a tenth of the resources.
1. Education and Health
2. Agriculture for self-sufficiency
3. Infrastructures
4. Housing and Urban planning?
The second, third and fourth items are related but also slightly projection based. Number one is urgent. And also related to the second item. How many top universities on the whole continent? To be fair, when we speak about universities, even in Europe, we think about American ones. Except Oxford, Cambridge and LSE in finance perhaps.
Also, the issue that comes after Education is to have policies that favor development of the private sector in order to have jobs. Obviously that would be driven from the items above.
Just that driving housing development too hard too soon based off of population growth projections could be easily sketchy. Especially since there is a scarcity of available capital due to numerous factors. I'd tend to think that Housing will solve itself according to supply and demand trends, unlike some of the other priorities.
And yes, implicitly, if there are top-universities, that would mean that the full educational system is functioning properly. It's mostly to be understood as a signal.
Thank you for the article. It's quite enlightening.
This is not actionable advice when jurisprudence and institutions are heavily state dependent.
The problems that afflict urban planners in Mali (Bamako) are different from those that Mozambique, and each African country will have to resolve issues and innovate institutional solutions that match their own states.
Saying "Africa" or the "West" or "Asia" is too broad.
Housing and urban planning norms, regulation, and laws are very dependent on regional, jurisdictional, and institutional norms.
Slum redevelopment in a democracy like Nairobi, Kenya is going to be very different from authoritarian Kigali, Rwanda.
And even within a large country like Kenya, with norms and personas in Nairobi City County being distinct from those in neighboring Kiambu County.
Jurisdiction and institutional norms vary significantly given how governance has been so distinct from African country to African country. Some were governed under British colonial legislation and retain British colonial codes. Others were governed by French colonial codes. Others yet completely rewrote their legal codes after revolutions or reformist movements.
Giving a broad recommendation without taking into account local governance context is just ridiculous.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S222658562...
"estimated that approximately 500–550 million rural residents had transformed into cities and towns from 1978 to 2017 in China"
and if we add newly born in the cities then it would result in about the same number of new urban residents.
They are making progress on building new housing, but it's a very uphill battle.
ryanalam•6mo ago