Over the last decade, and particularly the last five years, state officials in Ghana’s capital city, Accra, have intensified their resolve to ‘modernize’ the city and make it a competitive destination for global investments. In the same period, exercises by city authorities to remove or at least suppress practices of ordinary residents in the informal sector have become more frequent and intensified. Groups such as street hawkers, market women, and slum dwellers have become the main target of periodic ‘decongestion exercises’. In this dissertation I investigate how the policies and practices associated with the ‘globalizing’ and ‘modernizing’ ambition of the state intersect with the interests of the majority of urban residents whose everyday social and economic practices are concentrated in the informal sector, a sector deemed to be deleterious to the desired image for the city. I argue that contemporary city-making in Ghana is driven mainly by a combination of economic, nationalist and individual interests. In examining how cultural and social locations such as gender and ethnicity mediate the relationship between the state and residents, I demonstrate how contemporary forms of neoliberal urban governance shape, and are being shaped by, the unique historical, cultural and developmental dynamics of African cities. / Thesis (Ph.D, Geography) -- Queen's University, 2013-11-06 15:09:39.653

This study explores the factors urban residents consider when making residential location decisions. The context of the study is informal residential areas in a rapidly urbanising African city – the city of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. A central concern in the study is how the urban poor make their residential location decisions; the assumption is that with income limitations the urban poor rely on other non-economic resources to enable their residential location decisions in the context of rapid urban growth and urban poverty. The study attempts to question residential location choice concepts that rely on economic approaches as well as question explanations based on the developing world experiences.The study suggests that in the absence of reliable incomes, social networks and informalchannels prevail in the decision-making process. The concept of social capital where networks and social relationships are used as a resource by individuals or groups to achieve goals is explored in a residential choices framework. Demonstrated through in-depth interviews with heads of households settling close to the CBD (termed the inner city), the intermediate informal residential areas and the peri-urban residential areas; the study shows how socio-cultural factors play a role in the decision makingprocess of households. This is illustrated inter alia, in the form of informal channels for information on accommodation and residential plots, being accommodated rent-free by a relative, the actions of subsequently making short-distance moves to a location within proximity of a relative, or seeking people of the same socio-economic status. The context within which the actions have taken place has also been shown to be important in corroborating the network and relationship elements in the concept of social capital. The uncertainty that residents in rapidly urbanizing cities have to deal with on an everyday basis calls for networks and relations as an important resource for survival. The study goes further to suggest how urban planning practice can learn from the social processes. The study is based on qualitative methods such as in-depth interviewing with heads of household and key informants.

The occurrence of enclosed neighbourhoods has become a common phenomenon in South African cities from the early 1990’s as a direct impact of crime rates and the fear of crime. While the enclosure of neighbourhoods provide an immediate (temporary) solution to combatting crime within existing neighbourhoods, a number of (unintentional) socio-physical and spatial consequences occur. Numerous research have been done to establish the social implications of enclosed neighbourhoods in South African cities, including the City of Tshwane, while very little research have been done to establish the physical impacts of enclosed neighbourhoods on the urban form, its impact on the transport patterns or travel behaviour and consequently the increased greenhouse gas levels being emitted into the atmosphere. This study establishes the occurrence and extent of enclosed neighbourhoods within the City of Tshwane to create a generic classification system to establish the practical impact of enclosed neighbourhoods on urban form. In-depth case studies into two enclosed neighbourhoods and a neighbourhood located adjacent to an enclosed neighbourhood were conducted to examine the impact(s) of these neighbourhoods on transport patterns, travel behaviour and greenhouse gas emissions. An overview of movement networks and an investigation of the influence of the built environment versus self-selection were launched to gain insight into the different factors that might contribute to travel behaviour in general, in addition to neighbourhood enclosures and neighbourhood re-design. This brought forth the very important relationship between land use management, transport planning and the different governing bodies and policies. The ultimate results gained from the study of selected neighbourhoods clearly showed that a number of factors influence individual transport patterns and travel behaviour, such as self-selection, initial neighbourhood design and population growth. The study did however reveal that through enclosing neighbourhoods and altering its initial neighbourhood design and movement networks, travel behaviour, transport patterns and inevitably greenhouse gas emissions for the specific neighbourhoods and adjacent neighbourhoods will unavoidably change and thus impact negatively (in some ways) on the urban form. More specifically, the results gained from this study showed that those residing within and adjacent to enclosed neighbourhoods travel greater distances on an average day, compared to those who live in an ‘open’ neighbourhood. Consequently, the average household residing within an enclosed neighbourhood emit on average up to (approximately) 4600 g/km CO2 per day more than households residing in ‘open’ neighbourhoods, which result in enclosed neighbourhoods emitting up to 26% more CO2 than ‘open’ neighbourhoods. Despite these results, residents of these enclosed neighbourhoods believe that the enclosure of these once ‘open’ neighbourhoods do not affect their travel behaviour or any traffic congestion and proclaim that their number one priority is safety which they believe is achieved through the enclosure. / Dissertation (MTRP)--University of Pretoria, 2011. / gm2014 / Town and Regional Planning / unrestricted

La ville africaine s'étale et intègre les villages environnants en devenant métropole. Que ce soit le mouvement des ruraux vers les villes ou bien de la ville vers la campagne, ces phénomènes inquiètent les spécialistes. La pensée traditionnelle du monde qui opposait ville-campagne, ville-village, ville-brousse, n'est plus d'actualité. Les réalités du territoire sont devenues autres. Quels sont les outils qui nous permettent de lire ces nouvelles réalités? Comment opérer ce changement de «lunettes» que nous propose Bernardo Secchi pour lire et écrire la «ville contemporaine»?Pour nos recherches, nous considérons Ouagadougou comme un véritable observatoire. L'objectif est d'apprendre des lieux d'initiatives où se construisent de nouveaux modes de vie dans des dynamiques imprévues. Aujourd'hui, la capitale burkinabé est caractérisée par une double identité foncière. Une organisation foncière publique importée de la pensée coloniale dite « lotie », et une organisation foncière informelle issue de la culture villageoise dite « non-lotie ». À force de coexistence, le développement de métropole n'a t-il pas engendré d'autres phénomènes, avec des degrés et des intensités variés de planification et de spontanéité? La rencontre des deux modes opératoires ne définit pas un rapport dual, mais un intervalle. Dans ce contexte, le « village » entendu dans sa dimension sociale et communautaire devient, en milieu urbain, générateur d'espaces communs. Les structures communautaires testent les possibles et inventent la métropole au quotidien : elles rendent flexible toute forme de planification. Ainsi, nous formulons l'hypothèse que l'étude de la « Métropole-village(s)» de Ouagadougou peut amener à de nouvelles connaissances permettant la création d'outils de compréhension des territoires urbanisés contemporains / The African city spreads and incorporates the surrounding villages becoming metropolis. Whether the migration from rural to urban or from the city to the countryside, these phenomena became a concern for specialists. Traditional thinking of the world that opposed city-countryside, city-village, city-bush, is no longer valid. Territory's realities became different. What are the tools that allow us to read these new realities? How can we proceed to a change of "glasses" that Bernardo Secchi is proposing, in order to read and write the " contemporary city "?For our research, we consider Ouagadougou as a true observatory. The objective is to learning places of initiatives which build new lifestyles in unexpected dynamics. Today, the capital of Burkina Faso is characterized by a dual identity of the land. Public land organization imported from the colonial thinking called " lotie " (subdivided area) and an informal tenure arrangements after the village culture called “non-lotie” (non-subdivided area). To force to coexistence, hasn't the metropolis generated new phenomena, with different degrees and intensities of planification and spontaneity? The meeting of the two procedures does not define a dual report, but an interval. In this context, the "village" understood in its social and community dimension becomes an urban environment generating shared spaces. Communal structures are questioning what is possible and redefine what a metropolis is every day: they make flexible any form of planning. Thus, we hypothesize that the study of "City-village(s)” of Ouagadougou may lead to new knowledge to the creation of tools for understanding contemporary urbanized territories

Trends towards ‘informalization’ are looming large in the world today. African cities have long been characterised by the presence of an ‘informal sector’ but are now experiencing new waves of ‘informalization’. Policies of liberalisation and structural adjustment are both changing the conditions under which urban dwellers make a living and encouraging states to abdicate from responsibilities for popular welfare. In this context, urbanites increasingly rely on informal ways of income earning and of social security provisioning. This book is about processes of ‘informalization’ in the West African city of Bissau in Guinea-Bissau. It begins with a historical account of the way conditions of informality have evolved through the encounter of locally specific forms of informal relations with colonialism and the socialist era. This is followed by an analysis of how disadvantaged groups who rely on informal ways of provisioning are faring in the context of contemporary changes. The study looks at both the informal income-generating activities and the social networks that urbanites engage in to sustain their income activities and their consumption. It seeks to assess whether these groups are coping with these wider changes or are becoming marginalised from networks of assistance and from activities that provide sufficient incomes. The social relations pervading access to support and livelihood resources as well as the informal rules governing such access are in focus. Forms of regulation in the informal sphere are also discussed. / <p>This thesis won the prize of “Best doctoral thesis in the Social Sciences at Stockholm University in 2001-2002”. Författaren är numera verksam vid Nordiska Afrikainstitutet</p>

Research on perception and characterisation of African cities is generally divided between two theses. The first, known as Euro-centric because of its analytical capacity based exclusively on the European cities model results on image of African cities as elusive, unknowable, informal entities. Faced with this vision, a postcolonial vision has emerged urban studies, calling for a change of paradigm. The latter's main objective is to revisit these criticisms about African cities through an approach that refutes these characterisations by placing at the heart of the debate the way in which African cities are perceived and experienced by their inhabitants and by looking closely at the often-inventive practices of these populations. To achieve this objective, this thesis focuses on the social universe of taxi drivers using the concept of socio-spatial navigation conceived as a form of mobility in the wake of New mobility paradigm. The methodology combines an ethnographic approach which consisted of participant observation to understand the practices of the populations and an inductive approach (Grounded Theory) to identify the ideas and perspectives of the actors. To this end, 125 taxi drivers, 50 tricycle drivers and 3 bus drivers corresponding to 5% of their self-declared were monitored. The results about the use of collective taxis, buses and tricycles revealed a number of tensions. These tensions are between what is legal, i.e. authorised by the authority, and what is illegal (taxi using gas, tricycle as a mean of transportation), i.e. forbidden by the authority, but generated by the people (from below) in close relation to their daily reality and above all as a response to the gap between the institutional planning and management model and their own city. This situation brings out a pattern of a moral economy of mobility The second category of results relates to spatial knowledge of the city. The study revealed that the city of Bobo-Dioulasso is an entity that can be known and understood through a learning process. This process consists of memorising two types of landmarks (visible and invisible) through practical experiences and information received from other city dwellers. Furthermore, the games played by the actors during collective taxi ride revealed that the taxi is not just a simple means of transportation. It is a place of important interactions. Depending on the taxi driver's skills of Know-how and Know how to be, the taxi space oscillates between a non-place, non non-place and a heterotopia of deviance. / La recherche sur la perception et la caractérisation des villes africaines est globalement partagée entre deux thèses. La première qualifiée d’euro-centrique par ses analyses qui s’inspirent exclusivement du modèle européen abouti à des images de la ville africaine comme des entités insaisissables, inconnaissables, informelles, etc. Face à cette vision a émergé une vision postcoloniale qui appel à un changement de paradigme dans les études urbaines. Cette dernière a pour objectif majeur de revisiter ces critiques sur la ville africaine par une approche qui réfute ces caractérisations en replaçant au cœur du débat la façon dont les villes africaines sont perçues et vécues par les habitants et en regardant de près les pratiques souvent inventives de ces populations. Pour atteindre cet objectif, cette thèse s’intéresse à l’univers social des chauffeurs de taxi à l’aide du concept de la navigation socio-spatiale conçu comme une forme de mobilité dans le sillage de la New mobility paradigm. La méthodologie combine une approche ethnographique qui a consisté à une observation participante pour comprendre les pratiques des populations et une approche inductive (Grounded Theory) pour cerner les idées et les perspectives des acteurs. A cet effet, ce sont 125 chauffeurs de taxi, 50 chauffeurs de tricycles et 3 chauffeurs de bus correspondant à 5% de leurs effectifs déclarés par les acteurs eux-mêmes qui ont été suivis. Les résultats sur l’utilisation des taxis collectifs, du bus et des tricycles ont fait ressortir un certain nombre de tension. Ces tensions se situent entre ce qui est légal, c’est-à-dire autorisé par l’autorité et ce qui est illégale (taxi à gaz, tricycle transportant des passagers) donc interdit par cette autorité, mais généré par les populations (par le bas) en étroite relation avec leur réalité quotidienne et surtout en guise de réponse à l’écart entre le modèle de planification et de gestion institutionnelle et leur ville à eux. Cette situation fait ressortir un schéma d’une économie morale de la mobilité. Les résultats relatifs à la connaissance spatiale de la ville. L’étude a révélé que la ville de Bobo-Dioulasso est une entité que l’on peut connaitre, saisir à travers un apprentissage de la ville. Ce processus consiste à mémoriser deux types de repères (visibles et invisibles) à travers des expériences pratiques et des informations reçues d'autres citadins. Par ailleurs, les jeux d’acteurs lors des déplacements en taxi collectif ont permis de révéler que le taxi n’est pas seulement un simple moyen de déplacement. Il est le lieu d’importantes interactions. En fonction des compétences de savoir-faire et de savoir être du chauffeur de taxi, l’espace du taxi oscille entre un non-lieu, au non non-lieu à une hétérotopie de déviance.

Diese Arbeit zeigt die Reproduktion ungleicher Risikolandschaften von Überschwemmungen auf. Die fortschreitende Urbanisierung in den Küstenregionen der Welt ist mit zahlreichen unterschiedlichen Risiken verbunden, denen sozio-ökonomisch benachteiligte Gruppen in besonderem Grad ausgesetzt sind. Dennoch ist Wissen über soziale Dynamiken, die solch ungleichen Risikolandschaften zugrunde liegen, gegenwärtig begrenzt. Das Densu Delta, ein dynamisch urbanisierendes Feuchtgebiet westlich von Accra, dient hier als Fallstudie, die anhand von qualitativen Daten mit Methoden der Humangeographie untersucht wird. Die übergeordnete Forschungsfrage lautet: Was sind die Beziehungen und Dynamiken, die die Verteilung von Überschwemmungsrisiken gestalten, und wie verfestigen sich diese in den gegenwärtig stark ungleichen Mustern von Überschwemmungsrisiken rund um das Densu Delta? Das Konzept ‚Risikolandschaften‘ (‚riskscape‘) wird hier mit Sichtweisen des kritischen Institutionalismus und der Argumentation verbunden, um Prozesse zu analysieren, die eine ungleiche Verteilung von Vulnerabilität und Anpassungskapazität bedingen. Die Ergebnisse zeigen erstens, dass institutionelle und bio-physische Dynamiken eine vielfältige Landschaft von Vulnerabilität erzeugen. Zweitens wird Anpassungskapazität von dynamischen Autoritätsverhältnissen geprägt. Drittens erweitern Unterschiede in Policy-Argumenten auf verschiedenen Ebenen und in unterschiedlichen Sektoren die Implementierungslücke in der Anpassung an Überschwemmungen. Die Arbeit leistet einen Beitrag zur bestehenden Forschung, indem die Rollen von Schlüsselakteuren und von unsichtbaren Praktiken und Institutionen in der (Re-) Produktion von ungleichen Risikolandschaften betont werden. Diese werden hier am Beispiel von Überschwemmungen im Densu Delta in Accra aufgezeigt. Skalenübergreifende Interaktionen in Risikolandschaften und deren praktische Implikationen für die Minimierung von Überschwemmungsrisiken bedürfen der weiteren Forschung. / The thesis shows how uneven landscapes of urban flood risk are (re)produced. Coastal urbanisation comes with multiple risks, to which the poor are particularly exposed. Social dynamics underlying uneven riskscapes are however poorly understood. The Densu delta in Accra, a dynamically urbanising wetland, is analysed as a case based on qualitative data with methods from human geography. The overall research question is: What are the relations and dynamics that shape the distribution of flood risks, and how are they materialised in the currently highly uneven patterns of flood risk around the Densu delta? The concept of ‘riskscape’ is applied through lenses of critical institutionalism and argumentation to analyse the processes behind uneven distribution of vulnerability and adaptive capacity. Findings are that firstly, institutional and bio-physical dynamics produce a diverse landscape of vulnerability. Secondly, dynamics of authority shape adaptive capacity. Thirdly, disparities in policy arguments widen implementation gaps in adaptation to flooding. The research contributes to the existing literature in highlighting the role of actors and underlying practices and institutions in shaping multiple uneven riskscapes. In the present research the reproduction of uneven riskscapes of flooding is shown for the Densu delta case. Further research ought to look at cross-scale interactions between riskscapes and their practical implications for flood risk reduction.