Urban Planning in Sub-Saharan Africa

Colonial and Post-Colonial Planning Cultures

Carlos Nunes Silva

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317753162
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Urban Planning & Landscaping

Cities in Sub-Saharan Africa are unequally confronted with social, economic and environmental challenges, particularly those related with population growth, urban sprawl, and informality. This complex and uneven African urban condition requires an open discussion of past and current urban planning practices and future reforms. Urban Planning in Sub-Saharan Africa gives a broad perspective of the history of urban planning in Sub-Saharan Africa and a critical view of issues, problems, challenges and opportunities confronting urban policy makers.

The book examines the rich variety of planning cultures in Africa, offers a unique view on the introduction and development of urban planning in Sub-Saharan Africa, and makes a significant contribution against the tendency to over-generalize Africa's urban problems and Africa's urban planning practices. Urban Planning in Sub-Saharan Africa is written for postgraduate students and advanced undergraduates, researchers, planners and other policy makers in the multidisciplinary field of Urban Planning, in particular for those working in Spatial Planning, Architecture, Geography, and History.

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INTRODUCTION

Carlos Nunes Silva

The idea that urban planning is not a mere technical activity is now widely accepted. It is increasingly seen as an activity deeply rooted in the specific local context and culture where it takes place (Sandercock, 1998; Allmendinger, 2002, 2009; Friedmann, 2005; Knieling and Othengrafen, 2009).¹ Planning and plans reflect the diversity of values, beliefs, attitudes, institutional frameworks, and legal traditions, among other conditions. There are different planning cultures that result from these different local contexts, models of society and cultures and for that reason there are different planning practices across countries and cities. Planning culture, a concept not easy to characterize, is defined by Knieling and Othengrafen (2009, p. 43) as

the way in which a society possesses institutionalized or shared planning practices. It refers to the interpretation of planning tasks, the way of recognizing and addressing problems, the handling and use of certain rules, procedures and instruments, or ways and methods of public participation.

In other words, planning culture refers the different planning institutional arrangements, planning laws and planning procedures, and the wider cultural context in which these frameworks are embedded.² It is therefore more than the planning system, the different typologies of planning systems, as it includes also the institutional context, values and traditions that together contribute for the identification of issues to be addressed. Put it in another way, as does Gullestrup (2009, p. 3), urban problems and challenges will always be interpreted through our own culture. Systematic comparative studies of planning cultures are relatively recent. One of the first studies is the Compendium of Spatial Planning Systems and Policies (CEC, 1997) developed by the European Commission. Although focused on the European context of that time, therefore far from Africa and from the colonial period, the findings of this study are relevant for our research on planning cultures in Africa. Other studies have also attempted to identify planning cultures in Europe, as is the case of Newman and Thornley (1996), and Larsson (2006), all pointing to the existence of significant differences among European countries. While these studies show the existence of somewhat different cultural and political-administrative contexts in Europe that influenced the practice of spatial (urban) planning, others point to the continuous transnational diffusion of planning ideas, models and techniques over the years (Healey, 2012; Ward, 2003)³, with the question of adequacy of imported planning paradigms to African local contexts and cultures being increasingly raised (Watson, 2002, 2003, 2006). These studies reveal deep differences but also similarities among European countries which allow the definition of groups of countries according to the prevailing planning culture. Among other dimensions, the following have been considered by these studies in the identification of planning cultures: the scope of the planning system, the constitutional and politico-administrative structures, the legal framework, the administrative tradition, the number and nature of planning tiers, the role of the public and private sector, the maturity of the system, and so on. Most planning culture taxonomies produced by these studies tend to group European countries in a relatively small number of categories, which is, to a certain point, a considerable abstraction of the true diversity of planning cultures.

In the book we recognize the importance of these relationships between the cultural context and urban planning practices and for that reason the book builds on this premise: urban planning practice in Africa reflects the planning culture in which it is embedded, part of which derives from the inherited colonial planning culture. The book also takes as one of its central working hypotheses the idea that the different planning cultures that existed in Europe during the colonial period were transposed, at least partially, to the European colonies in Sub-Saharan Africa,⁴ replicating in Africa the differences observed in planning cultures in Europe. In other words, Europe’s cultural and legal diversity, as expressed in the planning laws and in the planning models adopted in European countries since the nineteenth century until the independence of the African states, were somehow cloned in the European colonies in Africa. And as the evidence presented in the following chapters shows, the colonial inheritance continues to influence the practice of urban planning in the post-independence period, being thus responsible for the convergences observed in planning practice as well as for the divergences among the different colonial empires and in the contemporary planning practices.

Some of the dimensions of a planning culture, as is the case of the administrative traditions, tend to last long periods of time while others are subject to constant change. The evidence presented in the following chapters supports the hypothesis that the European planning cultures, their similarities and differences, were in one way or another transposed to colonial urban planning in Africa. The chapters on the British, French, Hispanic, Belgian, Italian and German colonial experiences, and the references to the Portuguese colonial urban planning in Chapter 2, reveal the sort of similarities and differences that existed in the planning cultures at that time. Notwithstanding the obvious importance of the colonial power in setting up urban planning in Africa, to describe urban planning in the continent during the colonial era as just an agent of colonialism is to oversimplify the form and the impact urban planning had over the years in the context of each European colonial empire project. It is to take for granted that colonized people in Africa were no more than subjects unable to react to the options of the colonial urban planning. This is particularly even more so when the evidence collected and examined in the following chapters reveals a more nuanced pattern in these relationships, highlighting instead the existence of highly complex two-way exchanges in numerous aspects of the urban planning process in Africa. Colonial urban planning apparatus, planning laws, planning procedures and outcomes were far from being homogeneous over the years and among colonies, as different have been the relationships with the respective European metropolises, in part due to the (re) actions of the colonized people.

The book comprises sixteen chapters, including this Introduction, organized into two main groups, the first focused predominately on the colonial era and the second on more recent developments in the post-independence period and on future challenges, with some of these chapters focused on both periods. We take as a reference a broad timeline divided into three main periods: the time prior to the Europe-Africa large-scale encounters or pre-colonial period; the colonial period starting with the arrival of the Europeans or, in a more restricted narrative, between the Berlin Conference and the independence; and the post-colonial period, the one after the political independence of the African states. The book is structured around three main research questions. The first has to do with the role of urban planning in the European colonial projects in Africa. The second is concerned with the colonial legacy in contemporary planning practices in Africa. The third questions the future of urban planning in the continent, the requirements of a valid planning reform and the conditions planning ought to provide to support national and local strategies towards sustainable urban development. Each chapter deals with one or more of these research questions.

Several themes cross most of the book’s chapters. One of them is the idea of continuity versus rupture between the colonial and post-colonial planning culture, which raises the question about the analytical relevance of the differentiation pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial. An example of that is the use of particular urban layouts, such as the grid form, which in Senegal has been used before, during and after the European colonial presence. Another example is the case of Ethiopia, where the continuity rather than rupture of urban outcomes derived from the imperial projects seem to be the relevant feature. Another theme that crosses most of the book’s chapters is intra-urban racial segregation. New insights on the diversity of practices and on the differences between the official rhetoric on racial segregation and its practical implementation are provided in some of the following chapters. The racist character of colonial urban policies continues to be a controversial issue that seems to require further research, comparison and debate. Associated with this issue, the evidence collected reveals that socio-economic segregation, and not only racial segregation, pre-dates independence in some African cities, making the picture rather more complex than initially thought. The diversity of planning practices in the colonies and among colonial powers, as well as among the African states after the independence, is another issue that crosses most chapters. This is valid for all major colonial powers, but also for the German colonialism which is also marked by variation and diversity. The dichotomy between the universalism of practices versus exceptionalism in urban planning in Africa is also discussed in some of the following contributions.

Chapter 2, “Urban Planning in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Overview”, by offering a broad and critical overview of colonial and post-colonial urban planning cultures in Sub-Saharan Africa, sets the scene for the rest of the book. The chapter discusses the role planning had on intra-urban racial segregation and examines its role as a tool of representation and dominance in the colonial project. It deals also with the two-way exchanges between colonizers and colonized and how it impacted on the practice of urban planning. In the second part, the chapter examines the continuities and ruptures with the colonial past, and explores the new African urban agenda. This is followed in “The IFHTP Discourse on Urbanism in Colonial Africa between the Wars” by the exploration of one of the important factors responsible for the intense transnational flow of planning ideas in the inter-war period, a process that directly and indirectly had an impact on urban planning in Africa in that period. Renzo Riboldazzi examines the role the IFHTP congresses played in the diffusion of planning paradigms, including the Mexico City Congress, held in 1938, in which colonial urbanism was one of the topics discussed. Important is the fact that the prevailing discourse in that congress reflected a clear urban design culture whose aim was to westernize African cities under European rule instead of taking the local culture as reference, a common characteristic that we will find in the analyses of the different colonial planning cultures provided in the subsequent chapters.

The chapters that follow explore distinct colonial and post-colonial planning cultures in Africa, its differences and similarities, namely the cases of the former British, French, Italian, German, Spanish, and Belgian colonies. The first two chapters deal with the British-ruled colonies in Africa and the new Anglophone African states. In “Colonial Urban Planning in Anglophone Africa” Robert Home explores the British approaches to urban development in its colonies in Sub-Saharan Africa, for the period from the mid-nineteenth to the late twentieth centuries, tracing the role of laws and regulations imported or transplanted from elsewhere and evolving locally. This is followed in “Colonial Planning Concept and Post-colonial Realities: The Influence of British Planning Culture in Tanzania, South Africa and Ghana,” written by Wolfgang Scholz, Peter Robinson and Tanya Dayaram, through an analysis of the current planning legislation and the institutional set-up in three African countries where the influence of the British colonial planning system left an important imprint: Tanzania, South Africa and Ghana. In all these three countries, the 1947 British planning law still forms the base of the planning legislation and planning procedures, although they all display different ways to deal with the inherited legislation.

The French colonial urbanism is examined by Ambe Njoh and Eric Ross. In “French Colonial Urbanism in Africa,” Ambe Njoh analyzes the objectives and the major activities of French colonial urban planners in Africa, and explores the role urban planning played within the French colonial project. The evidence provided confirms the political character of urban planning by revealing how the French colonial authorities used it to reinforce France’s imperial power in Africa. Eric Ross, in “The Grid Plan in the History of Senegalese Urban Design,” narrates how the grid plan has been used for the design of a variety of settlement types in modern Senegalese history before and during the French colonial period. As Ross shows, the grid plan was first used for the laying out of royal capitals in the sixteenth century, a form that continues to be applied today.

The next two chapters address the Italian colonial urbanism in Africa. In “Architecture and Town Planning in Italian East Africa During the Years of the Empire (1936–1941)” Anna Nuzzaci examines the events that led to the adoption of the Fascist architecture and urban planning models in Italian East Africa during the occupation (1936–1941). Among other issues, the chapter explores the design theories adopted, the Italian architects and planners that worked in the colonies, the urban projects in the main cities of the empire – Addis Ababa, Asmara and Mogadishu – and discusses the principles common to all these Italian colonial interventions in East Africa. In the second chapter on Italian colonial urbanism, “Colonial Cities at the Crossroads: Italy and Ethiopia,” David Rifkind discusses in detail the objectives of Italian colonialism in East Africa, as expressed through the design of cities, providing examples of the numerous ways through which Italian urban planners adapted modernist principles to the project of organizing cities in the colonies. David Rifkind argues that Italian colonial urban planning does not represent a rupture but an amplification of practices already initiated by Ethiopia and which would be continued after Italy left the territory in the post World War II.

The German, Spanish and Belgian colonial urban planning cultures in Africa are examined in the following chapters. In “The German variation: A Sketch of Colonial Städtebau in Africa, 1884–1919,” Patrick C. Hege explores the diversity of German colonial urbanism in Africa, specifically the cases of Cameroon, Namibia, Togo, and Tanzania, identifies several lacunae in the field of colonial Städtebau and suggests new directions for further research. The Spanish colonial legacy in Africa is explored by María Carrascal Pérez, Plácido González Martínez, Laida Memba Ikuga, Alejandro Muchada Suárez, Pablo Rabasco Pozuelo, and Pablo Sendra Fernández in “Crossed Colonization. Housing Development in Urban Peripheries: The Hispanic-African Colonial Territories, 1912–1976–2013.” The authors offer new insights into the relationship between colonialism, power, inequality and spatial transformation in the former Hispanic African territories, in particular the design and construction of public housing projects in Morocco, Western Sahara and Sidi Ifni, as well as in Equatorial Guinea. In “Kinshasa’s Syndrome-Planning in Historical Perspective: From Belgian Colonial Capital to Self-Constructed Megalopolis” Luce Beeckmans and Johan Lagae examine the Belgian colonial urban planning culture through the lens of the notion of syndrome-planning, using the case of Kinshasa to illustrate it. For the authors, a series of policies and practices in the field of urban planning, in the colonial as well as in the post-independence periods, have been implemented in the city not to serve urban renewal or socioeconomic development but as a façade masking a myriad of underlying ideological agendas. Among other aspects, the chapter reveals strong lines of continuity in urban planning, despite the political ruptures that took place in Congo.

New influences in the field of urban planning emerged in the post-colonial period. In “Influence of Croatian Urban Planners in Post-colonial Africa: Urban Development Plan of Conakry, Guinea, 1963” Marina Smokvina, Mojca Smode Cvitanović and Branko Kincl deal with the extensive activity of technical cooperation between Yugoslav and African countries within the political framework of the Non-Aligned Movement, exemplified by the case of the Croatian Urban Planning Institute responsible for the preparation of the Urban Development Plan of Conakry in the 1960s.

The last three chapters have a somewhat more future oriented focus. Fabio Todeschini in “Reflections on Some Aspects of Town-Building During the 1800s at the Cape of Good Hope, South Africa, of Relevance to Today” reflects on the evolution of planning thought and practice at the Cape of Good Hope based on the premise that some of the attributes of earlier colonial planning are of relevance to the search for valid principles for more equitable and resilient urban settlements. In “Valuing Possibility: South-South Cooperation and Participatory Budgeting in Maputo, Mozambique” Gabriella Y. Carolini examines and explores the South-South Cooperation (SSC) development paradigm and its relevance for urban planning. This is done by reference to Brazil’s experiences in urban reform and its impact in the Mozambican capital of Maputo, notably in the institutionalization of Brazilian-inspired participatory budgeting. As Gabriella Carolini argues, Maputo’s experience with participatory budgeting demonstrates the particular value of SSC for urban develop...