Reappraising Urban Planning and Urban Sustainability in East Africa

Abstract

In recent times, sustainable urban development has been a major challenge confronting the African region generally. This situation is further exacerbated by Africa’s rapid urbanization at an average rate of 3.3 per cent per annum between 2000-2005. A rapidly urbanizing region, projected estimates indicate that by 2025 approximately half of the African population will be urban (UN-Habitat, 2008/9). This outstanding demographic shift on the African continent, and particularly Eastern Africa, presents current and future challenges for urban and regional planning (Lwasa, 2008; Rakodi, 1997). Furthermore, according to the UN-Habitat State of the World’s Cities Report, 2006/7, rapid urbanization in Africa has occurred in the absence of a stable economic base though recent economic experiences show averagely high GPD rates for various countries. With chronic poverty widely prevalent, urbanization and slum formation are inextricably linked (UN-Habitat, 2007). Compounding this situation current statistics indicate that slums grew at a rate of 4.53 per cent per annum while overall urban growth rates were 4.58 per cent in the same period (UN-Habitat, 2008/9) almost leveling the urban growth is thus synonym to slum growth.

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