Received Concepts and Theories in African Urbanisation Studies and Urban Management Strategies: A critique

Abstract

Concepts and theories employed in today's African urban studies have often been transfers from Western urbanisation Studies which have embodied transfers of cultural values. These have generally been applied without paying enough attention either to indigenous sociocultural and value systems, nor to analysing and interpreting the relevance of Africa's point in an urban evolutionary continuum. The uncritical transfer and application of such concepts has led to prescriptions and recommendations for urban management policies and programmes that have proved largely ineffective, and involved much misdirection and misapplication of limited resources. The consequence has been the continued exacerbation and compounding of urban problems. It is argued that effective policy responses can only be derived from a more realistic evaluation of African urban problems, based not only on Western European analytical perspectives, but also on the analysis of economic, historical socio-cultural factors indigenous to Africa itself.

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