The State of African Cities 2008

Book excerpt: With rapidly increasing urban populations, cities in Africa are faced with enormous challenges and will have to find ways to facilitate by 2015 urban services, livelihoods and housing for more than twice as many urban dwellers than it has today. A worrying trend with the African urbanization process is that it is a process rooted in poverty rather than an industrialization-induced socio-economic transition as in other major world urban regions. Africas escalating urban problems have received less attention than warranted and now, at the dawn of Africas urban age, these need to be addressed - publisher.