The urban challenge in Africa: Growth and management of
its large cities
Edited by Carole Rakodi -
United Nations University Press - TOKYO
- NEW YORK - PARIS - © The United Nations University, 1997
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Foreword
With contributions from prominent urban planning
scholars and experts in Africa, The Urban Challenge in Africa: Growth and
Management of Its Large Cities, edited by Professor Carole Rakodi of the
University of Wales, Cardiff, represents the latest in a series of books from
the United Nations University Programme on Mega-cities and Urban
Development.
Africa, long thought of as one of the least
urbanized continents, will likely have over one half of its population in urban
areas by 2020. The Urban Challenge in Africa introduces and highlights
many important development issues in Africa. In addition to chapters on
individual cities including Cairo, Johannesburg, Kinshasa, and Lagos, the book
also explores important sectoral issues such as property markets, urban
governance, and urban-rural linkages.
With the goal of examining the social, economic,
and environmental aspects of large metropolitan centres, the UNU launched its
research programme by organizing an international conference on Mega-city Growth
and the Future in cooperation with the United Nations Population Division and
the Tokyo Metropolitan Government in 1990. The UNU later initiated an ambitious
study of evolving urban systems at the regional level addressed to Pacific Asia,
Latin America, and, of course, Africa. Mega-city Growth and the Future
(the first volume in the series), Emerging World Cities in Pacific Asia,
and The Mega-city in Latin America have already been
released.
As the Rector of the United Nations University,
I am proud that the UNU has been involved in research and dissemination on the
issues of mega-cities and urban development since the early 1990s. I believe we
have made a valuable contribution to related academic fields and the preparatory
work for the United Nations Habitat II Conference held in Istanbul, Turkey. It
is my hope that this work will continue well into the next century through the
UNU/Institute of Advanced Studies (UNU/IAS), the new research and training
centre that started its activities in 1995 and is located next to the University
headquarters in Tokyo, Japan.
Heitor Gurgulino de Souza
United
Nations Under-Secretary-General and Rector
United Nations
University
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