Visiting scholar Constance Smith from Social Anthropology at The University of Manchester presents Collapse: Grey development and fake buildings in Nairobi, on Tuesday, 8 October 2019, at 15:00. ABSTRACT Nairobi has recently experienced a spate of residential tower block collapses resulting in significant casualties. In an attempt to understand this precarious architecture, I juxtapose two different, […]

by Dorothy Ndhlovu and Gilbert Siame The launch of the Global Integrity Anti-Corruption Evidence Programme (GI-ACE) Cities of Integrity project was held on the 19 July 2019 at Protea Hotel Towers in Lusaka, Zambia. The launch was jointly organised by the Center for Urban Research and Planning (CURP) at the University of Zambia (UNZA), Zambia Institute […]

This working paper was prepared by the African Centre for Cities. It was developed in partnership with the Coalition for Urban Transitions, which is a major global initiative to support national governments to accelerate economic development and tackle dangerous climate change by transforming towns and cities.  (more…)

ABSTRACT This paper examines African urban infrastructure and service delivery as an entry point for connecting African aspirations with the harsh developmental imperatives of urban management, creating a dialogue between scholarly knowledge and sustainable development policy aspirations. (more…)

On Tuesday 11 August, the ACC and District Six Museum co-hosted a  conversation between Bonita Bennett and Rike Sitas with clinical psychiatrist, Dr Mindy Thompson Fullilove. Dr Fullilove’s research into HIV/Aids in the US in the 1980s led to her interest in the psychology of place. Her subsequent research focused on urban planning and displacement, concerned with […]

In this paper, Professor Vanessa Watson argues that Sub-Saharan Africa’s larger cities are currently being revisioned in the image of cities such as Dubai, Shanghai and Singapore, which claim top positions in the world-class city leagues. Draped in the rhetoric of “smart cities” and “eco-cities”, these plans promise to modernize African cities and turn them […]