African Cities Cultural Heritage, Urban Fragmentation, and Territorial Spatial Development

Abstract

The contemporary African city tends to become a geographic platform for establishing and showing a territorial spatial–social identity. This shows that global openness and accessibility may run parallel to closed and fragmented cultural clusters. Urban scholarship calls for a broader orientation in the field of cultural heritage dynamics, with a focus on the following: citizenship and identity, economic creative activities and innovation, the impact of popular culture, and the interface between traditional societal perspectives and open attitudes regarding contemporary interwoven cultures. Against this background, African cities have always been meeting places for people of different cultures, education, and talents. The contemporary African city is an open milieu, where ideas from a diversity of cultures and nations come together. The major challenge for a modern African city will be to turn possible tensions in such a intercultural milieu into positive synergetic energy.