An Urban Planning Perspective on Industrial Hubs and Economic Development

Abstract

The historical evidence on modern economic growth identifies the significant role of urbanization in facilitating innovation diffusion and economic productivity. While cities and urban areas play a critical role in African economies by generating a high proportion of national GDP, the links between urbanization and industrialization are poorly understood by policymakers. To reverse the pervasive anti-urban bias in development policy pursued by the majority of African governments, and to harness urbanization’s potential for Africa’s structural transformation, calls for stronger rural‒urban linkages through the provision of infrastructure and services to spark the potential of particular regions’ latent endowments. Industrial parks and special economic zones are important instruments for pursuing cluster-based development of small and medium-sized cities through proactive, comprehensive urban planning. This chapter examines the potential of growth-pole and city cluster development approaches for managing urbanization for Africa’s industrialization, exploring thematically and structurally closely related urban-sector activities.