Planning for walkable cities in Africa: Co-producing knowledge on conditions, practices, and strategies

Abstract

This study sought to unravel the conditions of the walking environment, and residents lived experiences of walking in two urban neighbourhoods in the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area (GAMA). Drawing on a participatory mapping exercise and a total of 70 community and institutional qualitative interviews, the results revealed that the study neighbourhoods have precarious walking conditions manifested by the absence of road markings, inadequate traffic lights and other road-calming infrastructure such as speed ramps. The results also show that previous and current national and local development plans do little to plan for the walking environment. This study demonstrates the impacts of the failure of planning and policy responses to the walking environment on urban residents. In an important stakeholder engagement workshop involving a total of 40 participants, our study brought academics, institutional representatives and residents from the two neighbourhoods together to discuss the findings and establish a stronger collaborative relationship for designing an equitable and sustainable walking environment. Based on the findings from the qualitative interviews and stakeholder engagement workshop, we therefore recommend a community-based participatory planning strategy for improving walkability conditions.