Towards a Smart Metropolitan Regional Development—Spatial and Economic Design Strategies: Dakar

Abstract

Development of large metropolitan regions like Dakar constitutes economic and social opportunities as well as challenges depending on how the urban growth was planned designed and managed. The dynamic transformation of the Dakar Metropolitan Region from a population of 245,000 to 3.5 million inhabitants in 1950 and 2016 respectively has occurred in different paces, times and places in terms of numbers, urban form and structure (density distribution, and compactness). When a city reaches one million or more of population size, it becomes more complex for its planning, design and management compared to a small city. For instance, when a city reaches one million inhabitants, its accessibility will be largely determined by elements of its urban form and structure as well as elements of transport infrastructures and, recently, elements of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). This accessibility determines in large the interaction between economic and spatial design strategies. After the introduction, this study is divided in six sections. The first section presents the “Conceptual framework of the Smart Metropolitan Regional Development” of the study; The second section presents “Urbanization of the Dakar Metropolitan Region in Time and Space”; The third section focuses on the “Urban Accessibility and Mobility”; The fourth section presents “Urbanization, Economic Growth and Metropolitan Regional Development” including economic growth, human development and sustainability, inclusion, resilience and prosperity; The fifth section presents “Towards a Smart Metropolitan regional Development”; The sixth section, based on the development of the previous sections, presents the “Spatial and Economic Design Strategies for a Smart Dakar Metropolitan Regional Development”.