Urban challenges and strategies in African cities – A systematic literature review

Abstract

Since the 1950s, African cities in a quest for modernity and prosperity have been urgently playing catch up to deal with the increasing demand for adequate urban systems and infrastructure. At the turn of the 21st century, many spatial planning models, technological trends, environmental challenges, and socio-economic realities are influencing African cities’ dynamics largely causing confusion and a lack of consistent planning policies. To efficiently guide a coherent and coordinated vision, frame an integrated long-term spatial logic, and give a precise direction for sustainable urban development, this paper aims to develop a localized and contextualised analysis of urban planning challenges and development strategies shaping African cities. The study provides a broad perspective looking at the potentiality of spatial planning practices to envision and transform urban life by prospecting integrated urban planning and development strategies to face increasing urban challenges in Africa. Through Systematic Literature Review (SLR) and machine-learning tools, the study brings, for the first time, consolidated and updated knowledge of urban planning practices in Africa. We analysed 243 urban studies, published between 2000 and 2023, in 107 African cities. We identified and scrutinised 17 most pressing urban challenges and 16 most applied urban strategies to address those challenges. Accordingly, the study’s findings suggest shifting the spatial planning paradigm towards urban resilience as an interoperable system of different spatial planning policies and their relevant urban development strategies. Furthermore, the study’s key arguments are to improve urban infrastructure and optimize existing cities to reverse environmental degradation and guide urban fast transformation to adapt and mitigate growing climate change catastrophes.