Abstract
Rapid urban growth in major cities of a country poses challenges for sustainable development. Particularly in Africa, the process of rapid urbanization is little understood and research is mostly limited to single cities. Thus, this study provides a comprehensive comparative analysis of the growth and spatial patterns of urban development in the three major cities of Ethiopia (Addis Ababa, Adama, and Hawassa) from 1987 to 2017. Also, the applicability of diffusion and coalescence theory on the evolution of these cities has been tested. Remote sensing and GIS technologies were combined with spatial metrics and morphological analysis was employed to undertake this study. The result revealed that all the studied cities experienced accelerated growth in the urbanized areas, but the cities with a larger initial urbanized size were associated with lower expansion rates. Differences in extent and direction of expansion in each city were mostly related to physical features, urban master plans, and policies, with an increase in the irregularity and dispersion of urban growth, representing strong evidence of urban sprawl. The spatiotemporal analysis confirmed that the urbanization processes of Addis Ababa and Adama were consistent and Hawassa city diverged from expectations based on diffusion and coalescence theory. In general, large cities with strong economic growth in a country fail to effectively control the scattered nature of urban growth, thus requiring aggressive policy intervention. The approach used in this study permits a deeper exploration of urban development patterns and the identification of priority areas for effective urban planning and management.
Highlights
The rapid urban growth in major cities poses enormous opportunities and challenges for the future sustainable development of a country
The study identified that Addis Ababa, Adama, and Hawassa have been experiencing rapid urbanization over the past three decades (Figure 2)
In many African countries, there is a lack of detailed comparative exploration of urban development among different cities over a relatively long period, which is a big stumbling block for sustainable urban development
Summary
The rapid urban growth in major cities poses enormous opportunities and challenges for the future sustainable development of a country. Large cities are expected to be centers of innovation and wealth creation and need more resilient infrastructures and services resources as compared to smaller cities [1]. This development, draws energy and materials from distant and nearby ecosystems. More than 54 percent of the world’s inhabitants are living in urban regions This implies that, by 2050, 68 percent of the world’s inhabitants are expected to be urban, with nearly 90 percent of this growth will occur in Asia and Africa [2]. Unless managed well it can often lead to a serious negative environmental and socioeconomic issues such as urban heat islands, air pollution, traffic congestion, decreases of green spaces, habitat losses, inadequate infrastructure and services, and inefficient resource utilization [5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14], especially in the countries where most urban dwellers growth is expected [2]
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