Viewing postcolonial Dar es Salaam, Tanzania through civic spaces: a question of class

Abstract

This article explores the utility of the concept ‘civic spaces’ for analysing postcolonial African cities. Civic spaces, namely places potentially accessible to all urbanites, are often seen as inherently accessible and democratic, however a case study of how residents in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, create and use civic spaces reveals that social class deeply shapes the character of any given space, notably those of middle‐class professionals. By showing that civic spaces in Dar es Salaam operate at various levels of scale and exist temporally in life event celebrations, we develop a more nuanced conceptual framework for understanding postcolonial African urbanism.