Urban Africa Urban Africa

This urbanization is a huge challenge in a continent stricken by poverty and corruption. Many migrants moving to the city end up in self-organized settlements without basic services. One alternative is being offered by developers and investors from countries like China and Korea, who have designed and built new towns in Africa that are modelled after Asian cities. But is this really a proper alternative? Does one size fit all? Or is it a model being copied without considering whether it's appropriate for Africa?

Edgar Pieterse writes in his recent publication Africa's Urban Revolution: "As the continent that will be disproportionately shaped by the way in which society thinks about cities, Africa must assume an increasingly central position in the urban imagerinary of theorists and practitioners." African cities should have top-priority on the designer's agenda. But do they?

By bringing together speakers from academic, political and design backgrounds, INTI wanted to initiate a critical conversation about 'Urban Africa' and the western world's role--if any--in the radical transformations on this continent. What should be on the agenda? What should be the role of the western partners? And what can we expect from the professional community?

For the past year, three teams of South African and Dutch designers have worked together within a project called 'The Density Syndicate' to come up with alternatives for the present sprawling urbanization of Cape Town. They explored how a higher density of functions and activities could improve the social, economic and spatial conditions in Cape Town. Their findings will be presented and discussed during the conference. This cooperation is not one way traffic: with Dutch spatial planning changing from integral top down planning to a focus on decentralization and participation, what are the lessons to be learned from Urban Africa?

• Edgar Pieterse (Director African Centre for Cities, Cape Town)
• Lawrence Esho (Technical University of Kenya, Nairobi)
• Ton Dietz (African Studies Centre, Leiden)
• Ronald Wall (Institute for Housing and Urban Management Studies, Rotterdam)
• Rogier van den Berg (UN Habitat)
• Duzan Doepel (Partner Doepel Strijkers)
• Jason Hilgefort (Land and Civiliation Compositions)
• Michelle Provoost (International New Town Institute)
• Robert van Kats (Dasuda)
• Maarten Hajer (Planbureau voor de Leefomgeving)
• Khalied Jacobs (Jakupa architects and urban designers)
• Jandirk Hoekstra (h+n+s landschapsarchitecten)
• Harro Wieringa (Witteveen+bos)
• Walter van Dijk (NL Architects)
• Ekim Tan (Play the City)

www.newtowninstitute.org