What is the Biggest Challenge in Managing Large Cities?

Pages24-26

Page 24

Three points of view on different ways to manage things well

Within the next year, the world's urban population will exceed its rural population for the first time in history-with some 75 percent of city dwellers living in developing countries, according to a new United Nations report. The good news is that economists generally agree that urbanization, if handled well, holds great promise for higher growth and a better quality of life. But the flip side is also true: if handled poorly, urbanization could not only impede development but also give rise to slums-and already, the UN reports, one out of every three urban dwellers worldwide lives in one. Given that so much responsibility will rest in the hands of policymakers, who will need to take a team approach to problem solving, F&D turned to three experts from Asia and Africa, the regions with the fastest-growing urban populations, for their insights.

1. Providing shelter Matthew Maury -Area Vice President, Africa and the Middle East, Habitat for Humanity International

MANAGING large cities in Africa continues to get more challenging as poor urban populations rapidly grow. Most colonial-era urban planning policies on the continent were aimed at keeping the poor out of the city. As independence spread and new local governments took over urban management, city gates opened and the poor began relocating to unprepared cities. In recent years, this population shift has become a deluge. Africa is, and for the coming decade will remain, the most rapidly urbanizing area of the world. UN-hABITAT reports that 72 percent of urban dwellers in sub-Saharan Africa live in slums, which gives it the second largest slum population in the world after south central Asia. Expectations are that this concentration of slum dwellers will only increase because most urbanization will occur within the economically vulnerable population.

Massive slums have grown across the continent. No large urban center has been exempt from informal settlements and slums. The largest and most overwhelming slum in Africa is Kibera in Nairobi, where between half a million and a million people reside. The International housing Coalition notes that in many cities across Africa less than 10 percent of the population lives in a formal sector with decently constructed housing. UN-hABITAT statistics are illustrative and shocking: in Zambia, 74 percent of urban dwellers live in slums; in Nigeria, 80 percent; in Sudan, 85.7 percent; in Tanzania, 92.1 percent; in Madagascar, 92.9 percent; and in Ethiopia, an amazing 99.4 percent.

Why is so much of the urban growth ending up in burgeoning slums? Although there are undoubtedly many reasons, the underlying problem in almost all cities is an absence of appropriate urban planning strategy. And, I believe, the biggest challenge facing managers of large African cities is the ability, or inability, to provide adequate space, shelter, and services for the rapidly migrating low-income population.

As I visit communities at the grassroots level across Africa, it...

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