The politics of urban management and planning in African cities

Half of Africa’s population is expected to live in a city by 2035, up from 40 per cent today. This is a testament to the fact that a quarter of the world’s fastest-growing cities are in Africa and 52 African cities already have more than 1 million inhabitants each. But these cities are only projected to absorb a quarter of the growth in urban populations, meaning that small and medium cities will host the majority of new urban dwellers (UN-Habitat, 2014: 23–25). African cities are the most unequal in the world, posing a major challenge to their future (UN-Habitat, 2010: 2).