Urban Sprawl in sub-Saharan Africa: A review of the literature in selected countries
Date
2020
Authors
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Publisher
Ghana Journal of Geography
Abstract
Urban sprawl has gained popularity in academic discourse in recent times, but the majority of the
research was conducted in developed countries. There is a marginal body of works on the
character and nature of urban sprawl in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), although the region is
experiencing one of the fastest rates of sprawl. Urbanisation in SSA is very rapid, and in addition
to the emerging challenges of globalisation, climate change and poverty, SSA cities have an
enormous task to manage urban sprawl. This paper reviews the literature on urban sprawl in SSA
to identify research gaps and propose a research agenda. Published articles from five Anglophone
countries in three of the four regional blocks in SSA were selected. The literature was organised
into the causes and effects of urban sprawl and showed that the previous research on the subject
focused mainly on its environmental impacts. Few studies have looked at the effects of sprawl on
rural livelihoods, agriculture and food security considering the challenges of global climate
change and poverty. Other studies have used Remote Sensing and Geographic Information
Systems, but these were conducted largely for change detection. The paper recommends the
deployment of a more comprehensive methodology incorporating remote sensing/GIS with
ethnographic methods to capture better the complexity and impacts of urban sprawl in SSA.
Additionally, further research attention must be paid to the effects of urban sprawl on rural
livelihoods and overall sprawl-induced agrarian change.
Description
Research Article
Keywords
Urban sprawl, Urbanisation, adaptation, rural-urban communities, Sub-Sahara Africa