The Comparative Roles of Service Centres within the Urban Space of the Brong-Ahafo Region

Abstract

The Brong-Ahafo Region urban space is a very vibrant one, consisting of a number of Towns which principally play a pivotal role in the region’s socio-economic developmental trajectory. They provide essential services in administration, health care, education, commerce, industry and jobs to serve its inhabitants and peripheral populations, which culminate in a varying degree of functional importance. However, as a consequence of glaring inequalities on the functionalities of towns, population is expectedly found concentrated among various settlements as a reflection of the service delivered. Using the Brong-Ahafo Region’s urban space as a homogeneous entity, this research sought to assess and compare the inter-urban functional disparities between seven competing municipal growth points in the Region, in a bid to evaluate their viabilities in regional planning owing to the trends of population growth and urbanisation tendencies. It was identified that population growth was still a major determinant of the urbanisation dynamics even though at reduced rates in recent times. Population distribution was found to be fairly even across board. Many of the service centres had lesser degree of centrality and functional adequacy, in that their populations overwhelmed the service facilities available making their urbanisation dynamics demographically induced rather than vibrancy in the socio-economic facilities. However, there is a strong spatial interaction between many of the settlement, with Sunyani especially serving as the most prominent destination nodes for many of these interactions. The study has therefore put up several suggestions including; the development of integrated Settlement Hierarchy at the local level to counter-magnet the big towns, Proper Physical Planning and definite boundary definitions