Urban transformations,migration and residential mobility patterns in African secondary cities

Abstract

Urban growth is a significant trend in Africa. Scholarly attention and urban planning efforts have focused disproportionately on the challenges of big cities, while small and medium-sized urban settlements are growing most rapidly and house the majority of urban residents. Small towns have received some attention, but very few studies have focused on secondary cities. This paper offers a study of urban transformations, migration and residential mobility patterns in Arusha, a rapidly growing secondary city of Tanzania. Arusha functions as a major attraction for migrants and in-migration is a central dynamic shaping transformation processes in central areas characterized by high population turnovers, vibrant rental markets and widespread landlordism. There is also a considerable degree of intra-urban residential mobility within and between central areas. Intra-urban residential mobility is the most important dynamic shaping transformation processes in peripheral areas characterized by long-term urban residents moving from central parts of the city as part of a process of establishing themselves as homeowners. Overall, the paper provides crucial insights on how migration and residential mobility patterns influence processes of urban growth and transformation in the context of large secondary city, and thereby contributes to fill a significant knowledge gap on secondary cities in Africa.     

‘We are at the mercy of the floods!’ : Extreme weather events,disrupted mobilities,and everyday navigation in urban Ghana

This paper examines how extreme weather events affect the mobility of low-income urban residents in Ghana. Bringing together scholarship on extreme weather and mobilities, it explores the differential impact of flooding on their everyday lives as they navigate the cities of Accra and Tamale. A range of qualitative methods were drawn on, including semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, and follow-along-participant observations in selected communities of both cities. Three key themes emerged: disrupted road and transport infrastructure, everyday mobility challenges, and coping/adaptive strategies. In flooding conditions, residents experienced difficulties leaving/returning home, engaging in income-generating activities, and accessing transport services and other key urban infrastructure. Conceptually, the paper reveals how disruption to urban residents’ daily movements and activities (re)produces new forms of mobilities and immobilities, which have three relational elements: postponed, improvised and assisted. Throughout the analysis, we show how these mobilities/immobilities vary by age and gender: all urban residents, (though women in particular), experience postponed mobility; young people especially engage in improvised mobility; and children and the elderly are in greatest need of assisted mobility. The paper thus contributes to scholarship on extreme weather events and mobility by providing a more spatially nuanced understanding of the multi-faceted domains in which flooding, socio-economic conditions and adaptive strategies intersect to influence urban mobility in resource poor settings.     

城市的垂直流动：广州再领域化中的人地关系重构

流动性重塑了人地关系,地的再领域化过程可以视为一种跨阶层的垂直流动。20世纪80年代起,中国开始了撤县设区的行政区划调整,重塑了原有的城市行政结构体系。撤县设区是典型的城市的垂直流动过程。在这过程中,县城本地居民的身份政治,以及他们与县城、新城之间的关系亦随之改变。以广州为例,通过研究撤县设区中本地居民与领域空间的关系重构,进而探讨流动性背景下的人地关系变化。研究发现：对于本地居民而言,其身份政治在再领域化的过程中,从旧领域的多数群体转变为新领域的少数群体。这种转变导致本地居民排他策略的形成,并由此形成了新领域中的一个抵抗空间,重构了本地居民、旧领域和新领域之间的人地关系。研究城市的再领域化过程是对地理学探讨流动性的有效补充,有利于从地的视角更深入理解流动性的影响及意义。     

To Move or not to Move: Community Members’ Reaction to Surface Mining Activities in the Upper West Region of Ghana

Abstract

Despite the impact of mining-induced environmental change on community livability, we know little about how disparities in knowledge of health risks associated with mining influence residents’ response, especially in an already environmentally stressed context. Guided by theoretical insights from solastalgia, we examined residents’ decision to relocate due to increasing gold mining activities in the fragile Northern Savannah Ecological Zone of Ghana. Fitting complementary log-log regression models to cross-sectional data from the Upper West Region (UWR) of Ghana, we found that residents with limited knowledge of potential health impacts of mining and those who believe mining activities were not meeting environmental standards were more likely to consider relocating. Given the centrality of land in community health and wellbeing in the UWR, Ghana’s mining guidelines should promote local participation in the regulation of mining activities and guarantee the rights of indigenes to livable native lands.     

Policing perception: postpolitics and the elusive everyday

ABSTRACT

This piece argues that urban postpolitical scholarship should pay greater attention to the everyday lives of urban residents and the everyday spaces of contemporary cities. Recent debates in urban geography have sought in part to expand narrow readings of Jacques Rancière’s politics in particular, creating space for broader and more inclusive analyses of resistance to depoliticizing regimes. This article builds on this work, extending these critiques by suggesting that the quotidian is the most pressing analytical avenue for such expansion. The piece builds on ethnographic and archival fieldwork conducted in Mexico City between 2014 and 2017, demonstrating the dependence of a postpolitical regime on the maintenance of particular relations in the everyday spaces and interactions of the city, and some of the salient ways these trends are experienced, reproduced, and contested by the city’s residents.     

大城市低收入邻里社会贫困的测度差异与成因

社会贫困是对居民的社会保障和福利的享有情况、社会参与和融合等生活状况的测度。利用中国3 大典型地域、6 个代表城市、3 类邻里的1809 份个体问卷调查数据, 本文选取13 个相关指标, 判定个体是否处于社会贫困状态, 利用回归模型探究其影响因素, 并分析社会贫困现象在不同邻里、不同城市集聚的分异特征。研究发现, 6 个城市间的社会贫困集聚程度顺序为东部、中部和西部;3 大类邻里中, 社会贫困在城中村表现最为明显, 内城居住区次之, 企业配套居住区最低。中国城市居民是否处于社会贫困状态是体制(户口类型) 和家庭(教育程度、年龄等) 因素共同作用的结果。代表体制因素的户口类型对3 类城市的社会贫困均起到影响, 东中部城市中家庭因素也有一定作用。体制因素对城中村的社会贫困起显著影响, 而家庭因素在内城居住区和企业配套居住区中作用更大。     

Zipf’s law for all the natural cities around the world

Two fundamental issues surrounding research on Zipf’s law regarding city sizes are whether and why this law holds. This paper does not deal with the latter issue with respect to why, and instead investigates whether Zipf’s law holds in a global setting, thus involving all cities around the world. Unlike previous studies, which have mainly relied on conventional census data such as populations and census-bureau-imposed definitions of cities, we adopt naturally (in terms of data speak for itself) delineated cities, or natural cities, to be more precise, in order to examine Zipf’s law. We find that Zipf’s law holds remarkably well for all natural cities at the global level, and it remains almost valid at the continental level except for Africa at certain time instants. We further examine the law at the country level, and note that Zipf’s law is violated from country to country or from time to time. This violation is mainly due to our limitations; we are limited to individual countries, or to a static view on city-size distributions. The central argument of this paper is that Zipf’s law is universal, and we therefore must use the correct scope in order to observe it. We further find Zipf’s law applied to city numbers; the number of cities in the largest country is twice as many as that in the second largest country, three times as many as that in the third largest country, and so on. These findings have profound implications for big data and the science of cities.     

转型时期广州居民职住流动及其空间结构变化——基于3个年份的调查分析

中国城市处于由国家/集体分配体制为基础的计划经济向以市场调控为基础的市场经济转型的特殊时期,城市居民职住空间大规模重构。本文基于2001年、2005年和2010年家庭调查问卷,分析城市居民职住流动及其空间变化,总结城市居民职住流动对广州市社会空间重构的影响。改革开放以来广州市城市居民职住流动率大规模增加,且圈层差异明显,越往外围,职住流动率越高。城市居民的职住就近流动的特征明显,偏好于工作地附近就近选择居住地或在居住地附近就近选择工作地。地方政府应通过城市规划、就业制度改革和住房制度改革等手段来加强宏观调控,合理引导不同社会群体的职住区位选择,以减少居住空间分异和职住空间的过度分离。     

中国流动人口的跨等级流动及其对流入城市住房选择的影响

妥善解决流动人口在流入城市的住房问题是实现流动人口市民化和提高新型城镇化发展质量的关键。本文基于2017年全国流动人口动态监测调查数据,揭示了流动人口的跨等级流动格局,并探讨了跨等级流动对流动人口在流入城市住房选择的影响。研究发现：① 流动人口以跨等级向上流动为主,其中向上跨三级、两级流动的比例较大;② 不同流出地的流动人口在流入城市的住房选择存在显著差异,流出城市的人均GDP和平均房价越高,流动人口在流入城市获得住房产权的概率越大;③ 流入城市的平均房价越高,流动人口获得商品房的概率越低,随着流入城市人均GDP的增加,流动人口购买商品房的概率先增后降,而购买不完全产权房的概率则恰恰相反;④ 随着流动人口跨越城市等级的增加,其获得住房产权的概率降低,而租赁正规住房的可能性增大。研究结果有助于深化理解流动人口在流入城市住房选择的地理根源,对进一步优化面向流动人口的住房政策具有参考意义。     

Neighborhood-Based social capital and life satisfaction: the case of Rotterdam,The Netherlands

ABSTRACT

In this study, we examine the relationship between neighborhood-based social capital and residents’ life satisfaction by considering resident heterogeneity. Using a database of the city of Rotterdam, The Netherlands, we find a small but significant positive association between neighborhood-based social capital and individual life satisfaction. However, we also find considerable differences among residents because neighborhood-based social capital is important mainly for people who are more likely to spend considerable time in the neighborhood or who are more neighborhood dependent (i.e. less-educated people, people who live on welfare, people with poor health, retired people, and those who are divorced or widowed). Our results confirm the importance of neighborhood-based social capital for residents’ life satisfaction in terms of both actual social contacts with neighbors and the perceived social cohesion within a neighborhood. At the same time, the importance of neighborhood-based social capital varies among different groups of residents. These findings have important implications for policy-makers.     

The empty rhetoric of the smart city: from digital inclusion to economic promotion in Philadelphia

Smart city initiatives have been adopted by cities worldwide, proposing forward-looking, technological solutions to urban problems big and small. These policies are indicative of a digitized urban condition, where social and economic exchange rely on globalized telecommunications networks, and governance strategies follow suit. Propelled through events such as IBM’s Smarter Cities Challenge, the smart city acts as a data-driven logic urban change where widespread benefit to a city and its residents is proposed, masking the utility of these policies to further entrepreneurial economic development strategies. In this article, I present a case study of the Digital On-Ramps initiative that emerged from IBM’s policy-consultation in Philadelphia. The initiative proposed a social media-style workforce education application (app) to train up to 500,000 low-literacy residents for jobs in the information and knowledge economy, but even as the city’s mayor declared the project a success, it did not meet expectations. This essay argues that the rhetoric of intelligent, transformative digital change works much more to “sell” a city in the global economy than to actually address urban inequalities.     

Configuring growth coalitions among the projects of urban aggrandizement in Kunming,Southwest China

In this paper, we examine two urban projects in Kunming, Southwest China, one a massive scheme to build a new city center on rural land outside the city, and the other, an act of urban restructuring involving the rebuilding of an old Hui (Muslim) neighborhood in the old city center. We analyze the coalition of forces configured to undertake these large-scale projects; we underline the role of specially formed city-building organizations and the support provided by the state-owned institutions that dominate the city’s political economy; and we draw attention to the caution with which the city government handled resistance to urban restructuring among Hui residents. We argue that urban growth projects in inland cities like Kunming are marked by certain features that distinguish them from similar projects in Eastern Chinese cities but maintain that nonetheless the drive for profit maximization at the expense of residents is unchanged.     

The divergence between acceptability of municipal services and urbanization in developing countries: insights from Accra and Sekondi-Takoradi,Ghana

Abstract

In most developing countries, the provision of municipal services and infrastructure invariably fails to match the pace and demands of urbanization. The outcome is often increased informality due to improper planning, official bureaucratic barriers and perhaps insufficient and shrinking public resources, which then makes leveraging private capital for public service provision imperative. Drawing on in-depth qualitative fieldwork in two Ghanaian cities, this paper aims to extend literature on the divergence between service provision and urbanization in developing countries. More specifically, it attempts to qualify recent macro-level data indicating that access to water, sanitation and electricity services in Accra and Sekondi-Takoradi is improving substantively. Contrary to dominant policy narratives circulating in Ghana, we illustrate how the acceptability of key municipal services within urban settings is often inadequate, and how acceptability is tied to spatial and temporal factors. We then identify and examine the reasons underpinning these variations. Through exploring residents’ perceptions of key services, and examining critically the possibility and feasibility of meeting urban service needs through leveraging private resources, this paper contributes to broader academic debates over urban service provision, while also feeding into contemporary policy discussions concerning how to achieve several of the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.     

Ubuntu nests and the emergence of an African metropolis

Cities are not homogenous sociocultural entities. The city of Nairobi exhibits the phenomena of ‘cities within cities’ and ‘African city forms’. Social and economic forms of African, western and Asian cities compete for space within Nairobi. This paper refers to the African city form as the ‘African metropolis’, which exhibits the African logic, norms and values in its architecture and human social relations. The African metropolis is made up of slums, urbanized villages, self‐developed urban fringes and indigenous markets. In urban literature, these spaces are referred to as informal or unplanned settlements. As drivers of this African form of urbanism, traders and artisans use the African logic, norms and values in the construction of the African metropolis. The traders and artisans contribute to the African metropolis, by hiring labour and investing surplus earnings, and are bonded into Ubuntu communities of family, friendship and ethnicity. The paper is based on data gathered through a questionnaire survey of traders and artisans. It contributes to urban theory, by showing how less dominant and subtle forces contribute to city‐forming processes. I propose the concept of cultural villages as a strategy for blending African logic, norms and values with those of global urban planning.     

Uneven development of the sustainable city: shifting capital in Portland,Oregon

Portland, Oregon, is renowned as a paradigmatic “sustainable city.” Yet, despite popular conceptions of the city as a progressive ecotopia and the accolades of planners seeking to emulate its innovations, Portland’s sustainability successes are inequitably distributed. Drawing on census data, popular media, newspaper archives, city planning documents, and secondary source histories, we attempt to elucidate the structural origins of Portland’s “uneven development,” exploring how and why the urban core of this paragon of sustainability has become more White and affluent while its outer eastside has become more diverse and poor. We explain how a “sustainability fix”—in this case, green investment in the city’s core—ultimately contributed to the demarcation of racialized poverty along 82nd Avenue, a major north–south arterial marking the boundary of East Portland. Our account of structural processes taking place at multiple scales contributes to a growing body of literature on eco-gentrification and displacement and inner-ring suburban change while empirically demonstrating how Portland’s advances in sustainability have come at the cost of East Portland’s devaluation. Our “30,000 foot” perspective reveals systemic patterns that might then guide more fine-grained analyses of particular political-socio-cultural processes, while providing cautionary insights into current efforts to extend the city’s sustainability initiatives using the same green development model.     

Global Cities and Circuits of Global Labor: The Case of Manila,Philippines

The ‘global city’ concept has captured the attention of geographers and other social scientists. Research focuses predominantly on capital mobility and the important managerial role exerted by cities in the ‘developed’ realm (i.e., New York, London, Tokyo). The mobility of labor is also important and yet has been neither critically conceptualized nor sufficiently analyzed in existing studies of global cities. Using the Philippines as a case study, I examine 1) how global circuits of labor are socially organized, and 2) the extent to which this social organization is spatially concentrated in Manila. In so doing, I reaffirm the critical role played by Third World cities as global cities.     

An Approach to Field Experience in Eighth Grade Geography

Abstract

Man, the social animal, has organized his cities for particular social objectives. His urban social communications take place within a spatially and socially restrictive network of interpersonal information contact. Viewed in this sense, cities exist to facilitate the social communications or interactions of their population. At the same time, however, diverse social goals and group frictions create barriers to smooth flows of information among urban dwellers. This paper introduces the theme of urban social interaction, outlines the structure of social ties in cities, and surveys two major urban problems relating explicitly to social interaction in the city. The approach here is to bring geographical concepts and knowledge to bear on problems of social interaction in urban space. It is hoped that greater insight by teachers and students into the social problems of cities is achieved by an improved understanding of the geography of social communications.     

Global Cities and Circuits of Global Labor: The Case of Manila,Philippines

The ‘global city’ concept has captured the attention of geographers and other social scientists. Research focuses predominantly on capital mobility and the important managerial role exerted by cities in the ‘developed’ realm (i.e., New York, London, Tokyo). The mobility of labor is also important and yet has been neither critically conceptualized nor sufficiently analyzed in existing studies of global cities. Using the Philippines as a case study, I examine 1) how global circuits of labor are socially organized, and 2) the extent to which this social organization is spatially concentrated in Manila. In so doing, I reaffirm the critical role played by Third World cities as global cities.     

Shifting borders,shifting center: hedging-out uncertainty in west Jerusalem’s urban core

ABSTRACT

This article argues that contested cities are inherently characterized by uncertainty and uses the interconnections between conflict, uncertainty and urban planning as a new analytical framework for investigating conflict cities. In the contested city of Jerusalem, geopolitical uncertainty stems from the Israeli occupation over East Jerusalem. Focusing on recent urban regeneration plans for West Jerusalem’s city center, the article explores how the municipality locates, plans and imagines the city center when the city’s external and internal boundaries are contested and unfixed. A two-tier analysis is employed. First, a historical analysis shows that the “city center”, as defined by authorities, is an unfixed locale that shifts in concurrence with shifts in the city’s boundaries. Then, a geopolitical analysis shows that by shifting the city center’s boundaries, the Israeli authorities decouple the city’s economic development (in the west) from Israel’s continuing ethno-national policies (in the east).     

Visualising 30 Years of Population Density Change in Australia’s Major Capital Cities

ABSTRACT

This study uses a novel spatial approach to compare population density change across cities and over time. It examines spatio-temporal change in Australia’s five most populated capital cities from 1981 to 2011, and documents the established and emerging patterns of population distribution. The settlement patterns of Australian cities have changed substantially in the last 30 years. From the doughnut cities of the 1980s, programs of consolidation, renewal and densification have changed and concentrated population in our cities. Australian cities in the 1980s were characterised by sparsely populated, low density centres with growth concentrated to the suburban fringes. ‘Smart Growth’ and the ‘New Urbanism’ movements in the 1990s advocated higher dwelling density living and the inner cities re-emerged, inner areas were redeveloped, and the population distribution shifted towards increased inner city population densities. Policies aimed at re-populating the inner city dominated and the resultant changes are now visible in Australia’s five most populated capital cities. While this pattern has been reported in a number of studies, questions remain regarding the extent of these changes and how to analyse and visualise them across urban space. This paper reports on a spatial method which addresses the limitations of changing statistical boundaries to identify the changing patterns in Australian cities over time and space.