Structural adjustment and the contemporary sub‐Saharan African city

Although it has been suggested that structural adjustment policies have slowed Third World urban growth and have stimulated a spatial deconcentration of economic activity, this paper argues that African cities continue to grow and mainly through peri‐urban development. This investment comes mainly from domestic sources and migrants’ remittances, and tends to be in consumption rather than production. Reasons include cultural factors, lack of confidence in the national economy and in the state’s long‐term economic objectives, an increasing demand for housing, improvements in intraurban transport, and a desire to spread investment risk among a range of alternatives including housing.