The Process of Urbanization in Africa (From the Origins to the Beginning of Independence)

The concept of the city on the sub-Saharan continent presents a vast field of study whose limits we must define. Urbanization entails spatial, social, and temporal phenomena and thus almost by definition requires an interdisciplinary approach. Such an approach could certainly encompass history, geography, demographics, economics, political science, architecture and town planning, as well as anthropology and sociology. The interdisciplinary study of urbanization deserves emphasis because the research conducted in these different directions over the course of the past twenty-five years has been very uneven. We must not confuse the concepts of urbanization and modernization, although to distinguish the difference between the two can be a delicate matter. Since the colonial intrusion, the importance of making such a distinction is all the greater because the development of the former notion was subsumed by that of the latter. Another remark: The author's personality, in writing this overview paper, is obviously present. As a piece of work written by an historian, this text takes into account the past of African cities and their evolutionary process, from their pristine origins to the eve of independence. This paper is mainly about the past, it touches only occasionally on the characteristics of modern African towns since independence and their likely future; in spite of social sciences constituting a whole, an individual cannot grasp everything. The analyses devoted to town planning and urban economics have been left to another specialist. In conformity with the author's education and interests, temporal dimensions will receive priority over transversal conceptual divisions; thus, the concept of time and change will tend to be neglected.