Living the dream? Imagined space, lived place, and disillusionment in an enclaved private city

Investors increasingly view enclaved private city development as an alternative to failed state-led urban planning in many African cities. One example is the Appolonia City of Light (ACL), a grandiose master-planned private city development project on the outskirts of Ghana’s capital city, Accra. Planned according to a philosophy of ‘development control’ – the strict enforcement of regulations on land use and the type and nature of housing, as well as spatial plans and standards – the project is marketed under the placemaking slogan ‘Live, work, play’, offering tenure, investment and personal security. This article explores the recently settled residents’ motivations for investing in housing in the ACL, and their material and social experiences of living there. Moving into the enclave represents aspirations for comfortable living and upward social mobility, which residents often depict as detachment from Accra’s congested, noisy and infrastructurally and administratively cumbersome housing conditions. Therefore, secure land titles and well-functioning basic amenities are crucial attractions. However, residents’ expectations of service delivery and security are unmet, as the private city cannot ‘control’ the infrastructural and institutional contexts in which it is embedded. Consequently, detached living in a private city requires resources through relational attachments beyond the enclave. Spatially exclusive urban development thus not only makes it impossible for the lower echelons of the growing middle class to ‘live the dream’ but also questions the long-term sustainability of private city investments in a context where such prospective home buyers find inclusive approaches offering individual and incremental house construction on titled land more achievable and appealing.