In order to grasp the future of cities, one has to look towards Africa and Asia. While the African continent is rapidly urbanising – by 2036 more than half of the African population will live in cities – the rising number of city dwellers live under extremely unequal conditions. By and large, African cities are lopsided: they work well for the top 10%, partially for the small middle-class, and not at all for the majority of urban dwellers, who are poor, trapped in precarious employment, and lacking in basic social services. Furthermore, half of the urban majority are younger than 19 years of age, clamouring for meaningful futures. In the wake of increased private investments into Africa, it is important to demonstrate that Africa’s lopsided urban trajectory can be arrested and redirected in the direction of more inclusive, vibrant, and sustainable futures. Edgar Pieterse, the Director of University of Cape Town’s African Centre for Cities, promotes this alternative vision in which cities are designed to systemically improve the quality of life and economic opportunities of all their inhabitants. His research into major cities of the Global South has made him an acclaimed expert and advocate for a new, sustainable, and humane approach to city planning. Since the megatrend of rapid urbanization is becoming visible on the global scale, the progress made in urban planning in Africa can be seen as a testing ground for promising new designs and policies. At Falling Walls, he shows what we can learn and improve in emblematic African cities. This knowledge can be applied more generally to entrench the new era of the thriving and sustainable metropolis.
Falling Walls
Falling Walls Science Summit 2023
Login or Register
You need to be logged in to use this feature.
How urban studies envision the new era of the metropolis
Professor Edgar Pieterse is founding director of the African Centre for Cities (ACC) at the University of Cape Town. His research and teaching gravitate around urban development politics, everyday culture, publics, radical social economies, responsive design and adaptive governance systems. He publishes different kinds of text, curate exhibitions, as well as difficult conversations about pressing urban problems. He is consulting editor for Cityscapes—an international occasional magazine/platform on urbanism in the global South. He has published two books, City Futures (Zed, 2008) and New Urban Worlds (Polity, 2017, with AbdouMaliq Simone), as well as seven co-edited books, dealing with a wide-ranging set of topics related to contemporary urbanism and place-making. Edgar serves on various editorial boards of academic journals and research advisory boards of leading urban research centres: LSE Cities (London); Indian Institute for Human Settlements (Bangalore); Gauteng City-region Observatory (Johannesburg); The Global Cities Programme of CIDOB – Barcelona Centre for International Affairs; Pathways to Sustainability – Utrecht University; the World Economic Forum: Shaping the Future of Urban Development and Services Initiative; and the Coalition for Urban Transitions (London). Furthermore, he is co-lead author of the Urban Chapter of the report of the International Panel on Social Progress.
Further Activities to have a look at