Title: Urbanization and industrialization: what future for sub-Saharan Africa?

POPLINE Document Number: 128800

Author(s):

Simon D

Source citation:

In: Sustaining the future: economic, social, and environmental change in sub-Saharan Africa, edited by George Benneh, William B. Morgan, and Juha I. Uitto. Tokyo, Japan, United Nations University Press, 1996. :85-99.

Abstract:

Even though sub-Saharan Africa is the world's poorest, least urbanized, and least industrialized continental region, it has several metropolises with more than 3 million inhabitants and problems comparable in intensity to that typical of other megacities in the Third World. The Pretoria-Witwatersrand-Vereeniging complex, however, centered upon Johannesburg, Lagos, Kinshasa, Durban, Cape Town, Kano, and Ibadan, is the exception. Most capital cities and major industrial centers in sub-Saharan Africa have populations under 2 million. In the smallest states, cities have no more than 100,000-150,000 inhabitants, with the majority of urban Africans still living in relatively small cities, towns, and villages. The continuing rapid rate and scale of urbanization, the urban environment, the limitations of industrialization, the impact of structural adjustment, sub-Saharan Africa as the global periphery, and implications for urbanization and industrialization are discussed.

Keywords:

Africa, Sub Saharan
Urbanization
Industrialization
Africa
Developing Countries
Urban Population Distribution
Population Distribution
Geographic Factors
Population
Economic Development
Economic Factors