Kurtis Lockhart
We are excited to launch the inaugural research center at the African School of Economics-Zanzibar (ASE-Z), the Africa Urban Lab (AUL). The mission of the Africa Urban Lab is two-fold. First, we conduct frontier research on the challenges and solutions to rapid urbanization across Africa. Second, we aim to translate this research into policy action by training the African city builders, planners, and urban leaders of tomorrow to harness rapid urbanization for human prosperity.
Throughout history cities have been engines of economic growth and centers of social, cultural, and technological progress. This link between urbanization and progress, however, is breaking down in African cities today. All the while, the continent is expected to add almost 1 billion people to its cities between now and 2050. And by 2100, a full half of all babies born on the planet will be born in Africa (the only region driving human population growth post-2050). Humanity’s future is in Africa, and Africa’s future is an urban future.
Across the continent, there are many bottlenecks to seizing this urban future.
Fiscally, African cities are severely constrained because they’re rapidly urbanizing at much lower levels of income than has historically been the case. For example, while Africa’s urbanized population hit 40 percent around 2010 at average incomes of $1,480, East Asia hit the same 40 percent urban share in 2000 at over $5,450 per person – incomes almost four times larger. This means African cities often lack the necessary tax base to make needed investments in public infrastructure that create urban spaces where residents and businesses can thrive.
Legally, towns and cities across the continent are too often straight-jacketed by overbearing central governments or by over-zealous urban planning and land use regulations. Today, just three out of Africa’s 55 countries legally permit their cities to (i) set their own tax base and rates, (ii) collect their own revenue, and (iii) access international capital markets, squeezing already cash-strapped municipal budgets. Onerous or outdated planning regulations distort scarce urban land away from its most productive use. This drives up housing costs, arbitrarily fragments cities, and pushes more and more residents and firms into urban informality. The minimum plot size in Dar es Salaam, for example, is currently set at over ten times that of Philadelphia – this in the second-fastest growing city in the world.
Yet even if the above fiscal and legal bottlenecks are removed, if African city officials still lack the technical skills to actually deliver public goods and services, then all is for naught. For African cities to seize their potential, there is a vast need for human capital and skills development at the local level. By way of example, the UK has about 37 urban planners per 100,000 people; the US has an estimated 12 planners for the same population. In Africa, on the other hand, the average number of urban planners is a paltry 0.89 per 100,000 people – in the fastest urbanizing region on the planet. By 2040, moreover, African cities are estimated to need about 600,000 engineering graduates per year to design, build, and service the needed infrastructure for its fast-growing urban areas.
While these challenges are great, we at the AUL believe that the opportunities presented by Africa’s rapid urban growth are much greater. Why?
First, throughout history cities are where humanity’s greatest achievements and its largest leaps in progress take place. Second, because many of the bottlenecks faced by the continent’s cities are not structural, but are policy choices. This gives us hope. Policy can be changed through dedicated human action. The AUL stands as a bridge between frontier urban research and needed policy action.
The AUL is focused on three core activities: (i) Education, (ii) Training, and (iii) Research.
Education: We provide longer-term educational programs to the next generation of city builders, planners, and urban leaders.
Training: We provide short trainings, policy learning engagements, and capacity building to the current generation of city officials, urban planners, and municipal leaders.
Research: We conduct frontier research on African urbanization, currently focusing on four research clusters:
Between 1990 and 2014, the physical area of a typical African city has tripled in size while the urban population has doubled. By 2050, Africa’s urban population is expected to triple, with a majority of its residents living in cities. The explosive growth in urban area that will accompany population growth presents enormous challenges, but also tremendous opportunities if it is planned correctly. Urban expansion planning offers a straightforward yet powerful solution to these problems by proactively organizing the urban peripheries of cities to accommodate future populations, ensuring access to infrastructure, and promoting environmental sustainability.
Governance is essential to long-run economic growth, yet in many African countries governance indicators lag behind. Not to mention, it’s oftentimes extremely difficult to reform governance and institutions at a national level. Cities, local governments, and special jurisdictions (i.e., new cities, special economic zones, or charter cities) present an opportunity to pilot reforms at a local level, identify the successes, discard the failures, and then scale-up the promising reforms across the broader country and region.
Cities have historically been drivers of industrialization and economic growth but since the 1970s this link has broken down in Africa. Why is this the case? What are the biggest barriers to industrialization in African cities? How can we more effectively harness the benefits of density, agglomeration, and urban dynamism to promote employment-generating economic growth? The answers to these questions are critical to the future of the continent.
Technological change is the primary factor driving long-run economic development. At its core, innovation is fundamentally a networked social process, and cities are humanity’s ultimate network hosts, serving as nodes of cultural co-mingling, idea exchange, and economic progress. Cities have long fostered cultures, beliefs, and attitudes that are more open, tolerant of non-kin others, and less beholden to ancestral ties, authority, or conformity – key ingredients to innovation. Understanding how cities impact micro- and macro-level behavior can help us create more innovative urban environments
Conclusion
Throughout the 1960s Norman Borlaug helped defy forecasts of imminent global famine, winning a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts. Borlaug had pioneered research that led to rapid increases in agricultural productivity across the Global South, saving the lives of millions. This miracle was dubbed the Green Revolution.
But to stop the story here gives short shrift to another key actor in the Green Revolution: the research coalition that funded and housed Borlaug’s research, which became known as the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (or CGIAR). CGIAR is a global partnership of research centers, universities, private sector actors, development organizations, and governments which has been instrumental in advancing the spread of the Green Revolution around the world.
In the 21st century, African cities need an Urban Revolution to similarly unleash the productive potential of the coming urban billions. The key raw material of the future is not the fertility of the soil beneath one’s feet, but the creativity of connected urban minds in city streets. An Urban Revolution will require new thinking and bold ideas. And – as with the spread of the Green Revolution – it’ll require a coalition of research centers and other committed partners coming together as a ‘community of practice’, pushing for a flourishing urban future. We’re excited to get to work!
–The Africa Urban Lab
