Paper short abstract:

Ibadan, the Yoruba largest city exemplifies the failure of urbanisation process in Nigeria.The failure of post-colonial state to enforce effective physical planning legislation and lack of political will to invest in urban infrastructures of the city resulted in the outbreak urban flooding.

Paper long abstract:

Ibadan, the Yoruba largest city exemplifies the failure of urbanisation process in Nigeria. Established by warlords of the Yoruba civil wars in the 1820s, the city has continued to grow beyond its traditional boundary. The failure of post-colonial state to enforce effective physical planning legislation and lack of political will to invest in urban infrastructures of the city resulted in the outbreak of natural disaster Since 1960, the city has witnessed major five (1960, 1963, 1978, 1980, 2011) outbreaks of floods with a varying degree of human and materials lost. This paper argued that historicizing flooding, a significant element of urbanization and environmental degradation would enhance our understanding on how failure of policies has contributed to the urban disaster in African largest city of Ibadan. The paper relied on extensive primary sources sourced from Africana section of the university of Ibadan library, National archives, Ibadan, Oyo state ministry of environment and oral interviews.

Paper short abstract:

Secret shopping centres of Johannesburg's 'chaos precinct' offer consumer delights and proposals for transformation while producing layers of concealment and exposure. Their rogue architectural devices respond to the peculiar contestations in this post-colonial African inner-city neighbourhood.

Paper long abstract:

"Chaos spilled out into plain view like secrets of the urban unconscious." (Muschamp: 2000, np)

Johannesburg is an intense wholesale centre for sub-Saharan Africa - with billions of Rands' worth of fast fashion sold annually in the traditional CBD. This vast low-end globalised trade has pioneered a retail phenomenon that pulsates from informalised spaces. Modernist buildings that have outlived their usefulness as office space have become a carcass for maximising trade space and exposure - with mini retail outlets and coffeeshops transforming dormant interior corridors into lively internal streets.

This compressed urban environment is produced through an adapative, labyrynthine artchitecture in which goods can be furntiture, walls can be shops and a landing might reveal an archipelago of micro spaces teeming with shoes, bags or jeans.

Drawing on the first socio-spatial mapping of these innovative architectures, this paper examines the logics of display and concealment that service this shopping hub. It incorporates survey findings of 400 shoppers and 300 retailers and a number of in depth interviews.

The paper engages with Benjamin's musings on the architectures and social positioning of Parisian arcades, to interrogate the enigmatic architectures in this area. It explores the multiplex gaze and the spatial responses that at once lure customers and simultaneously shield spaces against criminals and police. These include both block-long and micro arcades lined with cupboard-sized shops. Like Benjamin's Parisian architectures, these 21st century subversive shopping centres are created through appropriation and adaptation premised on consumption. But they are irregular, rogue Afropolitan architectures.

Paper short abstract:

Urban plans, regulations, state and formal private sector investments continue to address idealized notions of what urban planning, urban living, heritage conservation, and cities, "should be", unable to empathize with new urbanities in the areas where the majorities of city dwellers live.

Paper long abstract:

This paper addresses the urbanization, urbanism, and urbanity in contemporary Maputo, with an emphasis on built heritage issues. The research aimed to provide background for understanding the urban development of the so-called "cidade de cimento" ("formal city") and the role of the colonial administration relative to informal processes of urban expansion in the suburban area (the location for lower-income, indigenous and "assimilated" groups), which led to the consolidation of a dual planning regime during the second half of the 20th century. Like other Sub-Saharan cities of colonial genesis, the city built by the colonial masters is now only a small part of the city, as the vast (i)n(f)ormal areas house up to 80% of the urban population. Formal and informal city, formal and informal strategies of survival, constitutes entangled and dependent realities. Urban plans, regulations, state and formal private sector investments, however, continue to address (Western) idealized notions of what urban planning, urban living, heritage conservation, and cities, "should be", eluding the conditions for implementation of such visions, and unable to empathize with new urbanities in the areas where the majorities of city dwellers live. The maintenance of this coloniality of space and power, we argue, stems not only from structural difficulties, but also from the (mis)understandings of "development" conveyed by the national elites. This raises the questions that underlie the research: How do these cities manage their strong modern heritage today? How do they bridge conflicts between the protection of urban ensembles, urban development and contemporary urban aspirations?