Paper short abstract:

This paper is a preliminary exploration of regimes of value and visions for the future proposed by China-funded urban projects for the African city of tomorrow. It explores how these are espoused, appropriated, or rather contested by the city dwellers of Nairobi.

Paper long abstract:

China-led infrastructural projects have fostered the rapid urbanisation of Sub-Saharan Africa, yet the development of African cities remains contested. In Nairobi, Kenya, China’s massive financing of housing and connective infrastructure is radically propelling new ways of planning and dwelling in the city, often at the expense of the urban poor. These mega projects involve slum clearance, urban relocation, and new forms of habitation – high-rise living and gated communities – which are transforming the social fabric of the city and furthering existing social inequality.

This paper is a preliminary exploration of regimes of value and visions for the future proposed by China-funded urban projects for the African city of tomorrow. To theorise these urban transformations the paper investigates the interplay of new practices of planning and dwelling in Nairobi. It explores China-funded urban models in Nairobi and assesses how these infrastructural projects and expertise are producing new forms of urban governance as well as how these are espoused, appropriated, or rather contested by city dwellers according to their own dwelling practices, future aspirations, and visions of development, as well as possibilities for mobilisation.

Paper short abstract:

Through an actor-centered approach, this presentation aims to shed light on developers’ strategies and practices in the making of the land and real estate market in the metropolitan peripheries of Abidjan, from the negotiation of land value to lots and buildings’ sale.

Paper long abstract:

Greater Abidjan metropolitan peripheries are subject to very strong land and real estate pressure, while land commodification is very recent and yet to be regulated. Agricultural small towns and villages are facing the creation of an “economy of urbanization”, with dedicated economic sectors and jobs: developers, land sellers, real estate agencies, intermediaries, land surveyors, urban services, construction workers, etc. Land commodification and this new “economy of urbanization” are quickly changing actors’ interactions, hierarchies and behaviors at local scale.

Developers of various sizes are the key actors of this new economy. They organize the land market by dividing up, preparing and trading parcels. They are at the same time expanding the urban frontier and coordinating the professionalization of various new actors emerging in this economy of urbanization. They are becoming intermediaries between State urban authorities who try to plan for metropolitan expansion through these new allotments and local customary powers who feel weakened by land commodification.

Therefore, an actor-centered approach appears particularly relevant to understand the organization of developers’ strategies and practices. Scholars often study African urban production through speculative urbanism, urban megaprojects and financialization, which occurs mainly in metropolitan centers and target the top end of the market. Studying developers’ practices on metropolitan peripheries could on the contrary help better understand the ordinary land and real estate market the vast majority of the population is using and inventing everyday. This presentation aims to shed light on recent debates on the supposed standardization of urbanization processes in the African cities.

Paper short abstract:

The presentation explains how Cape Town and Johannesburg brand themselves as attractive world cities. It uncovers the strategies applied by urban policy makers and calls their sustainability into question.

Paper long abstract:

Cities engage in branding to present themselves as attractive locations. Some seek to gain recognition as world cities this way. The presentation identifies liveable environments with inclusive societies, events/mega-events and iconic architecture as key components of such strategies. These thoughts are applied to Cape Town and Johannesburg. The former brands itself as an ‘opportunity city’. It fits well into world city making through attraction as a place to live and work, and a related focus on the knowledge elite. The revitalised inner city with a nearby world-class waterfront and natural beauty are Cape Town's hallmarks. Social inclusiveness is not, in any way, part of Cape Town's branding strategy. Johannesburg, meanwhile, presents itself as the ‘gateway’ to Africa against the backdrop of infrastructures for communication, finance and transport. It neglects the soft location advantages that are crucial to Cape Town. At the same time, South Africa's largest city ties social inclusiveness much better to its branding efforts. The presentation closes with critical remarks on the sustainability of the branding strategies of Cape Town and Johannesburg, and thoughts on their downsides (in particular environmental and social issues).

Paper short abstract:

Urban growth concentrates financial flows. The paper analyses economic rationales, creation of value and land ownership uses of less studied city builders: businessmen, civil servants, households, land companies who invest in land and anticipate the city to come in the periphery of Nairobi in Kenya.

Paper long abstract:

In Kenya, forty to sixty kilometres from the capital city Nairobi, beacons, fences, barbed wire, walls, tree alignments, thorn bushes shape the landscape. These boundary markers reveal the dynamics of land acquisition and subdivision into small plots in rural districts. Cultivated or natural land are used for property development, individual construction, and, most importantly, land hoarding and speculation. Urban studies and most approaches to measure the world’s urbanisation take little account of these still uninhabited bare land where money flows. They focus on already built-up areas and certain groups of investors: real estate companies, state actors, investors mobilising large amounts of money, and acquiring large areas of land etc. They take less account of ordinary actors of land transactions and city-making: businessmen, civil servants, households, small land purchase companies who invest their money and anticipate the city to come. This paper will examine the creation of value and land ownership uses - to save money, to fend off commercial activities, to build housing, to access credit, to resell to urbanites etc. Urban growth concentrates financial flows from a diversity of actors inducing speculation and land pressure. This paper is based on an ethnographic survey since 2019 anchored in these territories in Kenya. We have followed more than fifty buyers and sellers to understand their logics of investment, speculation and accumulation around land value. A photographic apparatus was also set up to narrate these circuits of money and to shed light on these upcoming cities.

Paper short abstract:

Many urban challenges are attributed to conflicting rationalities among spatial decision-makers and local communities. Therefore, this paper explores the rationalities regarding the quality of life guiding spatial decision-makers in comparison with poor and vulnerable communities in South Africa.

Paper long abstract:

Deep conflicts exist between governing authorities, markets and “ordinary citizens”. Each of these role-players often hold different interests and follow a different logic in their view of and vision towards a “good and happy” urban settlement. These conflicting rationalities are regarded as one of the key obstacles in overcoming the quality of life challenges faced by poor and vulnerable communities in South Africa. This paper, subsequently, explores the rationalities regarding the quality of life that guide spatial decision-makers in comparison with that of poor and vulnerable communities in South Africa. A storyline analysis was firstly employed to explore the underlining rationality, apropos to the quality of life, within South African directives guiding spatial decision-making. Secondly, a case study analysis was utilised to explore the rationality regarding the quality of life in 8 low-income communities in South Africa through semi-structured interviews. The data for both analyses were respectively reduced through deductive coding on ATLAS.ti. To consider the different, and possible conflicting, rationalities, the findings of the two analyses were juxtaposed. The research concluded that the conflict in rationality between spatial decision-makers and the South African poor mainly stem from a neglect in appreciating and making allowance for the sheer diversity of the South African urban landscape.

Paper short abstract:

Private investors constructed many rental housing units in an unplanned settlement. These entrepreneurial landlords speculated with low-cost housing under extra-legal conditions. Local estate agents´ work was supportive, socially motivated and driven by responsebility towards destitute tenants.

Paper long abstract:

The ethnographic study was conducted in the unplanned settlement of Adjahui,

which is located in Port Bouët municipality of the Abidjan metropolis, Côte d’Ivoire,

where, after a short period of self-building activities, rental housing was constructed

on a massive scale. We asked about the motivations behind these investments into the

lowest price segment of rentals in Abidjan and their property management. Findings

from interviews with 12 estate agents revealed that small-scale private investors from

the middle class and West African migrant background speculated with low-cost

housing under extra-legal conditions to accumulate or maintain their wealth. These

entrepreneurial landlords delegated construction of courtyard houses and property

management to local non-accredited estate agencies. While the deals between

investors and estate agents were driven by profit, the occupational history of the estate

agents showed how they randomly moved into this business. Their work was also

socially motivated, as they expressed responsibility for their customers, who could not

afford other rental housing. The paper will discuss how the investments reduced the

quantitative deficit in low-cost rental housing.

Paper short abstract:

The paper offers a reading of Janoob Al Hizam (Khartoum, Sudan) as a territory where overlapping land value systems are experienced spatially. It constitutes them as spatial forms of resistance to secure land access through community mobilization at the intersection of land and resistance.

Paper long abstract:

Over the past five decades the peri-urban landscape of Khartoum has been drastically (re)shaped by state-led planning strategies and humanitarian responses that concentrate in and around old villages, agricultural lands, and informal settlements. Located south of Khartoum’s city center and originally inhabited by agropastoral communities, it is known by its inhabitants as ‘Janoob Al Hizam (1)’ (South of the Belt). The city which has been built here stems from multiple histories of urban displacement and in-migration due to desertification, drought, and armed conflict since the 1970s. Despite the state’s efforts to develop land policies that enable displaced communities to own land through titling and land registration driven by market logics, this contribution sheds light on the overlapping value systems that are attributed to land by its inhabitants. By mobilizing critical mapping as a methodology, the paper offers a reading of Janoob Al Hizam as a territory where these overlapping attributions to land and means to access it are experienced spatially, foregrounding what has risen in the interstices of state-and humanitarian-led schemes. The research constitutes them as spatial forms of resistance to secure land access through community mobilization and are characterized as enactments of urban citizenship at the intersection of land and resistance.

(1) referring to the once green belt (a forested landscape) which demarcated the extent of Khartoum’s expansion until the 1960s. From the 1970s onward, it became the location where resettlement schemes were planned for displaced communities and the urban poor away from the city center.

Paper short abstract:

This proposal aims at showing the diversity of the builders’ profiles in Khartum, through the lens of their building materials use. By describing their different strategies, it will shed light on the daily material making of the Sudanese capital city.

Paper long abstract:

Khartum has known a construction boom in the 2000s and 2010s, mainly linked to the exploitation of petrol resources, but also to the attraction of foreign investments, especially from the Gulf countries. However, the vertical and horizontal growth of the city results from the action of a wide diversity of actors.

By this proposal, I would like to question the rationales and strategies of the different builders – from the individual building his own house to the architect working for big investors – through their building materials choices (traditional red brick, industrial brick or cement block). These choices depend on several factors (price, technical characteristics, habit, subjective representations) and highlight the way these builders picture themselves in the city.

I would argue that these different case studies (according to the localisation, the type of building…), provide a precise insight in the daily making of Khartum. For instance, the debates on the building materials seem to be a relevant entry point to study the relationship between the clients and the architects or the contractors. What are their priorities? What are the « good » building practices according to them?

This proposal relies on a fieldwork of several months led in Khartoum between February 2020 and May 2022. I led a multisited ethnography of construction and of building materials production, marketing and use in the Sudanese capital city, by directing around a hundred interviews with actors at every step of the red brick supply chain (workers, producers, drivers, suppliers, architects, inhabitants, contractors…).