Paper short abstract:

Using Lilongwe as an illustrative example, this paper highlights an important problematic in how the relationship between urban governance and financial investment in African cities is being understood by mainstream spatial policy, and how it functions in practice to bring forward new developments.

Paper long abstract:

Privately held capital continues to be heralded as a crucial resource for bridging the so called ‘infrastructure-gap’ in African cities. Increasingly, efforts are being made to encourage private sector actors and city authorities to work together in bringing forward new projects. Reviewing existing literatures on the relationship between spatial governance and capital investment in the urban however, this paper points to an important disconnect in prevailing logics. On the one hand, increasing attention is being paid to the way in which city governments and their development partners are overtly Territorialising the urban via policy as they attempt to connect into (and thus reap the benefits of) regional and international flows of privately held capital and resources. Meanwhile, close analyses of how private-led urban development projects actually get brought forward are highlighting the varying and complex ways in which private actors are involved in an ongoing De/Re-territorialisation of the urban as it is rendered investable. These processes involve considerably more complex forms of private speculation on the future than can be accounted for in the currently dominant policy regimes. And yet, these speculations also rely heavily upon the agency and support of various government actors who elsewhere maintain a commitment to such regimes. Using Malawi’s capital city, Lilongwe, as an illustrative example of this problematic, the paper argues for critical engagement with the specific kinds of governable urban territory which are emerging through speculations on the future involving a host of governance actors.