TY - JOUR AU - Lwasa, Shuaib PY - 2012/05/31 Y2 - 2024/03/29 TI - Planning innovation for better urban communities in sub-Saharan Africa: The education challenge and potential responses JF - Town and Regional Planning JA - trp VL - 60 IS - 0 SE - Research articles DO - 10.38140/trp.v60i0.499 UR - https://journals.ufs.ac.za/index.php/trp/article/view/499 SP - 38-48 AB - <p>Cities in the sub-Saharan Africa region present challenges to the urban and regional&nbsp;planning profession, city managers, leaders, educationists and dwellers (Rakodi, 1997,&nbsp;2001; McGill, 1988; Diaw, Nnkya &amp; Watson, 2002). This is at a time when Africa is urbanising&nbsp;faster than any other region (UN-Habitat, 2008), calling for a rethinking of planning to&nbsp;respond to existing needs. Although the current urbanisation level is at 39.1% (UN-Habitat,&nbsp;2008), it is projected to increase to over 50% by 2025. This outstanding demographic shift&nbsp;on the African continent and particularly in the sub-Saharan region presents current and&nbsp;future urban challenges. In addition to the future challenges, the unresolved question&nbsp;as to whether existing and much utilised models of urban development offer solutions&nbsp;to the planning needs in the region should be investigated, although it is important to&nbsp;recognise the failures of locally designed initiatives. The models have been critiqued widely&nbsp;(Brockerhoff, 2000; Arimah &amp; Adeagbo, 2000) and this is not the focus of this article. However,&nbsp;it is necessary to recognise that the planning profession has relied on these models through&nbsp;the planning education system. Notwithstanding the challenges of resources, leadership,&nbsp;and political dispensations, planning education systems have played a role in influencing&nbsp;and shaping urban development in the region. Although planning models have been&nbsp;critiqued, planning education systems have received less attention in respect of their&nbsp;role in influencing the development pathways of cities in sub-Saharan Africa. Likewise,&nbsp;planning education systems have not adequately been viewed as points of entry in&nbsp;planning innovation for new urban Africa. Drawing from experiences of cities in the region,&nbsp;two urban development processes can be discerned: first, the explosion of some cities&nbsp;particularly former colonial administrative or economic hubs and, second, the fast growth&nbsp;of secondary cities. There are also many small rural trading centres and ‘hamlets’ with&nbsp;densities comparable to neighbourhoods of the large-cities. The latter, conceptualised&nbsp;in this article as urbanisation by implosion, is not properly accounted for in the national&nbsp;statistical reports. Several drivers are responsible for this urbanisation, including population&nbsp;dynamics, legislative designation, and increasing densities in rural trading centres. The&nbsp;challenges of social service provision, sustainable economic development, housing&nbsp;delivery, urban governance, spatial development guidance and urban environmental&nbsp;management are yet to be thoroughly analysed and rethought in planning education in&nbsp;the context of addressing the existing needs. This article examines the planning education&nbsp;system and how it has influenced the nature and shape of cities in sub-Saharan Africa, the&nbsp;outcome of which may not have substantively responded to existing needs. This article&nbsp;will also identify possible points of innovation in planning education that may create a&nbsp;difference in addressing the existing needs in sub-Saharan Africa.&nbsp;</p> ER -