Loading Events

Cities in transition: unequal innovation in African cities

Event type: UT
Date: 31/01/2018

Urban Transformations Workshop
Cape Town, 31st January 2018

Download the full programme here. An edited volume of contributions, based on the presentations around the event, is forthcoming: for more information, please contact Andreza de Souza Santos at andreza.desouzasantos@compas.ox.ac.uk. 

When post-apartheid South Africa faces the challenges imposed by informal settlements, energy transition, living experiences of inequality, legacies of prejudice and hate, food scarcity and poverty, natural hazards, infrastructure and economic change, waste management, governance innovation and sanitation, society finds no ready enemy to blame. Ranging from community-led or state-centred growth, to evidence-based sites of policy innovation, cities seem too commonly ‘emergent’, at times a model to other African cities, and yet too often characterised by short-lived projects that do not live up to their expectations.

This workshop invites currently funded ESRC projects to consider contemporary discussions of South African cities and their interaction with other African metropolises using a multi-disciplinary perspective that combines environmental, social, economic and political research. It offers an opportunity for projects that are linked to a single ESRC research stream both to air early findings and network with other projects in the ESRC Urban Transformations programme. Papers should combine research challenges and outcomes when discussing contemporary urban problems.