Urban planning in most African cities has not only remained colonial but largely focuses on attracting foreign investors and tourists at the expense of meeting the needs of local citizens. The way commodities move from production areas to urban centres should be an integral component of urban planning. That will enable local authorities to answer questions like how much space do we set aside for handling potatoes, tubers, pulses, fresh vegetables, live chickens, goats and cattle? How much space do we set aside for manufacturing commodities from food systems? How much space do we set aside for traditional medical practice? These questions can only inform African urban planning if urban planners have an intimate understanding of how food systems are part of urban entrepreneurship and livelihoods.
Top-down urban planning is no longer fit for purpose
African big cities like Harare are characterized by contested narratives of world city ideals and urban informality. The world class mindset is driven by the elite who care about aesthetic standards that exclude social equity and inclusivity. A typical example is the new Mbare market in Harare which has been designed to exclude rather than include traders who have earned a livelihood in Mbare market for decades. While city planners and policymakers envision a modern, orderly, and globally competitive metropolis, the lived realities of street traders reveal a city shaped by improvisation, exclusion, and everyday survival. There is clearly a disconnect between top-down world-class city ideals and bottom-up practices of everyday urbanism.
Avenues for integrating all voices in urban planning
Rather than imposing plans from above, including the voices of all actors will enable local authorities to plan the city as a co-produced urban space where state-led aspirations and informal practices collide, intersect, and reshape one another. That can only happen if several actors are involved in urban planning. In the case of Harare, the following voices should be integrated into the urban planning process:
- Traders and vendors who specialize in particular commodities and value chains like potatoes, tomatoes, vegetables, grains, fruits, chickens, goats and many others. These actors have unique undocumented knowledge on sources of commodities, consumption patterns and quantities that can be handled in a city without causing food waste or food safety challenges.
- Traders who import fruits from South Africa, those who import Kapenta from Tanzania and Zambia as well as those who specialize in second-hand clothing. All these have unique challenges and insights that can inform urban planning.
- Traditional medical practitioners who have been marginalized for decades although they play a key role in ensuring the health of citizens. If modern pharmacies, clinics and hospitals can be given proper spaces in which to conduct their businesses, why can’t the same be done for traditional medical practitioners?
- Traders who specialize in green mealies and sugar cane which require large open spaces.
- Traders who bring raw fruits for ripening in the city close to consumers. Due to the absence of ripening facilities and adequate space, ripening of fruits happens in unhygienic spaces.
Toward human-centred urban planning
Without sufficient consultation, residents and traders will view Harare’s “world-class city” agenda as an oppressive vision to be resisted, yet the right approaches can provide space for human-centred, lived engagements with urban aspiration. Evidence from big territorial markets provide a nuanced understanding of how market actors can be a rich source of knowledge on urban planning rather than local authorities depending on a one-sided imported visions of urbanization which mimics western cities. Urban planning should not just be about implementing large scale infrastructure projects, industrial and commercial real estate development. Urban transformation should recognize the agency of ordinary people—including slum dwellers, informal traders, and other marginalized urban actors—in shaping cities through their lived experiences, entrepreneurship and survival strategies.
New sources of urban inspiration
That African cities like Harare, Lusaka, Nairobi, Kampala and many others are grappling with the tension between inherited colonial spatial legacies and new challenges posed by informality, is beyond question. To what extent should Harare and other Global South cities continue to look elsewhere for urban inspiration, given the rich tapestry of hybrid urbanism taking place in their backyards as shown by the dynamics in territorial markets? A truly world-class city should be one that embraces its complexities, values its informal economies like territorial markets, and prioritizes the well-being of all its inhabitants, not just the privileged few. That requires a paradigm shift which recognizes informality not as a problem to be eradicated but as a legitimate and integral part of the future of cities.
Charles@knowledgetransafrica.com / charles@emkambo.co.zw /
Website: www.emkambo.co.zw / www.knowledgetransafrica.com
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