tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/urbanisation-1/articlesUrbanisation – The Conversation2024-03-11T17:18:44Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2211762024-03-11T17:18:44Z2024-03-11T17:18:44ZHow urbanisation – and Hinduisation – is stripping India’s indigenous communities of their cultural heritage<p>In the Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra state, in western India, villagers from the Gond Adivasi (or indigenous) tribe have been <a href="https://thewire.in/rights/independence-mining-gadchiroli-adivasi-protest-maharashtra">protesting</a> since September 2023. </p>
<p>Six mines are set to be built on ancestral Gondi lands. These lands are protected under the Forest Rights Act of 2006. And yet, the protesters have faced harsh treatment from the police. If the mines do go ahead, as many as 50,000 people could be forced from their homes.</p>
<p>Over the past decades, across India, rampant urbanisation and industrialisation has seen increasing numbers of Adivasi communities internally <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ghazala-Shahabuddin/publication/279944367_Conservation-induced_Displacement_Recent_Persectives_from_India/links/55a763a908ae410caa752dd3/Conservation-induced-Displacement-Recent-Perspectives-from-India.pdf">displaced</a>. Cities including Mumbai, Goa, Delhi, Jammu and Jaipur now account for over a third of the country’s population. </p>
<p>Since 2011, <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-319-77971-3">I have investigated</a> how this rural-urban migration is affecting the Gond Adivasis.
The Gondi homelands – also known as Gondwana – traditionally stretch across central India, encompassing parts of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Jharkhand, Bihar and west Bengal. </p>
<p>Beyond threats from mining and other heavy industry, the creation of the nature reserves has also led to Gondi communities losing access to their lands. In 1994, the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/357331915_The_Inter-Linking_of_Rivers_and_Biodiversity_Conservation_A_Study_of_Panna_Tiger_Reserve_Madhya_Pradesh_India">Panna Tiger Reserve</a> was established in Madhya Pradesh. Adivasis there are increasingly unable to earn a living by traditional means, hunting, fishing and artisanal mining in the forest. </p>
<p>Along with the loss of knowledge and skills associated with these forest-based livelihoods, Gondi urban migrants also experience a process of Hinduisation. In the city, they often feel pressured to adopt Hindu customs and rituals, in order to fit in and find work. </p>
<h2>Urban Hinduisation</h2>
<p>Since embarking on my doctoral research in 2011, I have tracked the movements of up to 50 Gond families originating from Manor village, in Madhya Pradesh. Gonds have told me of feeling forced to migrate because staying in their villages puts them at risk of debt and hunger. </p>
<p>Many young Gonds see city jobs as a way to regain dignity and autonomy. They also prefer work that doesn’t tie them down to one employer and provides immediate cash.</p>
<p>Urban jobs pay significantly more – up to three times more – than <a href="http://www.southasianist.ed.ac.uk/article/view/30">rural government schemes</a>. Where rural programs are often beset by delays and require a lot of effort for people to get paid, city jobs sometimes also offer advances. People are better able to cover basic expenses like medical bills, education and getting married.</p>
<p>Migrant workers mainly find employment in the construction sector. This means they migrate for long periods at a time. They are reliant on urban middle-class employers, who are largely Hindu landed-elites referred to as Thakurs and known as Rajputs. </p>
<p>The Gonds I have interviewed speak about feeling pressured to follow the Rajput customs and traditions to fit in and to find work. They take part in mainstream festivals and rituals. They make offerings and donations to maintain the idols in local <a href="https://www.focaalblog.com/tag/india/">street shrines</a> dedicated to Lord Hanuman, Sai Baba and Ganesha. </p>
<p>As one man I spoke with, Deepak, told me:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I came to the city to work in construction, like many Gonds. Back in our village, we followed our traditional Gondi religion, but here, we participate in Hindu festivals and visit temples to fit in, even incorporating Hindu deities into our rituals. We often visit temples like the Hanuman Mandir and the Lakshmi Narayan Temple, where we offer prayers to Hanuman and Lakshmi. We also incorporate worship of Ganesha and Durga into our religious practices.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>A long history of disadvantage</h2>
<p>As well as religious dominance, Hindu values dominate the Indian urban landscape, culturally, socially and politically. This extends to clothing styles, dietary habits and language nuances.</p>
<p>I have found a broader assimilation into Hindu cultural norms among Gond migrant workers. Women wear the Hindu bindi and scarfing, rather than traditional Gondi attire of just a long cotton drape and nothing much to cover their tops and back. As one young Gond mother, Priya, told me in 2023:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Living in the city, I’ve noticed how Hindu customs influence everything, from our work to our festivals. Embracing these customs has become part of our journey to stability and opportunities in urban areas. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Gonds in urban communities watch TV, use the internet and enjoy Hindi movies, thus adopting Hindu values. Here too, this isn’t just about passive cultural influences. Rather, actively adopting Hindu culture is closely tied to economic survival and the desire for a better social standing among migrant communities. </p>
<p>“Hinduism has become a trend,” an older Gond man, Vishram, told me in 2022, “but also something we need to keep up with so we don’t fall behind”. </p>
<p>Urban Hinduisation is a modern phenomenon. The process, however, has ancient roots. </p>
<p>The Indian constitution recognises over 700 scheduled tribes, of which the Gonds are one. Scheduled tribes refer to Adivasi communities that have been historically marginalised and disadvantaged in Indian society. These tribes often reside in remote or rural areas, with limited access to basic amenities, education, healthcare and employment.</p>
<p>Throughout India’s history, the process of Hinduisation has resulted in discrimination and untouchability within the caste system, a phenomenon commonly referred to as “<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09713336231157802?icid=int.sj-abstract.citing-articles.1">casteism</a>” by social scientists. </p>
<p>Gonds and other Adivasi communities have particularly from caste-based discrimination, which Hinduism has played a significant role in perpetuating. It has historically legitimised hierarchical social structures and inequalities. As a result, Gonds and other Adivasis are often socially marginalised. They face economic exploitation. They have limited access to resources and opportunities within Indian society.</p>
<p>In adapting, culturally and religiously, to Hinduism, Gond Adivasis are experiencing the loss of their intangible cultural heritage. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.ijssh.org/vol6/659-B20003.pdf">Gondi religion</a> is animistic. Gonds who live in the villages around the Panna reserve worship the goddess <a href="https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10107021/7/Runacres_10107021_thesis_sig_removed.pdf">Kher mata</a>, said to take the form of a rock in the forest. Elsewhere, Adivasis worship gods <a href="https://archive.org/details/TheTouristWelcomedTheAdivasiExiled">thought to dwell</a> in mountains, hills and rivers. </p>
<p>These belief systems in turn make the landscape itself sacred. As another interviewee Vikram said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It’s disheartening to witness the decline of priceless indigenous knowledge systems centred on harmonising with forest animals and resources — a heritage bestowed upon us by our ancestors. This is our legacy. Without such wisdom, our heritage fades, and with it, our identity slips into oblivion.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221176/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Smytta Yadav does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Urbanisation in India is causing Adivasi communities to lose connections to ancestral lands – and to traditional knowledge and belief systems. Urban Hinduisation plays a big role in this.Smytta Yadav, Research Fellow in Social Anthropology, University of SussexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2230482024-02-27T14:07:04Z2024-02-27T14:07:04ZBenefits of using cleaner cooking fuels are blunted in urban areas where outdoor air is polluted: findings from Ghana, Cameroon and Kenya<p>Household air pollution from cooking, heating and lighting with fuels like wood, charcoal and kerosene poses a substantial global health problem. </p>
<p>Globally, <a href="https://www.who.int/news/item/20-01-2022-who-publishes-new-global-data-on-the-use-of-clean-and-polluting-fuels-for-cooking-by-fuel-type">2 billion</a> people cook with polluting fuels and are exposed to high levels of household air pollution. The highest proportion live in sub-Saharan Africa, where <a href="https://www.nihr.ac.uk/news/new-research-could-help-boost-growth-of-clean-cooking-in-sub-saharan-africa/29340#:%7E:text=Approximately%20900%20million%20people%20cook,health%2Ddamaging%20and%20climate%20pollutants">about 900 million</a> people cook with polluting fuels.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(20)30197-2/fulltext">Studies</a> have shown that use of cleaner cooking fuels, like electricity, ethanol and liquefied petroleum gas, reduces exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5), a damaging pollutant. But <a href="https://ehjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12940-021-00756-5">other studies</a> have also shown that the use of cleaner cooking fuels doesn’t necessarily reduce PM2.5 levels in people’s homes.</p>
<p>To understand why, our research looked at three rapidly urbanising communities in Cameroon (Mbalmayo), Ghana (Obuasi) and Kenya (Eldoret). We looked at differences in air pollutant levels across cooking fuel types as well as other environmental factors. We measured levels of PM2.5 as well as carbon monoxide (CO), another damaging air pollutant. </p>
<p>Half of the households that were part of our study were mostly cooking with LPG, which is considered a cleaner cooking fuel. The other half were cooking only with polluting fuels, including wood and charcoal.</p>
<p>Our findings showed that the type of cooking fuel households used did indeed affect levels of pollution inside people’s homes. But we found wide disparities between the three communities. For example, there was hardly any difference in average PM2.5 exposures between LPG and charcoal users in the Ghanaian setting. However, in the Kenyan and Cameroonian communities, women’s average PM2.5 levels were much higher among those cooking with wood, compared with those cooking with LPG. In Eldoret, Kenya, women cooking with charcoal were also exposed to substantially higher levels than those cooking with LPG. </p>
<p>We concluded from our results that this could be explained by the fact that environmental factors were also at play – air pollution levels outside people’s homes. In the Ghanaian area, outdoor air pollution levels were around double the levels in the other two communities. This difference is likely due in part to <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1352231099002964?via%3Dihub">increased levels</a> of Saharan dust in Ghana during the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/harmattan">harmattan</a> season. </p>
<p>In addition, most women in the Ghanaian setting usually cooked outdoors on a veranda. This increased their exposure to outdoor air pollution. In contrast, women in Kenya and Cameroon typically cooked indoors.</p>
<p>We also found that women, regardless of the cooking fuel they used, had higher exposure to PM2.5 if they lived closer to a busy road (less than a five minute walk away) and travelled outdoors during the day. This suggested that traffic emissions probably made up a substantial proportion of the air pollution that women were breathing in these urban areas. And emissions generated from cooking might have contributed less to overall PM2.5 exposures. </p>
<p>This may explain why there were minimal differences between PM2.5 exposures among women using LPG and charcoal stoves in the Ghanaian community, despite LPG stoves generally emitting lower levels of PM2.5. It follows that, in some areas with rapid urbanisation, outdoor air pollution is probably lowering the ability of clean cooking fuels to reduce PM2.5 exposures. </p>
<h2>What next</h2>
<p>As cities continue to urbanise and the African population increasingly migrates to cities, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-023-01311-2">evidence</a> points to the fact that localised levels of air pollution from industrial sources, traffic, and trash burning are likely to increase. This means that people will become increasingly exposed to air pollutants outdoors and that reductions in PM2.5 exposure that happens when people switch from polluting fuels to LPG may be lower. </p>
<p>Our findings show that clean cooking fuels can reduce indoor air pollution. However, a focus on reducing indoor pollution by switching cooking fuels may only have a limited effect on people’s exposure to damaging air pollutants. Our findings point to the need for developing strategies for reducing both indoor and outdoor air pollution levels. Lower outdoor PM2.5 concentrations can be achieved through stricter regulations on traffic emissions and limiting or eliminating trash burning in favour of less polluting methods for solid waste disposal.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, efforts to encourage a transition towards clean cooking fuels should remain an important policy priority, particularly in communities that are exposed to lower levels of outdoor PM2.5. The transition to clean cooking fuels can potentially have a greater health benefit in these settings. </p>
<p>A more targeted approach and prioritising certain areas in the drive for access to cleaner cooking fuels makes sense. As the <a href="https://cleancooking.org/">Clean Cooking Alliance</a> has pointed out, there are limited resources and funding to tackle the move towards cleaner cooking fuels. Targeting specific areas for clean cooking transitions may therefore be a useful strategy. </p>
<p>In the meantime, the global health community must devote more resources to providing universal access to clean cooking by 2030 <a href="https://www.unep.org/explore-topics/sustainable-development-goals/why-do-sustainable-development-goals-matter/goal-7">(United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 7)</a>].</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223048/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Shupler is also a researcher in the Department of Public Health, Policy and Systems at the University of Liverpool. This research was funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) (ref: 17/63/155) using UK aid from
the UK Government to support global health research. The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NIHR or the UK government.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Esong Miranda Baame and Theresa Tawiah do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Dust and traffic pollution add to the health hazard posed by some cooking fuels.Matthew Shupler, Postdoctoral Research Associate in Environmental Public Health, Harvard UniversityEsong Miranda Baame, PhD Candidate, Université de DschangTheresa Tawiah, Health Economist ,Department of Environmental Health, Kintampo Health Research CenterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2207402024-02-07T13:26:16Z2024-02-07T13:26:16ZGhana: Kumasi city’s unplanned boom is destroying two rivers – sewage, heavy metals and chemical pollution detected<p>Ghana’s urban population has <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/opinion/2015/05/14/rising-through-cities-in-ghana-the-time-for-action-is-now-to-fully-benefit-from-the-gains-of-urbanization">more than tripled</a> in the past three decades, from 4 million to nearly 14 million people. Competition for land in cities has increased among various land uses. These trends have led to encroachment in ecologically sensitive areas such as wetlands.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Kumasi">Kumasi</a>, Ghana’s second largest city, has a high level of encroachment and this has led to the pollution of water bodies. Kumasi’s population growth has been rapid because of its central and strategic location and its functions as a major commercial, traditional and administrative centre. In 2022, the <a href="https://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities/kumasi-population">population of Kumasi</a> was 3,630,326 with a growth rate of 4.02%. The city’s growth puts pressure on its natural assets.</p>
<p>As scholars of urban planning and chemistry, we conducted a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19463138.2022.2146121">study</a> in the <a href="https://www.luspa.gov.gh/media/plan/EIJR13206_Greater_Kumasi_01.pdf">greater Kumasi metropolis</a> to understand the extent of encroachment and pollution of two rivers, Subin and Wiwi. We wanted to understand how cities can be developed and functional without destroying natural resources. We also wanted to know more about the extent of water pollution, land-use dynamics and water resources regulations, and how they influence the quality of water resources. </p>
<p>We found that people were building homes in informal settlements along the rivers. Liquid and solid waste was being dumped into the rivers. People were using land on the river banks for agriculture and industrial activities, which had a negative effect on water quality. </p>
<p>We recommend that the city authorities monitor what is happening better and do more to prevent degradation of Kumasi’s water bodies.</p>
<h2>Effects of land use on the quality of water bodies</h2>
<p>We discovered that, in the greater Kumasi metropolis, more land alongside the rivers was being used for industrial, residential and commercial purposes than for green spaces. City authorities were ineffective in controlling development in these areas despite the fact that <a href="https://www.luspa.gov.gh/media/document/ZONING_GUIDELINES_final_DESIGN.pdf">Ghana’s zoning guidelines</a> say there should be a buffer of 100 feet (30 metres) along water bodies. </p>
<p>Land values in Kumasi are increasing due to rapid urban growth, but values are lower for wetlands. This difference has contributed to city residents building in wetlands. Also, the intense pressure of urbanisation on the available land has resulted in a <a href="https://www.modernghana.com/news/483045/wetlands-in-kumasi-metropolis-under-siege.html">high level of encroachment</a> in wetlands. The study revealed that 35.4% of the land uses within the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/figure/River-Wiwi-and-some-other-streams-that-drain-the-Kumasi-Metropolis-Department-of_fig2_257939998">River Wiwi</a> buffers were residential development. </p>
<p>This research further confirmed that the Wiwi and Subin rivers had been heavily polluted with faecal coliforms over the years. <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/nursing-and-health-professions/fecal-coliform">Coliform counts</a> are an indicator of possible faecal contamination, and reflect hygiene standards. </p>
<p>The mean of the coliform counts surpassed the limits of 400 total coliforms/100ml and 10 faecal coliforms/100ml allowed by the <a href="https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9241546743">World Health Organization standard</a>. The two rivers are extremely polluted with faecal matter. </p>
<p>The research also confirmed that heavy metals in the water bodies were above the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK535301/table/ch8.tab2/">WHO’s recommended standard</a> of 0.01mg/litre. For example, the average concentration of lead (Pb) recorded in the Wiwi and Subin rivers was 0.018–0.031 mg/l and 0.035–0.055, respectively. Exposure to lead is <a href="https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/lead-poisoning-and-health">dangerous</a> to health. </p>
<p>As a result of limited investment in sewage plants, most of the city’s untreated waste water is discharged into the surface water bodies. This has implications for the quality and sustainability of these water bodies. </p>
<p>The study also showed that some city residents dump their <a href="https://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/features/Resolving-dying-water-bodies-Dealing-with-waste-pollutants-through-lucrative-means-569358">waste near the city’s wetlands</a>. During heavy rains, the refuse runs off into the water, affecting water quality and flow. </p>
<p>The inability of city authorities to enforce land-use regulations and legislation has allowed people to carry out agricultural activities close to the rivers. The use of agrochemicals threatens aquatic habitats. Chemicals such as pesticides, herbicides and fertilisers are likely to seep or be washed into the rivers. The use of polluted water from the rivers for irrigation also poses a threat to human health. </p>
<p>The industrial activities along the water bodies include washing bays, auto-mechanical activities, welding and wood processing. These pose a threat of chemical pollution due to likely seepage of petroleum products into the water.</p>
<h2>Time for Kumasi to wake up</h2>
<p>The development of sustainable cities relies on the ability of city authorities to plan for social, environmental and economic growth. Urban growth can coexist with natural resources if human activities located near water bodies don’t threaten their quality and continued existence. </p>
<p>Our study shows that Kumasi has developed with little regard for its natural assets. This is a threat to the city’s sustainability. City authorities ought to put in place measures to clean the water bodies and convert buffer areas into parks and green spaces. Environmentally friendly urban agriculture can also be promoted along the water bodies. </p>
<p>Activities such as disposal of liquid and solid waste must be stopped. <a href="https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/explainers/what-is-the-polluter-pays-principle/#:%7E:text=The%20%27polluter%20pays%27%20principle%20is,human%20health%20or%20the%20environment">The “polluter must pay” principle</a> must be applied to people who contravene environmental regulations. </p>
<p>Urban centres in Ghana need a water resource management policy. Regulatory institutions such as the Physical Planning Department and the <a href="https://www.epa.gov.gh/epa/">Environmental Protection Agency</a> should be restructured and equipped to respond to emerging complex environmental problems in cities. There should be continuous environmental monitoring and regulations must be strictly enforced. The <a href="https://westindiacommittee.org/historyheritageculture/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Contents-and-Introduction.pdf">River Thames Policing model</a> in the UK can be adopted to ensure the continuous monitoring of the water bodies. To monitor and enforce the zoning regulations, city authorities and policy-makers must invest in technologies such as drones. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.luspa.gov.gh/media/document/ZONING_GUIDELINES_final_DESIGN.pdf">Zoning Guideline and Planning Standards</a> provide standard setback average distances for a buffer zone of 50–100 feet from the water bodies. We recommend that the buffer should rather be 100 feet (30 metres) away from the wetland. The wetlands are an important <a href="https://www.ramsar.org/sites/default/files/documents/library/services_00_e.pdf">ecosystem service</a> that needs to be protected. Ecologically sensitive areas that are 100 feet away from wetlands should be compulsorily acquired as natural assets for the public interest.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220740/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The inability of city authorities to enforce land-use regulations has allowed people to carry out ecologically unfriendly activities along the water bodies.Stephen Appiah Takyi, Senior Lecturer, Department of Planning, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST)Owusu Amponsah, Senior Lecturer, Department of Planning, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2177312024-01-14T12:51:29Z2024-01-14T12:51:29ZUrban Kenyans mistrust police even more than rural residents do: study sets out why it matters<p>Across the African continent – from <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2022/10/20/in-nigeria-police-brutality-on-two-years-after-endsars-protests">Nigeria</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/ghanaians-dont-trust-the-police-a-criminologist-on-what-needs-to-be-done-about-it-216671">Ghana</a> to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-safrica-protests-police-trfn-idUSKBN23G2QQ/">South Africa</a> – widespread protests have taken place to demand police reform in the wake of police misconduct and brutality. A continent-wide survey done in 2022 shows very low trust in the police and a prevailing perception of <a href="https://www.afrobarometer.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/AD512-PAP9-Citizens-report-widespread-predation-by-African-police-forces-Afrobarometer-dispatch-20march22.pdf#page=2">the police as the most corrupt</a> among key institutions.</p>
<p>Low public trust in police poses a serious problem for the most central state institution tasked with upholding law and order. Trust influences both <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10439463.2015.1077837?casa_token=lT9eMx7fNTYAAAAA%3AdNayrFpApabWcaVi3iJ3A2fZIMWBCkM9M1g6gSNg4shQZxGJbShjWG0N4scdiQzDz_btx94CIdGl">police effectiveness</a> and the <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1098611103258959?casa_token=Tb5FMa0zv0UAAAAA:_aXSde5HYiY68ovVq8SzIPufP7zx8D-nHE4RB39LCVXF0E7mcU0OhKssPhFTXYIQ4P5rk2u8Nl5h">perception of safety</a> among the public.</p>
<p>We are scholars with a longstanding research engagement with Kenya who <a href="https://www.katalog.uu.se/profile/?id=N99-1598_1">study</a> the <a href="https://www.katalog.uu.se/profile/?id=N7-1153">role of the police</a> from the perspective of conflict research and political science. In a recent <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10439463.2023.2239430">study</a>, we set out to analyse citizens’ trust in the police in Kenya. </p>
<p>We analysed data from four national surveys conducted in the country between 2011 and 2019. In each survey, respondents were asked a number of questions, including how much they trusted the police. <a href="https://www.afrobarometer.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/AD552-Kenyans-cite-criminal-activity-and-corruption-among-police-failings-Afrobarometer-16sept22-1.pdf#page=2">These surveys found</a> that Kenyans had limited trust in the police. </p>
<p>Trust, as we study it, is an individually held belief that a certain actor can be relied on. It is closely related to perceptions about fairness and legitimacy. We argue that individuals who have witnessed or experienced unfair treatment by the police are more likely to mistrust them. </p>
<p>Our <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10439463.2023.2239430">study</a> found that urban and rural residents in Kenya perceived the police differently. Those in cities and urban centres had lower trust in the police than the rural population. The findings matter because Kenya is rapidly urbanising, and the policing challenges we describe will grow with the expansion of urban centres.</p>
<p>Additionally, <a href="https://theconversation.com/kenya-has-tried-to-reform-its-police-force-but-its-left-gaps-for-abuse-176044">reform processes</a> intended to improve legitimacy and effectiveness of Kenyan policing will be more likely to succeed if there is adequate understanding of the contexts in which the police operate, and how environments shape citizens’ perceptions of the police.</p>
<h2>Understanding the differences in trust</h2>
<p>Over several years, we have conducted interviews with local residents, the police, experts and civil society actors in Kenya. Based on our research, we argue that three major dynamics help explain the urban-rural divide in police trust. </p>
<p>Firstly, the police face <a href="https://books.google.co.ke/books?hl=sv&lr=&id=HXEdAAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP2&dq=urban+policing+cities+challenges+&ots=g1cHUCy00Q&sig=EPfpfoaKqXJ3XYEwIyrVmY7BYAw&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=urban%20policing%20cities%20challenges&f=false">different security challenges</a> in urban and rural settings. Urban environments are generally more challenging than rural contexts because:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>police-citizen interactions are more frequent and visible to the public in cities</p></li>
<li><p>many different groups and interests are present in cities.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Secondly, police have been involved in <a href="https://theconversation.com/kenya-police-killings-point-to-systemic-rot-and-a-failed-justice-system-193468">extrajudicial killings</a> in urban settings. These have primarily affected poor, young men in low-income and densely populated settlements. An estimated <a href="https://unhabitat.org/sites/default/files/2023/07/kenya_country_brief_final_en.pdf#page=4">50%</a> of Kenya’s urban population will be residing in slums, as defined by UN Habitat’s <a href="https://unhabitat.org/sites/default/files/2022/06/wcr_2022.pdf#page=18">World Cities Report</a>, by 2030. It is in these types of settlements that police have become <a href="https://theconversation.com/many-kenyans-have-embraced-vigilante-cops-an-ineffective-police-force-is-to-blame-196449">notorious</a> for arbitrary arrests and use of excessive force. </p>
<p>This behaviour has negative spillover effects on the urban population and makes citizens in urban areas more likely to form negative views of the police.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/many-kenyans-have-embraced-vigilante-cops-an-ineffective-police-force-is-to-blame-196449">Many Kenyans have embraced vigilante cops – an ineffective police force is to blame</a>
</strong>
</em>
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<p>Third, the dynamics in rural settings are different from those in urban areas. In many rural locations, police are spread thin. They cover large jurisdictions and geographical distances, influencing whether and how citizens can be served. Although around 70% of Kenya’s population lives in rural areas, such areas are usually served by <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/43905012">few and often under-resourced police officers</a>. A <a href="https://icj-kenya.org/news/executive-summary-report-of-the-national-taskforce-on-police-reforms/">task force</a> reviewing ongoing police reforms recently concluded that police vehicles in rural areas don’t always have enough fuel to cover the area under jurisdiction. </p>
<p>Due to limited interactions with the police, Kenyans in rural areas are less likely to see the police as a relevant actor, for good and for bad, and are more likely to turn to other security providers. These include <a href="https://crimeresearch.go.ke/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Policing-the-Periphery-Opportunities-and-Challenges-of-Kenya-Police-Reserves-.pdf#page=17">community-based militias and vigilante groups</a>.</p>
<h2>Implications for police reforms</h2>
<p>In Kenya, law enforcement remains influenced by colonial legacies and extended periods of authoritarian rule. In colonial times, the police were used to <a href="https://theconversation.com/humiliation-and-violence-in-kenyas-colonial-days-when-old-men-were-called-boy-and-africans-were-publicly-beaten-218261">repress and control Kenyans</a>.</p>
<p>Addressing these legacies is necessary for democratic consolidation. </p>
<p>Kenya has initiated <a href="https://theconversation.com/kenya-has-tried-to-reform-its-police-force-but-its-left-gaps-for-abuse-176044">police reform</a> with the purpose of building a more legitimate and effective police force. A major reform process began in 2009, codified into the <a href="https://www.klrc.go.ke/index.php/constitution-of-kenya/158-chapter-fourteen-national-security/part-4-the-national-police-service/412-243-establishment-of-the-national-police-service">2010 constitution</a> and new <a href="http://kenyalaw.org/kl/fileadmin/pdfdownloads/Acts/NationalPoliceService(Amendment)ActNo11of2014.pdf">police legislation in 2011</a>. These processes established national policies for community policing and an independent agency to improve civilian oversight. </p>
<p>However, <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/gove.12672?casa_token=KDZIMZZyBYsAAAAA%3AjZS68xeaqMZ6ZfXIsb3Jr0XpmuJj4_YCLEn9t8AhJCKTatR7fEWNnK_ARbhsXP7aQQ-TuutQTj5H6h8">progress has been limited</a>. <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/gove.12672">Corruption</a> within the Kenyan police remains widespread and normalised. Impunity remains high. Despite an emphasis on community policing, the establishment of such structures has been <a href="https://www.semanticscholar.org/reader/68f17c94582e95f55d6faac47761d73251f89120">uneven</a>, and public awareness remains low.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/kenya-has-tried-to-reform-its-police-force-but-its-left-gaps-for-abuse-176044">Kenya has tried to reform its police force, but it's left gaps for abuse</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The need to improve police-community relations is underlined by frequent transgressions of human rights and police brutality, including over 100 <a href="https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2023-09-14-imlu-128-cases-of-extrajudicial-killings-recorded-in-11-months/">extrajudicial killings</a> documented in the last year.</p>
<p>Therefore, improving security provisions and reducing misconduct in informal settlements in urban areas should be a key priority. </p>
<p>Better oversight to address impunity would help address issues of trust, but the police also need sufficient resources to carry out policing tasks. Investing more in community policing structures – intended to serve as a link between communities and the police – could also help improve relationships and build trust.</p>
<p>Much of Kenya’s police reform is premised on addressing the most serious problems facing urban areas. While it’s important to address issues of insecurity here, reform processes must not lose sight of priorities in rural areas, where the majority of the population still reside.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217731/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kristine Höglund receives funding from the Swedish Research Council and the Formas research council for sustainable development.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emma Elfversson receives funding from the Swedish Research Council and the Formas research council for sustainable development.</span></em></p>Due to limited interactions with the police, Kenyans in rural areas are less likely to see the police as relevant actors.Kristine Höglund, Professor of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala UniversityEmma Elfversson, Associate professor, Uppsala UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2204562024-01-10T17:17:49Z2024-01-10T17:17:49ZHealthy cities aren’t a question of boring or exciting buildings but about creating better public space<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568630/original/file-20240110-27-hhywf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Interstate 5 near downtown San Diego, US.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/aerial-view-on-concrete-road-8Nn49K7Snow">Abraham Barrera|Unsplash</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The US developers of a 300ft glowing orb, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/09/developer-las-vegas-style-sphere-east-london-withdraws-plans">set to be built</a> in the middle of Stratford, east London, and accommodate upwards of 21,500 concert goers, have withdrawn their planning application. </p>
<p>Las Vegas, in the US, already boasts one such venue, known as Sphere. Citing its “extreme” disappointment at London residents not similarly benefiting from what a spokesperson said was its “groundbreaking technology and the thousands of well-paying jobs it would have created”, Madison Square Garden Entertainment (MSG) has decided the British capital is not one of the forward-thinking cities it aims to work with.</p>
<p>Campaigners have responded with glee, not least because, in response to concerns over the proposed structure’s potential noise and light pollution, developers had initially suggested they invest in blackout curtains. “Residents would be served far better by building social housing on the site,” a representative for Stop MSG Sphere London <a href="https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/campaigners-call-for-rejected-msg-sphere-site-to-be-turned-into-social-housing-84023#:%7E:text=London%20mayor%20Sadiq%20Khan%20ruled,negative%20impact%20on%20local%20residents%E2%80%9D.">reportedly said</a>. </p>
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<p>Quite how a city both caters to its residents’ needs and sustains its economy is an enduring debate. The tension is between innovation aimed at boosting investment (in this instance, in the entertainment industry) and what urban geographer <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/917-waste-and-the-city">Colin McFarlne</a> terms the “right to citylife”. </p>
<p>Projects like the Sphere sit on one extreme end of what gets built in a city. The British designer Thomas Heatherwick recently highlighted what he sees as another extreme, though no less harmful: <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/oct/19/demand-interestingness-thomas-heatherwick-rails-against-boring-buildings">“boring buildings”</a>. </p>
<p>In his new book, Humanise – a Maker’s Guide to Building Our world, Heatherwick <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/312740/humanise-by-heatherwick-thomas/9780241389799">says</a> “bland architecture” causes stress, illness, loneliness, fear, division and conflict. Research shows, however, that more than individual buildings, how the city is planned as a whole variously harms or improves people’s lives. </p>
<h2>The city as a complex system</h2>
<p>The physical and social environment of any given city are just two contributing factors in the complex system that shapes residents’ wellbeing. <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(21)00047-X/fulltext">Public health research</a> has found a positive, non-linear relationship with a higher prevalence of mental health problems in more urbanised countries, particularly for anxiety disorders. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="People ice-skating outdoors in a city." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568627/original/file-20240110-25-bcyhld.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568627/original/file-20240110-25-bcyhld.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568627/original/file-20240110-25-bcyhld.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568627/original/file-20240110-25-bcyhld.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568627/original/file-20240110-25-bcyhld.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568627/original/file-20240110-25-bcyhld.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568627/original/file-20240110-25-bcyhld.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Copenhagen: public space is the very essence of urban life.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/people-on-ice-field-during-daytime-wCP9Mk0iisU">Brian Kyed|Unsplash</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Mental health problems now account for over a third of the total burden of disease in adolescents in urban settings. <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(23)02238-9/fulltext">Research</a> shows that, for young people (a significant proportion of urban populations), health and wellbeing constitute major determinants in their future life prospects. </p>
<p>In Humanise, Heatherwick ignores this complexity. The book is a collection of thoughts, ideas, visuals and reflections on the role of contemporary architecture and architects. In it, the designer suggests that the world is facing a “global epidemic of inhuman buildings” and suggests a list of what to do and what not to do to achieve the reverse: “interesting buildings”. </p>
<p>Heatherwick sees cities as collections of buildings, of architectural objects. The problem here, of course, is that the various aesthetic merits of any given structure can be endlessly debated. </p>
<p>Some of Heatherwick’s arguments (“boring places contribute to division and war”; “boring buildings help to cause climate change”) are plainly simplistic. They also beg the question of who decides what is and what isn’t interesting. </p>
<p>As examples of interesting buildings that bolster people’s wellbeing, he cites, among others, the <a href="https://www.archdaily.com/363164/parkroyal-on-pickering-woha-2">Parkroyal Collection hotel in Singapore</a> and the <a href="https://www.ribaj.com/buildings/edgewood-mews-housing-london-north-circular-road-peter-barber-architects">Edgewood Mews housing project</a> in Finchley, north London for their generosity. </p>
<p>The first, he says, is “enthusiastic to share its wonder with everyone” and the second offers “more than minimum to the world”. </p>
<p>To me, though, these are extravagant architectural statements of capitalist power (the Singaporean hotel) and an over-designed fortress building (London’s Edgewood housing project).</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An overhead view of greenery in a city next to a road." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568626/original/file-20240110-15-tzarot.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568626/original/file-20240110-15-tzarot.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568626/original/file-20240110-15-tzarot.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568626/original/file-20240110-15-tzarot.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568626/original/file-20240110-15-tzarot.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568626/original/file-20240110-15-tzarot.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568626/original/file-20240110-15-tzarot.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Singapore’s Parkroyal Collection hotel.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/aerial-view-of-cars-on-road-RG7jGL8wkCs">Meric Dagli/Unsplash</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Recognising the importance of public space in cities</h2>
<p>In the early 1900s, the German sociologist and philosopher, Georg Simmel, <a href="https://www.blackwellpublishing.com/content/bpl_images/content_store/sample_chapter/0631225137/bridge.pdf">hailed</a> the advent of a new urban condition. Compared to rural life, he said, the metropolis made people more individualistic, prioritised capitalist modes of production and intensified sensory exposure. As a result, he said: “Instead of reacting emotionally, the metropolitan type reacts primarily in a rational manner”. City dwellers were, Simmel said, less sensitive and further removed from “the depths of personality”.</p>
<p>Mid-20th century architects and planners further explored the socio-psychological damage wrought by urban expansion in the post-war era. In his 1971 book, <a href="https://www.udg.org.uk/publications/udlibrary/life-between-buildings-using-public-space">Life Between Buildings</a>, Danish architect and urban planner Jan Gehl underlined how, more than architecture, urban space itself had the potential to either harm or affirm social interactions. </p>
<p>The capitalist logic underpinning modernist urban planning was harming residents. More and more people were living in high-rise buildings. Open, green spaces were commodified. Private transport was prioritised. Gehl thought it was precisely in these daily situations, where people move between home and work and play, that cities should both “function and provide enjoyment”. </p>
<p>In over-emphasising the design of exciting buildings, Heatherwick overlooks this: that it is between and around buildings that you find the essence of urban life. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A construction site." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568628/original/file-20240110-28-5mjtu7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568628/original/file-20240110-28-5mjtu7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568628/original/file-20240110-28-5mjtu7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568628/original/file-20240110-28-5mjtu7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568628/original/file-20240110-28-5mjtu7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568628/original/file-20240110-28-5mjtu7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568628/original/file-20240110-28-5mjtu7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Architectural objects in themselves cannot tackle the issues city residents face.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/aerial-view-photography-of-building-zaxoaZVazCs">Ricardo Gomez Angel|Unsplash</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Towards_Cosmopolis.html?id=GzdsRAAACAAJ&redir_esc=y">Research shows</a> that urban policies have evolved since the 1970s, largely to try to shape cities for the better and to ensure better accessibility, better quality and diversity of housing, open spaces, more reliable infrastructure and more robust services. </p>
<p>After joining the World Health Organisation’s <a href="https://www.who.int/europe/groups/who-european-healthy-cities-network">healthy cities initiative</a> in 1987, Copenhagen developed a holistic urban policy. This included walkable streets, public transportation, diverse housing opportunities, more pointed social policies around ideas of community and using taxation to encourage smoking control. Nearly four decades on, the Danish capital <a href="https://radar.brookes.ac.uk/radar/file/1f3e2ab5-70f8-4a9a-85e6-6c9fda88a426/1/s11524-023-00798-9.pdf">continues to be upheld</a> as one of the world’s healthiest cities. </p>
<p>However “good” or “interesting” architecture might be, it cannot tackle poverty, social exclusion and public health on its own. But even <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanwpc/article/PIIS2666-6065(23)00125-6/fulltext">high-rise buildings</a> can make a difference to people’s lives if they’re well designed and well regulated. How the built environment is shaped as a whole is crucial.</p>
<p>In denying MSG planning permission for a London Sphere, city authorities have prioritised residents’ concerns over private investment. Everyone benefits from public space and infrastructure being seen as public goods, not commodities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220456/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Haim Yacobi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>From lit-up orbs to bland office blocks, cities are full of buildings that people do or do not like. What really shapes how they live – for better or for worse – is urban planning.Haim Yacobi, Professor of Development Planning, UCLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2189752023-12-29T11:40:00Z2023-12-29T11:40:00ZThe secret world of puddles<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565473/original/file-20231213-16-omthqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C209%2C4169%2C3093&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Puddles can be valuable wildlife havens.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/water-splash-shoes-mens-feet-hiking-1857225058">Maksim Safaniuk/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As the new year arrived in 2016, my home city of Newcastle upon Tyne was briefly the centre of <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/01/the-puddle/422955/">global attention</a> – for a puddle. The Drummond Puddle, as it was grandly known, was a watery hazard placed perfectly where converging footpaths funnelled a daily stream of victims to their doom. To the wonderment of the world, their fate was <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRXuE7PBdLI">livestreamed</a> over the internet to more than half a million viewers. </p>
<p>But puddles are not merely a source of delight for wicked-minded onlookers. We can all, surely, remember the joy of splashing in a puddle – a universal example of creative play and getting to know the environment.</p>
<p>And yet, the conservation value of these tiny sites is still largely unappreciated. For puddles can be valuable wildlife havens too.</p>
<p>One <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.limno.2012.07.002">study</a> of the invertebrate inhabitants of puddles in the UK countryside found a majority of these sites had a high conservation value, primarily due to the rare, specialist animals they hosted. Puddles may be commonplace, but their wildlife need not be.</p>
<figure>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">This 2016 Periscope video shows people trying to avoid stepping in Newcastle’s Drummond Puddle.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Your own private pool</h2>
<p>The tiny, fragmented, ephemeral world of puddles creates the ideal habitat for some species. The isolation and brief life of many of these mini-ponds keeps long-lived, larger predators and competitors at bay, opening up opportunities for more “live fast, die young” life. </p>
<p>In the UK, the most famous examples are the <a href="https://insidedio.blog.gov.uk/2018/10/22/an-exclusive-tour-around-the-plain/">fairy shrimps</a> of puddles on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire. Large areas of Salisbury Plain are given over to military training, and the churning tracks of tanks create many temporary pools that house these muddy lodgers.</p>
<p>The eggs of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/animal/fairy-shrimp">fairy shrimp</a> are resistant to drought. They remain dormant, but viable, for many years and are spread by the wind or, in the case of Salisbury Plain, are carried in the mud spattered on military vehicles. </p>
<p>When rain fills a track in the dried mud, fairy shrimp eggs hatch almost immediately. The shrimps grow quickly to lay a new generation of eggs before their puddle dries.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Frozen puddles in tank tracks on Salisbury Plain." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565471/original/file-20231213-15-a9b1jz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565471/original/file-20231213-15-a9b1jz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565471/original/file-20231213-15-a9b1jz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565471/original/file-20231213-15-a9b1jz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565471/original/file-20231213-15-a9b1jz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565471/original/file-20231213-15-a9b1jz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565471/original/file-20231213-15-a9b1jz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Frozen puddles in tank tracks on Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/snow-covered-frozen-iced-puddle-off-1914696466">Martin Hibberd/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Other landscapes also harbour important puddles that we have helped to create. The Lizard Peninsula in Cornwall supports a network of trackways that date back to pre-historic times. Temporary pools have developed within these trackways, supporting rare specialist plants like the <a href="https://www.conservationevidence.com/reference/pdf/4018">pygmy rush</a>. </p>
<p>In the US, over the past decade, the rare <a href="https://www.britannica.com/animal/clam-shrimp">clam shrimp</a> has <a href="https://urbanhabitats.org/v02n01/biodiversitypatterns_pdf.pdf">been found</a> in puddles on the dirt surface of a gas pipeline road in New Jersey. The clam shrimp had only previously been identified in a handful of sites in the north-eastern US.</p>
<h2>Puddle problems</h2>
<p>Human activity may also be creating puddles in urban landscapes. The rapid urbanisation of Beijing has been <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1878029616302298">linked</a> with increasing the numbers of puddles in the Chinese capital, largely by accident as sites are demolished ready for new developments. As soon as the new build is started, however, these ponds are buried and lost.</p>
<p>The wildlife of urban puddles on roads and pavements has received much less attention compared with other urban habitats, such as flowerbeds or small ponds. But <a href="https://doi.org/10.12911/22998993/111463">research</a> in urban areas of south-east Poland shows that single-celled algae such as <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/diatom">diatoms</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/desmid">desmids</a> thrive in these puddle environments. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2530064420300225?via%3Dihub">Studies</a> in Brazil have also credited deforestation in the Xingu basin with driving “lentification” – creating water bodies that include puddles. Puddles in these more tropical regions of the world support the ominous presence of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/animal/mosquito-insect">mosquito larvae</a>. </p>
<p>The same safety from predators provided by puddles that benefits fairy and clam shrimps is also important to mosquitoes. In one <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335091956_Assessment_of_Physico-Chemical_and_Ecological_Variables_in_Selected_Natural_Breeding_Sites_of_Mosquitoes_in_Ibadan_Oyo_State_Nigeria">study</a> in Nigeria, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/animal/Anopheles"><em>Anopheles</em> mosquito</a> larvae were found in a higher proportion of road puddles than in other small water bodies.</p>
<p>Birds often look to exploit ponds and puddles, looking for drowned worms after prolonged rain. But worms are <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1744-7410.2007.00117.x">not that easy</a> to drown (although it varies by species). So maybe the sorry, soggy specimens stuck in puddles are just unlucky, slowed down as they flounder in the water, becoming very obvious to birds with an eye for an easy meal.</p>
<p>Puddles are, however, not a positive substitute for the problems caused by urbanisation and habitat loss. In Poland, birds using road puddles for a wash <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/24750263.2022.2101699">risk</a> being killed by traffic. </p>
<h2>Planet puddle</h2>
<p>While we might be most familiar with the puddles of pavements and streets, there are natural puddle habitats too – and these are very widespread all over the planet. Puddles on ice sheets and glaciers called <a href="https://zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jzo.12832">cryoconite holes</a> are home to a cosmopolitan fauna of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/animal/Devils-worm">nematode worms</a>, mites and the famously tough <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/mar/20/tardigrades-natures-great-survivors">tardigrades</a>. </p>
<p>Puddles also occur in deserts, often as tiny rock pools. By arranging sticky traps around these rock pools, researchers in South Africa showed how wind dispersal <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10750-009-9929-z">helps their inhabitants travel</a>. As the rock pools dried, the traps caught wind-borne eggs blowing in the dust, carrying a mix of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/animal/water-flea">waterfleas</a>, <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/zsc.12505#:%7E:text=Laevicaudatan%20branchiopods%2C%20also%20called%20%E2%80%98smooth%20clam%20shrimps%E2%80%99%20or,90%25%20of%20which%20belong%20to%20the%20genus%20Lynceus.">pea shrimps</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/animal/mite">mites</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565472/original/file-20231213-25-qdygg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An image of a tardigrade under a microscope." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565472/original/file-20231213-25-qdygg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565472/original/file-20231213-25-qdygg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565472/original/file-20231213-25-qdygg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565472/original/file-20231213-25-qdygg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565472/original/file-20231213-25-qdygg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565472/original/file-20231213-25-qdygg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565472/original/file-20231213-25-qdygg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tardigrades are famed among biologists for their ability to survive conditions that would kill almost any other animal.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/tardigrade-water-bear-microscope-magnification-2111263538">Videologia/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Urban puddles might still be the toughest environment of all, compared with the puddles in these glacier and desert habitats. But in all cases, there is much more to puddles than meets the eye – not just tiny shrimps or marooned worms.</p>
<p>Some of the strange creatures they contain are much more conspicuous. Video coverage of the Drummond Pond in Newcastle in 2016 even captured some two-legged inhabitants that appeared to be large, mammalian and naked …</p>
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<img alt="Imagine weekly climate newsletter" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mike Jeffries does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Puddles are an often-ignored but crucial habitat for rare and unusual wildlife.Mike Jeffries, Associate Professor, Ecology, Northumbria University, NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2164502023-11-15T14:30:06Z2023-11-15T14:30:06ZHealth risks at home: a study in six African countries shows how healthy housing saves children’s lives<p>Housing is a critical social determinant of health. The World Health Organization (WHO) <a href="https://iris.who.int/bitstream/handle/10665/276001/9789241550376-eng.pdf?sequence=22">defines healthy housing</a> as a shelter that supports physical, mental and social wellbeing. </p>
<p>The WHO has developed <a href="https://iris.who.int/bitstream/handle/10665/276001/9789241550376-eng.pdf?sequence=1">guidelines</a> outlining the attributes of healthy housing. These include structural soundness, as well as access to a local community that enables social interactions. Healthy housing protects inhabitants from the effects of disasters, pollution, waste and extreme heat or cold. It provides a feeling of home, including a sense of belonging, security and privacy. </p>
<p>Health risks in the home environment are important to think about because of the amount of time people spend there. In countries where unemployment levels are high or where most work is home based, people spend <a href="https://iris.who.int/bitstream/handle/10665/276001/9789241550376-eng.pdf?sequence=23">more than 70% of their time indoors</a>. Children especially spend a large amount of time at home, which exposes them to any health risks in the home environment.</p>
<p>We are researchers from the African Population and Health Research Center with an interest in urbanisation and population dynamics. We recently set out to <a href="https://bmcpediatr.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12887-023-03992-5">study the link between housing and children’s health</a>. We found that healthy housing generally lowered the chances of children falling ill with three diseases that we tracked: diarrhoea, acute respiratory illnesses and fever. </p>
<p>The impacts of housing quality extend beyond health and can have significant implications for education and subsequent economic outcomes, particularly for children. </p>
<h2>The research</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/can-rapid-urbanization-in-africa-reduce-poverty-causes-opportunities-and-policy-recommendations/">Rapid urbanisation and population growth</a> in Africa have pushed many people into informal settlements. Sub-Saharan Africa has <a href="https://blogs.afdb.org/fr/inclusive-growth/urbanization-africa-191">65%</a> of the world’s slum dwellers. This population generally lives in poor housing that lacks access to clean water, sanitation and hygiene services. The structures are overcrowded. They tend to have leaking roofs and damp walls, floors and foundations. They may also have indoor pollution, compromising the health of millions of people.</p>
<p>We set out to <a href="https://bmcpediatr.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12887-023-03992-5">evaluate</a> the relationship between healthy housing and the likelihood of children falling sick across six African countries: Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa.</p>
<p>We studied the incidence of diarrhoea, acute respiratory illness and fever among children under the age of five. These three conditions can have severe consequences for child health and wellbeing. </p>
<p>Diarrhoea and acute respiratory infections are <a href="https://academic.oup.com/inthealth/advance-article/doi/10.1093/inthealth/ihad046/7210800">leading causes</a> of disease and deaths in children aged below five worldwide. Diarrhoea accounted for <a href="https://data.unicef.org/topic/child-health/diarrhoeal-disease/">9%</a> of all deaths among children under five in 2019. Acute respiratory illnesses caused about <a href="https://www.who.int/data/gho/indicator-metadata-registry/imr-details/3147">20%</a> of deaths among children in this age group. The burden of under-five deaths linked to diarrhoea and respiratory illnesses like pneumonia is <a href="https://childmortality.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/UN-IGME-Child-Mortality-Report-2022.pdf#page=4">higher</a> for children in developing countries than those in developed regions. </p>
<p>We selected the six countries in our study because they provided data on the three diseases we tracked. They also allow for a comparative analysis across African countries. Our study used the latest available demographic and health survey data at the time of our research: Burkina Faso (2010), Cameroon (2011), Ghana (2014), Kenya (2014), Nigeria (2018) and South Africa (2016). We sampled data on 91,096 children aged under five.</p>
<h2>The findings</h2>
<p>Our study found that healthy housing was <a href="https://bmcpediatr.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12887-023-03992-5/tables/2">generally associated with reduced odds</a> of contracting the three illnesses we considered: diarrhoea, acute respiratory illness and fever. Our definition of healthy housing considered several attributes, including sanitation, drinking water sources and housing characteristics. </p>
<p>Homes that protect occupants from the elements, ensure access to adequate space and reduce overcrowding help keep children healthy. Homes that use cleaner cooking and lighting fuels reduce household air pollution, which leads to lower chances of respiratory infections.</p>
<p>Children living in healthy housing had fewer incidences of fever in all countries apart from South Africa. Here, children living in the healthiest homes are twice as likely to have fever than those living in unhealthy homes.</p>
<p>Fever is an indication of an underlying infection that could be viral or bacterial. Such infections are common in South Africa. In addition, the main causes of fevers among children under five are <a href="https://www.hindawi.com/journals/grp/2023/1906782/">diarrhoea and acute respiratory illnesses</a>. Among the countries included in the analysis, South Africa had the highest proportion of young mothers (aged below 25) and never-married mothers. This increases the chances that these mothers are engaged in work outside the home, leading to the early introduction of complementary feeding. This has been shown to increase the incidence of diarrhoea. These results call for addressing the causes of diarrhoea and respiratory illnesses by, for instance, ensuring South African homes have access to clean drinking water, adequate sanitation and clean energy for cooking.</p>
<p>While healthy housing is crucial, it’s not the sole determinant of a child’s health. Other factors, such as a sense of community, environmental exposure, parental education, income levels, healthcare access, and maternal and child-level factors <a href="https://bmcpediatr.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12887-023-03992-5/tables/3">also contribute to the overall health status of children</a>. For instance, we found that children in Burkina Faso who were not breastfed had higher chances of getting diarrhoea than those who were breastfed despite the condition of their housing. This tracks with studies that have documented that breastfeeding has a <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fped.2023.1086999">protective role</a> over gastrointestinal and respiratory tract infections among children. </p>
<h2>What next</h2>
<p>From our findings, parents can improve the wellbeing of their children by implementing simple strategies. This includes ensuring they use clean energy for cooking to reduce indoor air pollution and consequently reduce the incidence of acute respiratory illnesses. Similarly, using clean drinking water, hand washing and improving sanitation can help reduce cases of diarrhoea. </p>
<p>Bold but nuanced policy and programme government-level interventions can also help address the incidence of diseases affecting children under five in Africa. This requires efforts that go beyond just addressing the issue of housing to working with complementary sectors, like health, urban planning, environment and education.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216450/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hellen Gitau received funding from Wellcome Trust for this Complex Urban System for Sustainability and Health study. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Blessing Mberu received funding from Wellcome Trust for this Complex Urban System for Sustainability and Health study. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kanyiva Muindi received funding from Wellcome Trust for this Complex Urban System for Sustainability and Health study. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Samuel Iddi received funding from Wellcome Trust for this Complex Urban System for Sustainability and Health study.</span></em></p>The impact of housing quality extends beyond health to education and subsequent economic outcomes, particularly for children.Hellen Gitau, Research officer, African Population and Health Research CenterBlessing Mberu, Head of Urbanisation and Wellbeing, African Population and Health Research Center, African Population and Health Research CenterKanyiva Muindi, Associate Research Scientist, African Population and Health Research CenterSamuel Iddi, Research Scientist, African Population and Health Research CenterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2156102023-10-17T09:58:45Z2023-10-17T09:58:45ZSouth Africa’s 2022 census: has Johannesburg stopped growing, or are the numbers wrong?<p>South Africa’s census is a vital source of information for policy making, planning and research, and so the Census 2022 findings released last week were eagerly awaited. It offers many insights on everything from marriage rates to language distribution. But as urban scholars and planning practitioners with decades of interest and experience in observing how post-apartheid settlements are being reshaped, our eyes have fallen particularly on what Census 2022 seems to be saying about changes in South Africa’s major towns and cities. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://census.statssa.gov.za/assets/documents/2022/P03014_Census_2022_Statistical_Release.pdf">first batch of results</a> produced a mix of anticipated as well as some surprising findings. This was particularly true for Gauteng province, the country’s economic engine, and its main city, <a href="https://census.statssa.gov.za/assets/documents/2022/Provinces_at_a_Glance.pdf">Johannesburg</a>.</p>
<p>If its numbers are to be believed, Census 2022 and <a href="https://www.gcro.ac.za/outputs/policy-and-other-outputs/">preliminary analysis</a> shows astonishingly low population growth figures for Gauteng, and especially for Johannesburg. </p>
<p>With an annual population growth rate of 2.0%, Gauteng is barely growing faster than the national average. It is falling behind the Western Cape at 2.4% and Mpumalanga at 2.3%. The greatest surprise was the figure for Johannesburg: only 0.8%. This means that the city lags behind the country’s other major cities and is no longer a rapidly growing city.</p>
<p>This result is entirely at odds with the popular perception of Johannesburg as a city that is overwhelmed by population growth, battling to keep pace with demand for housing, services and infrastructure. </p>
<p>There is, however, a caveat: the census data may be questionable.</p>
<p>We can’t conclude definitively at this time whether the 0.8% reflects a challenge with data or represents a startling new reality. There is a possibility that it could reflect a deep crisis in South Africa’s premier city – the outcome of a decade or so of weak economic growth and increased social insecurity. Stagnating numbers suggest a loss of appeal, bringing reduced prospects for business and cultural innovation.</p>
<p>In this piece we discuss the dual concerns we have: the implications if indeed the growth of Johannesburg has slowed down significantly, and the veracity of the data.</p>
<h2>Is Johannesburg stagnating?</h2>
<p>The censuses held in <a href="https://www.statssa.gov.za/?page_id=3892">2001</a> and <a href="https://www.statssa.gov.za/?page_id=3955">2011</a> confirmed a widely held view among urban scholars and planners that post-apartheid South Africa was urbanising rapidly. And that this growth was concentrating in the large metropolitan areas, especially in Gauteng province. </p>
<p>This made sense, as Gauteng makes up a <a href="https://www.statssa.gov.za/?page_id=1854&PPN=D0441.1&SCH=73625">full third of the national economy</a>. As the world’s largest producer of gold for over a century, Johannesburg has attracted economic opportunity seekers throughout its history. When the barriers to movement under apartheid came down in the 1990s the pace of rural to urban migration accelerated. Johannesburg’s rapidly changing built environment reflected this, for example in the huge increase in informal dwellings.</p>
<p>But the latest census numbers suggest some dramatic changes could be underway.</p>
<p>If the census figures are correct, Cape Town ( with 4,772,846 people) stood just behind Johannesburg’s total of 4,803,262 in early 2022. But it is reportedly growing at double Johannesburg’s rate, which means that it will already have overtaken Johannesburg as South Africa’s largest city.</p>
<p>The census suggests that the white population of Johannesburg reduced by some 211,000 between 2011 and 2022, the Indian population by 49,000 and the coloured population by 18,000. These racial definitions were <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/race-and-ethnicity-south-africa">introduced under apartheid</a>, and are still in use today to measure post-apartheid population dynamics and development progress. These declines, and the associated increases in the Western Cape province in particular, are confirmed by the <a href="https://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/D0160/D0160May2023.pdf">state of the property market</a> at both ends.</p>
<p>While this absolute decline is compensated for by the 665,000 rise in the number of black Africans, the surprise is that this represents an increase of only 1.7% per annum, no higher than the background growth rate for the country as a whole. This suggests that even black Africans may be leaving Johannesburg. </p>
<p>This may conceivably take many forms, like elderly people retiring early to rural areas, children being sent “home” to be raised by grandparents, and work seekers looking for economic opportunities elsewhere. It could be middle class “semigration” where residents move to preferred parts of the country instead of emigrating.</p>
<p><a href="https://spatialtaxdata.org.za/">Spatial tax data</a> indicates that Johannesburg still offers more jobs than, say, Cape Town. However its economic performance has been poor in recent years, affecting job growth. This may have had effects across the labour market, including whether lower-income households are willing to establish themselves in the city and whether the black middle class remains. </p>
<p>While we are yet to do a systematic analysis, we do note some hot spots of fast growth in small towns and rural parts of more rural provinces. For example Bushbuckridge, an extensive, historically rural settlement in the north of the country bordering the Kruger National Park, has traditionally been understood as a migrant-sending area, but now has a growth rate of well over 3% per annum.</p>
<h2>The veracity of the data</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-10-12-how-much-can-we-rely-on-census-2022/">Various opinion pieces</a> in the media have raised eyebrows at the exceptionally high undercount of some 31%, meaning that nearly a third of residents have been subsequently shown not to have been counted on census day. This figure is worryingly double that for the last census. The undercount in many countries, both developed and developing, is often <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-10-12-how-much-can-we-rely-on-census-2022/">less than 5%</a> so the results are arguably much more trustworthy. </p>
<p>There are <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-2022-census-missed-31-of-people-big-data-could-help-in-future-215560">contextual reasons</a> for this, such as nagging COVID transmission fears and the feelings of insecurity from <a href="https://mg.co.za/tag/2021-july-riots/">bouts of public violence</a>. These external factors may have constrained the efficient administration of the census, leading to:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>uncounted foreign nationals</p></li>
<li><p>limited access of census officials to gated estates and suburban homes </p></li>
<li><p>the impossibility of counting the residents of inner-city buildings.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>External factors may also have been compounded by internal administrative challenges. There are many anecdotes of people trying, but failing, to submit their census returns via StatsSA’s <a href="https://www.statssa.gov.za/?p=15029">new online facility</a>. </p>
<p>In theory these problems should have been resolved through <a href="https://census.statssa.gov.za/assets/documents/2022/How_the_count_was_done2022.pdf">post enumeration sampling</a> and adjustment. Nevertheless, questions may legitimately be asked of census officials, and we have done so. We are sceptical, and await further clarity. </p>
<p>Previous census figures have been restated following the first official release. It is conceivable that we may see revisions that correct statistical anomalies.</p>
<h2>What next</h2>
<p>It is still early days for analysis as we still await the intra-municipal data from Census 2022. Nevertheless, we have identified intriguing, and sometimes worrying, indications of shifting spatial patterns. </p>
<p>At this point, assuming for the moment that the numbers are correctly indicative of directions even if not precise, we can at least hypothesise that the socio-spatial trends revealed in Census 2022 are the outcome of a decade or so of weak economic growth and increased social insecurity in South Africa’s economic hub. </p>
<p>With the job market in large cities and some mining districts unstable or depressed, investment in “rural settlements” may be growing, with members of stretched households returning to these areas after job loss in search of family support and cultural comfort. Previous patterns of urbanisation and agglomeration may not be inexorable. </p>
<p>We can’t conclude definitively at this time whether the 0.8% population growth rate for Johannesburg reflects a challenge with data or represents a startling reality. And while reduced growth may seem to some as a positive trend, it could reflect a deep crisis in South Africa’s premier city. While growth brings pressure, it also offers opportunity.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215610/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Philip Harrison receives funding from the National Research Foundation (NRF) </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alison Todes receives funding from the National Research Foundation</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span><a href="mailto:darlington.mushongera@wits.ac.za">darlington.mushongera@wits.ac.za</a> is affiliated with Gauteng City-Region Observatory, University of the Witwatersrand </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>The Gauteng City-Region Observatory receives core grant funding from the Gauteng Provincial Government. </span></em></p>If the numbers are correct, and it’s not certain that they are, Cape Town may have overtaken Johannesburg as the largest city in South Africa.Philip Harrison, Professor School of Architecture and Planning, University of the WitwatersrandAlison Todes, Professor, University of the WitwatersrandDarlington Mushongera, Senior Researcher and Theme Leader at the Gauteng City-Region Observatory, University of the WitwatersrandGraeme Gotz, Director: Research Strategy, Gauteng City-Region ObservatoryLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2093832023-07-26T14:56:09Z2023-07-26T14:56:09ZPedestrians in Ghana are risking their lives – we studied what’s distracting them while walking<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537613/original/file-20230716-117608-g3zaz0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Walking is a popular mode of transportation in Ghana</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons/Linda Fletcher Dabo</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Walking has health and environmental benefits – but it’s not always a person’s choice for getting around. And it does come with hazards. <a href="https://www.who.int/news/item/02-05-2013-more-than-270-000-pedestrians-killed-on-roads-each-year">One fifth</a> of the people killed on the roads globally are pedestrians. </p>
<p>In Ghana, like other developing countries, walking is the main mode of travel. A 2012 survey found that <a href="https://www2.statsghana.gov.gh/docfiles/publications/Second%20National%20Household%20Transport%20Survey%20Report%202012.pdf#page=iv">64.4%</a> of the workforce went to work on foot. </p>
<p>Ghana’s <a href="https://www.ghana.gov.gh/mdas/3c5160e416/">National Road Safety Authority</a> <a href="https://myjoyonline.com/road-accidents-claimed-2924-lives-in-2021/">reported</a> 2,930 pedestrians were knocked down in 2021 and 831 died. </p>
<p>Pedestrians are vulnerable for several reasons. The design of road infrastructure is one. <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259715300_Urban_Infrastructure_Design_and_Pedestrian_Safety_in_the_Kumasi_Central_Business_District_Ghana">Research</a> has shown that the absence of sidewalks forces pedestrians into the road, exposing them to motorised transport that heightens the risk of traffic crashes and injuries. </p>
<p>Risky in-traffic pedestrian walking behaviour is also a factor. Consuming alcohol, chatting with others, and using a mobile phone all heighten the risk of injuries. </p>
<p>As transport geographers we set out to discover what distracts pedestrians in Accra’s main business district. Our <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21650020.2023.2220574">study</a> discovered that the use of mobile devices, poorly designed infrastructure and advanced age all played a role. We suggest the city needs pedestrian friendly infrastructure and local laws to regulate walking behaviour.</p>
<h2>Digital devices distract pedestrians</h2>
<p>We chose to study the central business district of the capital, Accra, since it <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21650020.2023.2220574">accounts</a> for 57.6% of pedestrian accidents within the <a href="https://www.ama.gov.gh/">Accra Metropolitan Assembly</a>. It also records high foot traffic, being a major economic hub in Ghana. </p>
<p>The study engaged 400 commuters. We asked respondents to rank various activities they commonly engaged in while walking. A five-point scale indicated the extent of their engagement in these activities. </p>
<p>The respondents’ top four distracting activities involved using digital devices like mobile phones. Listening to music on a mobile phone emerged as the major distraction: 79% of respondents ranked it as their most common distractive activity. Making or receiving phone calls and conversing with other people while walking (2nd and 3rd) followed. Browsing the internet on mobile phones ranked 4th, and was widespread among those aged 9-24 and 27-42. </p>
<h2>Who is distracted?</h2>
<p>The study also indicated that sex, age, level of education, occupation, reasons for walking and weekly time spent walking were significant predictors of distractions. </p>
<p>Male pedestrians were more than twice as likely to engage in distractive activities. This is consistent with the <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ssqu.13079">expectations</a> of some behaviour experts. </p>
<p>On age, the data revealed a significant association between commuters aged 49-59 and distracted walking. A growing body of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1155/2012/131608">literature</a> has identified older people as engaging in distracted walking since they are less likely to estimate their walking environment accurately. Even looking at signage or objects of interest, buying items, or conversing with other pedestrians may increase their risk of injury. </p>
<p>Respondents with senior high school education (nine years of basic education) were also more prone to distraction. Evidence shows that <a href="https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1243880.pdf*page=1">most</a> Ghanaians end their education at this level. Working in the informal economy as hawkers or in other businesses encroaching on sidewalks, people are likely to compete with pedestrians for space or run after moving cars to sell their wares. </p>
<p>Relative to respondents who walked only for short trips, respondents who walked as part of their job recorded a far higher likelihood of engaging in distractive behaviour. Most of their day is spent walking, engaged in activities like sales or marketing, providing a courier service, or hawking. </p>
<p>Finally, time allocated to walking made a difference to behaviour. Whether weekly or daily, respondents who dedicated more time to walking in the CBD were more likely to walk in a distracted way.</p>
<h2>Safety plans</h2>
<p>Accra already has a <a href="https://www.ama.gov.gh/documents/Pedestrian-Safety-Action-Plan-FOR-PRINT-INDIVIDUAL-PAGES.PDF.pdf">pedestrian safety action plan</a>, but it focuses on the built environment rather than on behaviour. This study suggested the plan should include a policy statement on pedestrian walking behaviour.</p>
<p>The Accra Metropolitan Assembly (the administrative authority) can enact laws restricting pedestrians from listening to music with headphones, making phone calls while crossing roads or engaging in unwarranted conversations. </p>
<p>Additionally, the National Road Safety Authority and Ghana Police Service should collaborate on educational outreach programmes on all media platforms. They should focus on the dangers and causes of distractive walking. </p>
<p>Interventions like these offer the chance to reduce pedestrian injuries in Accra.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209383/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The city of Accra has no plan to tackle pedestrians’ behaviour.Prince Kwame Odame, Lecturer, Geography Education, University of Education, WinnebaEnoch F Sam, Head of Department , Department of Geography Education, University of Education, WinnebaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2082622023-07-14T14:51:26Z2023-07-14T14:51:26ZCity liveability rankings tell a biased story – our research in Dhaka explains why<p>Like many fast-growing megacities in Asia and Africa, Dhaka, in Bangladesh, is often stigmatised as one of the most unliveable cities on earth, due to overcrowding, slums and substandard housing. The Bangladeshi capital boasts around <a href="https://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities/dhaka-population">23 million</a> residents. </p>
<p>In the <a href="https://www.eiu.com/n/campaigns/global-liveability-index-2023/">2023 edition</a> of its annual global liveability index, the Economist Intelligence Unit (the research and analysis division of the Economist Group) ranked the Bangladeshi capital 166 out of 173 cities. As Helemul Alam of the Daily Star put it, that ranking makes it the <a href="https://www.thedailystar.net/news/bangladesh/news/liveability-index-dhaka-seventh-least-liveable-city-world-3055296">“seventh least liveable city in the world”</a>. While such lists tell a compelling story, it is an inherently biased one. </p>
<p>The Economist’s global liveability index is based on the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-worlds-most-liveable-city-title-isnt-a-measure-of-the-things-most-of-us-actually-care-about-101525">experiences of expats</a> rather than citizens. This kind of ranking inevitably privileges the perspectives of certain urban occupants and workers over others, often overlooking communities <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-worlds-most-liveable-city-title-isnt-a-measure-of-the-things-most-of-us-actually-care-about-101525">in urban peripheries</a>. </p>
<p>We have <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/02637758231168869">shown</a> that people move back and forth between urban and rural places. They shift between jobs, localities and accommodations. </p>
<h2>Translocal lives</h2>
<p>Our research was based on 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork that we both conducted between 2015 and 2018. We were examining two kinds of spaces linked to seasonal and labour migration: rickshaw garages and mess dormitories. These are typically located on the margins of the city in neighbourhoods such as Mirpur, Rayerbazar, Kamrangirchar, Shonir Akhra and Badda. We interviewed more than 100 people passing through these spaces in search for work and income, from rickshaw drivers, construction workers and garment workers to small-scale entrepreneurs.</p>
<p>We found that both mess dormitories and rickshaw garages are brimming with movement and business. They accommodate varying numbers of workers throughout the year, depending on the seasons. They blur functions of sleeping, working and entrepreneurship. </p>
<p>In a 2019 paper for the Bangladesh Institute of Labour Studies, Khandoker Abdus Salam and Rezaul Karim <a href="https://www.bilsbd.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/A-Study-of-Rickshaw-Pullers-in-Dhaka-City.pdf">estimated</a> that there are 1.1 million cycle-rickshaws operating on the streets of Dhaka, accommodated in garages across the city. </p>
<p>Rickshaw garages vary significantly, from cramped tin shed storage spaces with a handful of rickshaws to large half-open structures of bamboo and corrugated iron. Some simply consist of an open field with anything from a handful of rickshaws to 200 vehicles. </p>
<p>Rickshaw drivers are almost exclusively men. They rent vehicles by the day. Most do not have a permanent home in the city. Instead, they use the provisional, rent-free accommodation the garages provide. </p>
<p>In their study, Salam and Karim found that only 45% of rickshaw pullers rent a room in the city with their family. Over 80% spend at least a week at their rural home every six months. </p>
<p>One driver we interviewed, Jalal, usually runs a fish farm on the coast and had turned to the rickshaw industry to supplement his earnings: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I do not drive a rickshaw permanently. I only came to Dhaka for four months. I lost my fish stock this rainy season due to heavy flooding.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Every night, Jalal slept on a bamboo platform above the garage in Dhaka along with about 25 other people. He hoped to be able to move back to his home and business in the countryside after the rainy season had ended.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A cycle-rickshaw driver on a Dhaka street." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537296/original/file-20230713-29-vhravo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537296/original/file-20230713-29-vhravo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537296/original/file-20230713-29-vhravo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537296/original/file-20230713-29-vhravo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537296/original/file-20230713-29-vhravo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537296/original/file-20230713-29-vhravo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537296/original/file-20230713-29-vhravo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Drivers operate an estimated 1.1 million cycle-rickshaws in Dhaka.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/MFABGE_IUH8">Alexis Rodriguez/Unsplash</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Multidirectional migration</h2>
<p>Mess dormitories host a much broader segment of the rural–urban migrant population. The men, women and families housed there work across numerous industries: domestic help, construction, garment factories, rickshaw and car garages, small-scale businesses, street food stalls and local restaurants. </p>
<p>Some dormitories are horizontal two-storey buildings. Others are built vertically, rising to four or five storeys. While typically made of permanent materials, these dormitories can seem unfurnished, as the most common living arrangement within them is on the floor. No beds were provided in the dormitories for men that we visited.</p>
<p>Makeshift walls of cardboard sometimes create separate sleeping quarters for women. Since moving to Dhaka, ten years ago, Ishrat, a 38-year-old home-based embroidery worker and a widowed mother of three, has moved eight times, in search of cheap rent and the ability to work from home so she can look after her children. As she explained: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Every morning I rearrange this room with only one bed into a workshop. I teach embroidery work to women in the neighbourhood and do not mind sleeping on the floor as long as the room had sufficient electricity to continue my work after dark.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Dormitories offer flexible rental arrangements, from one-day or weekly rentals to monthly and year-long options. This allows people to move frequently.</p>
<h2>Cities as places of work</h2>
<p>Urbanisation in south Asia is often described in the media <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/mar/21/people-pouring-dhaka-bursting-sewers-overpopulation-bangladesh">in dystopian terms</a>. Cities are said to be overburdened by the pressure of migrants from rural areas, who have no other option than to settle in slums. </p>
<p>Two wrong assumptions underpin this kind of narrative. First, that the city is a bounded and self-contained unit that can somehow overflow. Second, that rural-urban migration is a one-way process, leading to permanent settlement.</p>
<p>Demographers have <a href="https://www.routledge.com/New-Forms-of-Urbanization-Beyond-the-Urban-Rural-Dichotomy/Champion-Hugo/p/book/9781138254831#:%7E:text=This%20book%20brings%20together%20a,ways%20of%20representing%20current%20trends.">long shown</a>, however, that the divide between city and countryside is increasingly blurred. </p>
<p>A primary driver of Dhaka’s rapid urban growth is rural-urban migration triggered by land loss, unemployment and <a href="https://www.fao.org/3/i1255b/i1255b03.pdf">river bank erosion</a>. But this kind of move doesn’t happen in a linear fashion, nor is it necessarily permanent. As development studies expert Rita Afsar <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/57a08d16e5274a31e0001632/WP-CP2.pdf">highlights</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Migration involves a spectrum of movement, from commuting or temporary, absence from the home for a couple of days at a time to seasonal or permanent relocation.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Two people on a rickshaw in the countryside." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537300/original/file-20230713-15-flfrsb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537300/original/file-20230713-15-flfrsb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537300/original/file-20230713-15-flfrsb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537300/original/file-20230713-15-flfrsb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537300/original/file-20230713-15-flfrsb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537300/original/file-20230713-15-flfrsb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537300/original/file-20230713-15-flfrsb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Translocal livelihoods see people migrate back and forth between the city and the countryside.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/t0iKsO-RsYQ">Hasib Matiur/Unsplash</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Dhaka is not merely a space of arrival or of residence. It is shaped by what the geographer Benjamin Etzold terms <a href="https://www.transient-spaces.org/blog/migrants-turn-cities-at-the-crossroads-into-transient-urban-spaces/">“translocality”</a>: people organising their lives and their livelihoods across different places. Doing so, as Ishrat and Jalal’s stories highlight, requires a monumental effort. </p>
<p>Cities need to be discussed not only in terms of their liveability but also in terms of their workability. What makes a city workable to people like Ishrat and Jalal is access to informal labour markets, cheap travel options, flexible housing and rental arrangements. It is also the possibility of maintaining translocal networks and livelihoods – of continuing to live between places.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208262/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shreyashi Dasgupta received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council ESRC – Cambridge Postdoctoral Fellowship Grant ES/W006391/1.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>The research conducted by Annemiek Prins was completed with the support of a grant from the Rosanna Fund for Women, as well as an Elphinstone Scholarship from the University of Aberdeen.</span></em></p>What makes a city workable to many people is access to informal labour markets, cheap travel options, flexible housing and rental arrangements.Shreyashi Dasgupta, Lecturer in Critical Social & Political Geography, University of LiverpoolAnnemiek Prins, Postdoctoral researcher and lecturer, Department of Anthropology and Development Studies, Radboud UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2095102023-07-11T15:02:56Z2023-07-11T15:02:56ZGhana’s population is young and rapidly urbanising - policies need to match the data<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536735/original/file-20230711-19-sl30n6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ghana’s population can be described as rapidly urbanising and young</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons/Flickr</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Ghana’s population has reached 30.8 million according to the <a href="https://census2021.statsghana.gov.gh/presspage.php?readmorenews=MTQ1MTUyODEyMC43MDc1&Press-Release-on-Provisional-Results">2021 population census</a>. This is a 6.1 million increase from the 24.7 million recorded in 2010. Understanding population trends is important to inform development policies – but Ghana has struggled to design policies aligned to available data. Demographer Donatus Yaw Atiglo unpacks the key issues facing Ghana’s growing population.</em></p>
<h2>What is the age makeup of Ghana’s population?</h2>
<p>It is important to look at the trends in the changing population structure. </p>
<p>Ghana’s population can be described as rapidly urbanising and youthful. Over the past five censuses, we see the structure of the population pyramid change from predominantly children under 15 to young people (aged 15-35 years). </p>
<p>The age composition of Ghana’s <a href="https://census2021.statsghana.gov.gh/presspage.php?readmorenews=MTQ1MTUyODEyMC43MDc1&Press-Release-on-Provisional-Results">31 million</a> people, based on 2021 <a href="https://census2021.statsghana.gov.gh/presspage.php?readmorenews=MTQ1MTUyODEyMC43MDc1&Press-Release-on-Provisional-Results">census data</a>, indicates that about 35% are children (0-14 years), 38% young people (15-35 years), and about 4% are in the older population (65+). </p>
<p>A <a href="https://census2021.statsghana.gov.gh/gssmain/fileUpload/reportthemelist/Volume%203%20Highlights.pdf">higher concentration</a> (about 60%) of young people are in urban areas. This creates a pool of valuable labour, vibrant social participation as well as sources of creativity and innovation.</p>
<p>Overall, 60% are in the <a href="https://census2021.statsghana.gov.gh/gssmain/fileUpload/reportthemelist/Volume%203%20Highlights.pdf">working age population</a>. This suggests that there are fewer people in the dependent age groups relative to the working ages.</p>
<p>There is also a growing number of the elderly aged 65 and above, with implications for social security and healthcare. </p>
<p>The factor driving the change in the demographic profile is that women are having fewer children. The total fertility rate, which is the average number of children a woman has by the time she completes childbearing, assuming age-specific rates are held constant, has <a href="https://knoema.com/atlas/Ghana/Fertility-rate">declined </a>from about 6.4 births per woman in 1988 to 3.8 in 2021.</p>
<p>According to the <a href="https://statsghana.gov.gh/">Ghana Statistical Service</a>, the country’s population will double within 33 years. And by 2050, the population of Ghana will be over 50 million. Population growth implies boundless opportunities for economic and social development. But it also presents significant challenges and barriers to sustainable development, where economic and environmental resources cannot match population growth.</p>
<h2>Which age cohorts present the biggest challenges?</h2>
<p>Population scientists have associated the demographic dividend with growth in the working population relative to children and the elderly. The logic is that a lower dependency ratio – in other words a high number of people of working age versus very young and very old people – carries economic growth potential. Dependent age groups (children under 15 years and old people 65 years and above) have traditionally been considered a burdensome population. </p>
<p>But cashing in on the demographic dividend depends on the quality of human resources and the opportunities for the working population. Without skills and jobs, having a large proportion of young people could be a liability, not an asset. They need education, skills, healthcare and employment. </p>
<p>In Ghana the size of this cohort should be bringing a demographic dividend. But it isn’t because there is a growing proportion that isn’t in education, employment or training. </p>
<p>Another pressure point is growing urbanisation. Three out of five people live in an urban area, up from about <a href="https://census2021.statsghana.gov.gh/gssmain/fileUpload/reportthemelist/Volume%203%20Highlights.pdf">one out of every two in 2010</a> . This urban expansion has been largely unregulated, leading to a rise in urban poverty as well as overstretched infrastructure and social amenities. Over a quarter of urban residents live in <a href="https://statsghana.gov.gh/gssmain/fileUpload/pressrelease/Multidimensional%20Poverty%20Ghana_Report.pdf">multidimensional poverty</a>. </p>
<p>Urban poverty, slum conditions, drug abuse, crime and unwanted pregnancies are all potential consequences of the large proportion of youth not in employment, education or training. </p>
<p>Older people are also a critical group that requires attention. People are living longer, with life expectancy at birth rising from 58 years in 2000 to <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.LE00.IN?locations=GH">65 years by 2020</a>. Older people have more health challenges and are therefore an increasing draw on a strained social security and health care systems.</p>
<h2>How aligned are Ghana’s policies towards its population challenges?</h2>
<p>Ghana has development policies on paper relating to health, education and gender. But the current mid- and long-term development policies of the country don’t consider population variables and the challenges they portend. </p>
<p>It behoves governments to consider population variables to identify future opportunities and challenges and guide resource allocation towards meeting the needs of the population. </p>
<p>Ghana failed to attain the main targets of the <a href="https://new-ndpc-static1.s3.amazonaws.com/pubication/Population+Policy_1994.pdf">1994 Population Policy</a>. These included reducing the total fertility rate to 3.0, increasing life expectancy to 70 and increasing the proportion of women with secondary plus education to 80% by 2020. </p>
<p>Ghana also failed to achieve key targets of the <a href="https://www.afdb.org/en/topics-and-sectors/topics/millennium-development-goals-mdgs">Millennium Development Goals</a>. These included eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, and reducing under-five mortality by two thirds and maternal mortality by three-quarters <a href="https://www2.statsghana.gov.gh/docfiles/2010phc/MDG%20report%20(24-10-13).pdf">between 1990 and 2015</a>. </p>
<p>But there is the potential to attain some targets of the <a href="https://www.undp.org/sustainable-development-goals/no-poverty?gclid=CjwKCAjw2K6lBhBXEiwA5RjtCQpQou19mHdshMyfj8isK1Vtn7iMvWwk0zgcCcZUb2yDvwUic_-JjxoCYscQAvD_BwE">Sustainable Development Goals</a> <a href="https://ghana.un.org/sites/default/files/2022-08/VNR_2022_Report_c5cXm4Q.pdf">related to equitable access to drinking water services, universal access to electricity by 2030</a>. </p>
<p>Ghana has made significant gains in improving access to healthcare, education, water and sanitation. This has reduced deaths from infectious diseases and improved life expectancy. </p>
<p>But there is more to be done to improve quality of life, attain the sustainable development goals related to poverty, food security, health and environment, and prepare the country for the demographic dividend. For instance, increased secondary school enrolment and completion have not been matched by employment and tertiary education opportunities. </p>
<p>In addition, previous policies have not prepared the country to deal with the double burden of communicable and non-communicable diseases.</p>
<h2>What are the key areas to focus on for development?</h2>
<p>Ghana needs to consider the different needs of different population groups. </p>
<p>When it comes to young people, it needs to make significant progress in relevant education and training, with matching employment opportunities. This matters for two reasons: so that fewer educated youth are unemployed or underemployed, and so that they contribute to social security. </p>
<p>The elderly need healthcare as they age. The burden of healthcare on their caregivers must be considered. We need to invest in geriatric care services to ensure quality of life for the ageing population. </p>
<p>All this requires the use of population data and integration of population variables into sustainable development planning to reduce inequalities and improve population well-being.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209510/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>D. Yaw Atiglo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Ghana’s implementation of key population policies has not been consistent.D. Yaw Atiglo, Research Fellow, University of GhanaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2077662023-06-28T13:20:19Z2023-06-28T13:20:19ZPastoralists are an asset to the world – and we have a lot to learn from them<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533789/original/file-20230623-27-7cuh4q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.tni.org/en/publication/livestock-climate-and-the-politics-of-resources">Pastoralists</a> are livestock keepers who are frequently on the move, sometimes across huge distances. Following mobile lifestyles and living far from centres of power, they are often inaccurately <a href="https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/hoofprints-on-the-land/">dismissed as backward and in need of modernisation</a>. </p>
<p>Many policies are directed at <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03066150.2020.1802249">transforming mobile pastoralists</a> into settled agriculturalists or urban dwellers. This aims at recasting them into the dominant image of “civilised” living. And, despite their positive contributions to livelihoods, economies and the environment, the world’s many <a href="https://iyrp.info/">millions of pastoralists</a> have been vilified as contributors to <a href="https://pastres.org/livestock-report/">climate change</a> and destroyers of <a href="https://pastres.org/biodiversity/">the environment</a>. </p>
<p>I am a social scientist with a background in ecology. Over more than <a href="https://pastres.org/about-us/pastres-team/">30 years</a> I have been researching land, livelihoods and agrarian change, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. Contrary to the dominant, negative views on pastoralists, <a href="https://pastres.org/">research</a> in six countries across three continents over the past five years has shown how pastoralism is an innovative, flexible and productive system that can handle uncertainty and adapt to change, while contributing to climate change mitigation and improving biodiversity.</p>
<p>Our research is explored in a <a href="https://practicalactionpublishing.com/book/2667/pastoralism-uncertainty-and-development">new open access book</a>, published with my co-researchers from across the world. It highlights how effective pastoralists are at <a href="https://www.fao.org/3/cb5855en/cb5855en.pdf">living with variability</a> and responding to uncertainties. Of course, there are limits to such flexible and adaptive responses. Pastoralists are vulnerable to <a href="https://opendocs.ids.ac.uk/opendocs/handle/20.500.12413/15458">exclusions due to land grabbing, energy projects and urbanisation</a>. Political decision-making can also marginalise them. </p>
<p>But lessons from the pastoral margins can question assumptions about the best ways to meet today’s challenges. Here I offer five.</p>
<h2>1. Embracing uncertainty and change</h2>
<p>We live in a complex and uncertain world. Whether it’s due to climate change, market volatility or pandemic outbreaks, <a href="https://opendocs.ids.ac.uk/opendocs/handle/20.500.12413/14470">we don’t know what the future will hold</a>. Old certainties have disappeared, and expectations of stability, order and control are no longer tenable. This requires a very different approach centred on flexibility, improvisation and adaptability. </p>
<p>It means shifting from “<a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Qe_RDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=seeing+like+a+state+james+scott&ots=Fz9HZKBYap&sig=0NQhlD_BjJI2vyFtcOmWyibffBg&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=seeing%20like%20a%20state%20james%20scott&f=false%22">seeing like a state</a>” (or a corporation, bank or development agency) to “<a href="https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/53003">seeing like a pastoralist</a>”. This involves <a href="https://www.berghahnjournals.com/view/journals/saas/aop/saas.of.04132303/saas.of.04132303.xml">embracing uncertainty, complexity and dynamic change</a>.</p>
<h2>2. Mobile lives</h2>
<p>Mobility is central to pastoralists’ production strategies. With highly variable resources over space and time, moving between grazing patches is essential. This requires <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/ejdr.2010.41">skilled herding, the training of animals and intelligence</a> on where fodder and water can be found. <a href="https://theconversation.com/livestock-are-threatened-by-predators-but-old-fashioned-shepherding-may-be-an-effective-solution-201193">Traditional practices</a> are combined with modern technologies for scouting and gaining information, based on deep knowledge of animals and the environment. Overall, <a href="https://practicalactionpublishing.com/book/1264/living-with-uncertainty">the ability to respond flexibly to changing circumstances</a> is essential. </p>
<p>The result is that pastoralists make use of otherwise unproductive rangelands across more than <a href="https://cgspace.cgiar.org/handle/10568/114064">half the world’s land surface</a> and they are immensely skilled at living with diverse environmental, market and political uncertainties.</p>
<p>Our work shows that flexible mobility is <a href="https://www.berghahnjournals.com/view/journals/saas/aop/saas.of.04132303/saas.of.04132303.xml">crucial for everyone, everywhere in today’s uncertain, turbulent world</a>. We argue that learning from mobile pastoralists – from the savanna plains of Africa to the semi-deserts of the Middle East and North Africa, the steppes and high mountains of Asia and the hills and mountain areas of Europe – <a href="https://comparativemigrationstudies.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40878-022-00277-1">enhances our ability to be mobile</a>.</p>
<h2>3. Global markets and trade</h2>
<p>Pastoral systems are always embedded in markets and trade. Many of the great historical trade routes – across the Asian steppes, through the Sahara desert and from eastern Africa to the Arabian peninsula, for example – have been facilitated by pastoralists. </p>
<p>Pastoralists are no strangers to cross-border trade and globalisation, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03066150.2020.1802249">contrary to negative narratives</a> that suggest that they reject markets and commercialisation. However, the markets that are so central to pastoralists’ livelihoods are not the simple ones described in economics textbooks. </p>
<p>Our work in <a href="https://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/109485/">Sardinia in Italy</a> shows how pastoralists engage with informal “<a href="https://zbw.eu/econis-archiv/bitstream/11159/2279/1/III-Revisiting%20Sustainable%20Development.pdf#page=80">real markets</a>” to confront market volatility and uncertainty. Such markets are forged through networks of social relationships, allowing for flexibility when the formal markets for sheep’s milk face price crashes. </p>
<p>Important lessons emerge more generally. In surprising ways, <a href="https://aeon.co/essays/what-bankers-should-learn-from-the-traditions-of-pastoralism">pastoralists’ responses to market volatility echo those of bankers and financiers</a> facing financial crises. Instead of technical risk protocols and regulations, a more social, networked basis for trust-building as the basis for managing economic uncertainty, and so averting financial crises, is required.</p>
<h2>4. Disaster and emergency management</h2>
<p>Pastoral areas face constant shocks and stresses ranging from drought, floods, heavy snowfalls, diseases, conflicts and more. In northern Kenya <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00220388.2021.2013469">networks of highly skilled pastoralists</a> mobilise knowledge, technology and finance during times of crisis, helping to prevent disasters. Such people may include local forecasters who give a sense of what weather might be in store. They could be scouts on motorbikes scoping out new grazing areas, checking for conflict and other dangers. </p>
<p>Further <a href="https://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/110472/">work</a> in northern Kenya demonstrates how pastoralists survive, thrive and respond to uncertainties through asset redistribution, comradeship, diversification and collective responses to protect the livelihoods from external threats. All this suggests new ways of going about <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/dpr.12613">disaster planning and humanitarian response</a>.</p>
<h2>5. Rethinking land access</h2>
<p>The urge to demarcate, register and control land is strong, as this is the model frequently used in settled agricultural contexts. But this can be disastrous in pastoral areas, restricting movement and so undermining the very basis of pastoral production. </p>
<p>The obsession with private property, individualisation and a market-based approach to land management is anathema to pastoralists, where hybridity, <a href="https://theconversation.com/collective-land-tenure-is-under-threat-in-kenya-why-it-needs-to-be-protected-74393">collective arrangements</a> and continuous negotiation of resource use are central. </p>
<p>As our work in <a href="https://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/106349/">Amdo Tibet in China</a> finds, taking such an approach to land governance seriously disrupts the standard models that dominate policy-making. </p>
<h2>A lifeline to the future</h2>
<p>A world without pastoralists would be a poorer place materially, environmentally and culturally. And we would lose a lifeline to the future, where we can learn how to live with and from uncertainty, just like pastoralists have always done.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207766/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ian Scoones receives funding from a European Research Council Advanced Grant for PASTRES (Pastoralism, Uncertainty and Resilience: Global Lessons from the Margins, Grant No. 70432). </span></em></p>A world without pastoralists would not only be a poorer place, but we would lose an important lifeline to our collective future.Ian Scoones, Professorial Fellow, Institute of Development StudiesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2060972023-06-21T10:34:01Z2023-06-21T10:34:01ZKenya’s population: 5 key findings in the past 20 years of research<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527685/original/file-20230523-19-sqncv8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gerald Anderson/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Like many countries on the African continent, Kenya’s population is growing – fast. The country’s population was <a href="https://ncpd.go.ke/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/61-PB-Why-Population-Issues-are-important.pdf">8.1 million</a> in 1963; today it stands at about <a href="https://www.unfpa.org/data/world-population/KE">55 million</a> people. More people have moved into urban areas too. In 1960 <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.URB.TOTL.IN.ZS?locations=KE">about</a> 7% of the population lived in urban areas; by 2021 it stood at 28%.</p>
<p>Some key changes within Kenya’s society have taken place alongside, and because of, this fast growth. </p>
<p>I’m the executive director of the <a href="https://aphrc.org/">African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC)</a>, an organisation which has been documenting population changes and dynamics in Kenya, and other countries, for 20 years. This work has helped to influence public policy and response. </p>
<p>Some of the key challenges identified in Kenya have been:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>a large number of urban residents, especially those in informal settlements, without social services such as public health facilities; </p></li>
<li><p>shortage of public schools (government funded); </p></li>
<li><p>widespread non-communicable diseases and their risk factors in urban informal settlements; </p></li>
<li><p>a high number of unsafe abortions driven by high levels of mistimed and unwanted pregnancies; and </p></li>
<li><p>uneven progress in <a href="https://sdgs.un.org/goals">sustainable development goals (SDGs)</a> targets related to mothers, children and adolescents.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>These findings are key to driving effective strategies. </p>
<h2>Urban residents without access to services</h2>
<p>Kenya’s development partners have tended to assume that urban areas and residents were well-served by social services, and didn’t need special attention from government and civil society organisations. As a result, in the 1980s and 1990s, poverty alleviation programmes focused on rural areas. </p>
<p>However, in 2002 we <a href="https://aphrc.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Urban-Health-in-Kenya_Key-Findings_2000-Nairobi-Cross-sectional-Slum-Survey.pdf">produced evidence</a> that showed huge differences in health, education and other social outcomes among residents of urban informal settlements when compared to other urban residents. For some outcomes, residents of urban informal settlements were doing as badly as rural residents, if not worse. For instance, we found that children living in slums <a href="https://aphrc.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Urban-Health-in-Kenya_Key-Findings_2000-Nairobi-Cross-sectional-Slum-Survey.pdf">were sicker</a> than those living elsewhere in Kenya. They were also less likely to get treatment when they were sick.</p>
<p>Our work highlighted the important point that simply presenting national statistics for rural and urban areas, without breaking them down further by socioeconomic status, was highly misleading. If countries were to make progress towards various development targets, urban informal settlements needed special attention. </p>
<p>Understanding this led to the design of projects and programmes by governments and other agencies that targeted disadvantaged urban areas. Over time, great progress has been made and the health and other social indicators in these areas have improved.</p>
<h2>Shortage of public schools</h2>
<p>Free primary education was implemented in Kenya in 2003. Its <a href="https://ossrea.net/publications/images/stories/ossrea/ogola.pdf">main objective</a> was to make primary education accessible to all. Research done at APHRC, however, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0883035511000036">showed</a> that the enrolment of children in public schools went up for a couple of years and then rapidly declined. </p>
<p>In 2012, <a href="https://aphrc.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/ERP-III-Report.pdf">63%</a> of primary school students in Nairobi urban informal settlements were attending non-government schools, a percentage as high as it had been before the policy. This happened because there were not enough public schools to meet the demand. Parents realised that their children were not receiving the right amount of attention in overcrowded classrooms. Instead, they took their children back to the informal private schools they had been attending before the policy was rolled out.</p>
<p>Once our evidence was shared with the ministry of education, the <a href="https://vision2030.go.ke/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Re-Alignment-Education-Sector..pdf">Education Taskforce of 2012</a> adopted recommendations to include all learners, including those in non-formal schools, who met set criteria to benefit from capitation grants. This was to ensure that learners in informal settlements benefited from the government programme. </p>
<h2>Widespread diseases in informal settlements</h2>
<p>A key health-related finding was that non-communicable diseases, and their risk factors, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3402/gha.v8.28697">showed</a> a high prevalence in the urban informal settlements of Nairobi. </p>
<p>There was a huge burden of undiagnosed, untreated and uncontrolled disease. For instance, about <a href="https://journals.lww.com/jhypertension/Abstract/2013/05000/Prevalence,_awareness,_treatment_and_control_of.26.aspx">80%</a> of adults diagnosed with diabetes and high blood pressure were previously undiagnosed. Among those who had been previously diagnosed, the majority had not received treatment in the past 12 months. Only a fraction had received treatment in the past two weeks. As a result, for every 100 people diagnosed with either condition, only one had it under control. </p>
<p>These findings are vital to understanding existing or potential gaps in a healthcare system. They shaped the APHRC’s subsequent research programmes on <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3402/gha.v6i0.22510">developing models</a> to improve care for chronic conditions in these settings. Some of these have been adopted by Nairobi County and other players. </p>
<h2>Huge number of unsafe abortions in Kenya</h2>
<p>In 2013, APHRC <a href="https://bmcpregnancychildbirth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12884-015-0621-1">published the report</a> of the first ever incidence and magnitude study on unsafe abortion. The study estimated that over 464,000 abortions had been conducted in Kenya, and an estimated 120,000 women sought care in health facilities for complications. According to the World Health Organisation, <a href="https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/abortion">4.7% to 13.2% of maternal deaths</a> annually can be attributed to unsafe abortion. </p>
<p>An estimated half (49%) of all pregnancies were unintended and four in ten of these ended in an abortion, highlighting the need for increased access to contraception. </p>
<h2>Uneven progress in supporting mothers and children</h2>
<p>APHRC has been supporting the <a href="https://www.countdown2030.org/">analysis</a> of routine health information and survey data to track African countries’ progress towards meeting the SDG targets related to mothers, children and adolescents. These include the reduction in maternal mortality and the end of preventable deaths of newborns and children.</p>
<p>The analysis – conducted for at least 18 countries – shows a general trend of improvement in various outcomes at the country level, but also huge differences between regions for some indicators. For instance in Kenya, childhood mortality has declined from 99 per 1,000 live births in 2000 to 31 in 2020. Estimates from 2014 show significant regional differences, with the worst performing sub-region (coast) having more than double the rate of child deaths compared with the best performing one (central) – <a href="https://data.unicef.org/countdown-2030/country/Kenya/1/">87.4 against 42.1</a>.</p>
<p>The progress seen at national level can be explained by improvements in health outcomes in some regions, but not all. This analysis is important to provide evidence about how government and development partners can target resources towards disadvantaged regions if Kenya is to <a href="http://countdown2030.org">meet the SDG targets</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206097/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Catherine Kyobutungi receives funding from The Hewlett Foundation, Sida and The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation</span></em></p>Kenya’s experienced fast population growth and urbanisation - this has brought about some big challenges.Catherine Kyobutungi, Executive Director, African Population and Health Research CenterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2057882023-06-05T14:23:25Z2023-06-05T14:23:25ZCensus data in West Africa is badly out of date: 5 reasons fresh population statistics are crucial<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529068/original/file-20230530-21-bktyo0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Guineans living in Ivory Coast wait for their turn during a census on March 26, 2010 in Adjame, a popular district in Abidjan. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">SIA Kambou/AFP via Getty images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>West Africa, an area composed of 16 countries, is one of the fastest growing regions in the world. The region has a population of over <a href="https://www.oecd.org/swac-expo-milano/about/westafrica/#:%7E:text=%E2%80%8CHome%20to%20some%20350%20million,rapidly%20growing%20population%20are%20enormous.">350 million</a>, a five-fold increase since 1950 when 73 million people lived there. </p>
<p>More than half of the population is <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/world/adolescents-and-youth-report-west-and-central-africa">under the age of 25</a>.
The region’s urban population <a href="https://eros.usgs.gov/westafrica/population">rose</a> from 8.3% of the total in 1950 to almost 44% in 2015. </p>
<p>Population size, composition and distribution all have implications for what a society needs - including food, water, energy and infrastructure – and how to provide it. </p>
<p>Countries in West Africa have many pressing needs. Some of the reasons are insecurity, poor governance, high military spending and forgone investment. </p>
<p>Forces such as climate change may add pressure, causing food insecurity, economic disruption and extreme harms from floods and droughts. The region is also shifting towards renewable and green energy, creating new job opportunities. </p>
<p>With all these development challenges and opportunities, and limited resources, it’s vital to know what to focus on. Census data is useful for making effective policy plans and tracking progress to reach goals.</p>
<p>The census is a nationally representative survey, and a fundamental tool to collect information on each country’s population. A trained enumerator visits the home to collect information on each person living there, including their genders, ages, marital status, occupations, languages spoken, and other key pieces of basic information.</p>
<p>Without census data, countries are not able to measure or understand patterns of population growth or urbanisation.</p>
<p>The more detailed, up to date, and high quality the data, the better informed policies and programmes can be. Census data that can be disaggregated by key characteristics (broken down into more specific parts) can draw attention to disparities and inequalities. </p>
<p>And routine data allows countries to measure their success on key indicators such as the Sustainable Development Goals. </p>
<p>Many countries in west Africa, however, do not have up to date census surveys. For example the most recent census data for Benin, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal is over 10 years old. Normally these are done every 10 years.</p>
<p>Conducting a census is extremely challenging. It is costly and requires a large staff with training. It involves the participation of large numbers of people. There can be concerns about privacy or questions of a sensitive nature (such as ethnicity). Political instability and conflict can also make <a href="https://www.unfpa.org/census#readmore-expand">enumeration challenging</a>. </p>
<p>As a public health and demography <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/jessie-pinchoff-1216414">expert</a> at the <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/population-council-3531">Population Council</a>, which generates <a href="https://popcouncil.org/basic_page/adolescent-data-hub/">adolescent</a> and <a href="https://cdm.popcouncil.org/">demographic modelling</a> data across west Africa, I’ve listed five reasons why the region needs up to date censuses.</p>
<h2>Five ways a census helps a country</h2>
<p><strong>Allocation of resources and political power:</strong> With growing populations and economies, fresh census data helps governments allocate resources, target services, plan infrastructure projects, and direct investments. </p>
<p>To ensure that people have fair access to what they need, it’s useful to have information about their age, income and other characteristics. This information is also used to create geographic areas containing around the same number of people, so that all voters are represented.</p>
<p><strong>Economic development:</strong> The census asks households for information about their income, employment and demographic characteristics such as age or sex. This can help governments understand patterns of economic growth and how to stoke economic development. The private sector and governments need information like this for decisions about investment.</p>
<p><strong>Social welfare:</strong> Census data provides a better understanding of the needs of different groups in society, such as the elderly, children, and people with disabilities. It informs the design of social welfare programmes that target those who are most in need. </p>
<p>For example, only <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/mali/inclusion-persons-disabilities-west-africa-ecowas-advocates-signature-and-ratification-african-union-protocol-persons-disabilities-all-its-member-states">three countries</a> out of 15 in the regional body ECOWAS have ratified the African Union’s protocol on disability inclusion. </p>
<p><strong>Disaster response and risk reduction:</strong> Census data is also used in disaster planning, response and risk reduction efforts. It provides information on population density, vulnerability and infrastructure, which is vital in identifying areas that are at risk during extreme events such as <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/warming-worsened-west-africa-floods-that-killed-800-people/">floods</a>. It can also indicate where vulnerable groups, such as the elderly or people with disabilities, may be harmed.</p>
<p><strong>Research to inform policies:</strong> High quality, up to date, and routine census data is critical for informing research to generate the evidence that policies and programmes are based on. </p>
<p>For example, the region could benefit from research on how to minimise schooling disruptions due to climate, target areas with low enrolment rates, and use technology to advance education outcomes. </p>
<p>Health research is another critical area, to protect children and their families and build hospitals and facilities where they are most needed. </p>
<p>The census can identify burden of disease, patterns of sickness and death and the distribution of risk factors. Census data can uncover disparities in health, education, social and economic programming.</p>
<h2>Challenging but worth it</h2>
<p>Accurate and timely census data is critical for west Africa to achieve its potential and mark progress. Conducting a census takes time, money and people, and it can be challenging to collect accurate data in certain settings. </p>
<p>However, the census is a critical tool to allow countries to make informed decisions about how best to allocate resources, plan for the future, and improve the lives of their citizens, including the rising generation of young people.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205788/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jessie Pinchoff does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Many countries in West Africa do not have up to date census surveys.Jessie Pinchoff, Associate researcher, Population CouncilLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2044952023-05-09T13:34:32Z2023-05-09T13:34:32ZAir pollution is a hidden pandemic in Africa - tips on how to reduce your exposure and help combat it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524381/original/file-20230504-25-q92t5q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C0%2C2943%2C1909&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Children and elderly people are vulnerable to air pollution. Photo by Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/school-boy-walks-past-smokeand-fumes-emitted-from-a-dump-in-news-photo/635231222?adppopup=true">from www,gettyimages.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Rapid urbanisation in Africa is worsening air pollution levels. There are economic as well as health consequences. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S2542-5196%2821%2900201-1">Air pollution</a> threatens human health, health systems and economic activity. It is the <a href="https://www.stateofglobalair.org/sites/default/files/documents/2022-10/soga-africa-report.pdf#page=3">second leading risk factor for death</a> across Africa, contributing to an estimated 1.1 million deaths on the continent in 2019. </p>
<p>The continent has an urban population of <a href="https://www.afdb.org/en/documents/africas-urbanisation-dynamics-2022-economic-power-africas-cities">over 500 million</a>. This is projected to be over <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/1267863/number-of-people-living-in-urban-areas-in-africa/#:%7E:text=The%20urban%20population%20on%20the,reach%20722%20million%20by%202026.">700 million by 2026</a>. In the face of such enormous numbers and a seemingly insurmountable problem, it can feel difficult for ordinary people to protect themselves or make a difference. </p>
<p>But, as we found in our research, many strategies are possible. We have drawn up a list of suggestions, divided into three categories: practical tips to reduce exposure, how to keep your community air quality cleaner and, lastly, what steps policy makers can take.</p>
<h2>Air pollution’s many threats</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412022006365">Our research</a> highlights the fact that air pollution is a multifaceted and complex issue to tackle. Intervening can span different ministries such as transport, environment and health. Acting on one sector can affect a different sector, so it is important to clarify the role and responsibilities of all actors. </p>
<p>To formulate solutions and strategies that are acceptable and feasible to the general public, multiple stakeholders must collaborate: policy makers, civil society, communities, and academia. </p>
<p>Our findings show that much time can be saved by not ‘re-inventing the wheel’ and learning from implementers on the opportunities and barriers to tackle air pollution in cities. </p>
<p>We found that most strategies (83%) being used to tackle air pollution focused on household air pollution compared to outdoor air pollution (17%). This is even though outdoor air pollution is increasing due to urbanisation. </p>
<p>Overall, the strategies focus on technology (75%), more than on policy (20%), and even less on behavioural change (5%). </p>
<p>Our findings point to the need for more policy interventions. There are some obvious gaps in present approaches. These include policies that address changes in peoples’ behaviour. Another example is addressing major sources of pollution such as vehicles and two and three wheel motorcycles. Only 6% of all strategies applied in African contexts focus on decreasing air pollution through transport yet the continent is faced with a large increase of “used” (second-hand or pre-owned) vehicles.</p>
<p>Based on our insights, we’ve come up with the following list of practical tips. </p>
<h2>Practical tips to reduce exposure</h2>
<p>These four suggestions will go some way to protecting your health.</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Avoid exercising outdoors when pollution levels are high. If possible, exercise indoors during this time. </p></li>
<li><p>Avoid exercising near high-traffic areas.</p></li>
<li><p>Avoid having children and other vulnerable groups such as elderly people with asthma) where there’s cooking. This is particularly true if solid biomass fuels like firewood, charcoal, dung and crop residues and being used as fuel.</p></li>
<li><p>Ensure home cooking areas are properly ventilated, especially for homes using solid biomass fuels.</p></li>
</ul>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Trucks in a traffic jam on a busy highway" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524128/original/file-20230503-18-dkvkhs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3690%2C2440&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524128/original/file-20230503-18-dkvkhs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524128/original/file-20230503-18-dkvkhs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524128/original/file-20230503-18-dkvkhs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524128/original/file-20230503-18-dkvkhs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524128/original/file-20230503-18-dkvkhs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524128/original/file-20230503-18-dkvkhs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Road traffic is a serious cause of air pollution in African cities. Photo by Olukayode Jaiyeola/NurPhoto.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/ariel-view-of-apapa-sea-port-in-apapa-lagos-nigeria-on-30-news-photo/1179097853?adppopup=true">from www,gettyimages.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How to keep the air in your community cleaner</h2>
<p>You can take some steps that will have a wider impact. </p>
<ul>
<li><p>Avoid open trash burning</p></li>
<li><p>improve solid waste management at both the household and community levels.</p></li>
<li><p>Promote awareness-raising activities around the importance of breathing clean air in cities.</p></li>
<li><p>Encourage your local businesses, community and city leaders and your policy makers to take air pollution seriously. You can do this by organising advocacy groups or support public online platforms that report real time levels of air pollution to increase accountability</p></li>
<li><p>Promote efforts to raise health literacy about how air pollution increases diseases such as asthma and stress.</p></li>
<li><p>Request education modules in schools for children and young people to be sensitised and to gain knowledge about air pollution</p></li>
<li><p>Buy from businesses that follow air quality guidelines and aim for net zero targets </p></li>
<li><p>Engage in active travel (walking and cycling) whenever possible to decrease transport-related emissions</p></li>
</ul>
<h2>What your policy makers can do</h2>
<p>You can also play an active role in getting policy makers to take concrete steps. </p>
<ul>
<li><p>Set standards and guidelines to replace obsolete technologies with clean and environmentally friendly ones.</p></li>
<li><p>Get communities involved in local interventions to decrease air pollution. </p></li>
<li><p>Promote policies that don’t allow anyone to smoke indoors and support measures to make all public places tobacco-free.</p></li>
<li><p>Provide forms of non-motorised transport to increase active lifestyle, physical activity and reduce emissions.</p></li>
<li><p>Support the installation of sensors to collect air quality data and monitor the pollution levels.</p></li>
<li><p>Communicate daily air pollution forecasts to let people know when the air is unhealthy in the community. This can be through local radio and TV weather reports, newspapers and through community WhatsApp groups.</p></li>
<li><p>Introduce cleaner-burning fuels and improved stoves that burn solid fuels more efficiently.</p></li>
</ul>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>By considering these tips and strategies, communities and leaders have the opportunity to beat air pollution, the invisible pandemic beneath our noses.</p>
<p>The air we breathe represents the living space and the quality of life we all need for a healthier and more sustainable planet, including for generations unborn.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204495/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr. Okello Gabriel works at the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership and his Research Fellowship is funded by a philanthropic donation from AstraZeneca. The views expressed in this publication are those of the author and not necessarily those of AstraZeneca. He is affiliated with African Centre for Clean Air. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Meelan Thondoo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Air pollution accounts for many deaths in Africa yearly. However, this may change if people learn to protect themselves and hold their leaders accountable.Gabriel Okello, Prince of Wales Global Sustainability Fellow, University of CambridgeMeelan Thondoo, Research Associate, MRC Epidemiology Unit, University of CambridgeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2037912023-04-23T08:53:14Z2023-04-23T08:53:14ZGreen spaces are good for people – but in South Africa many cannot access them<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521056/original/file-20230414-26-ynnjdo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Fetching water is a chore, but some women also said it was a welcome opportunity to be in nature.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tony Dold</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://dukespace.lib.duke.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/10161/11477/Russell?sequence=1">benefits</a> of experiencing nature for <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-44097-3">physical</a>, <a href="https://www.apa.org/monitor/2020/04/nurtured-nature">psychological</a> and <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286671347_Enhancing_spirituality_and_positive_well-being_through_nature">spiritual</a> well-being are widely documented. But much of the research on these benefits has been done in relatively affluent countries in the global North. There’s <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666049022000263?via%3Dihub">little research</a> that has been done in developing countries on the benefits of being in nature. </p>
<p>Development and urban planning approaches in developing countries <a href="https://research.vu.nl/en/publications/poorer-without-it-the-neglected-role-of-the-natural-environment-i">reflect this</a>. While they rightfully emphasise economic development, housing and sanitation, they commonly treat access to green space as a luxury to enjoy once basic needs are met.</p>
<p>In an era of accelerating urbanisation, particularly in developing countries, nature experience is becoming increasingly rare. And as with many other types of amenities, access to nature and green spaces is highly <a href="https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/who-benefits-from-nature-in">skewed</a> along socio-economic lines. </p>
<p>In South Africa, there remains a stark contrast in access to nature and green spaces between areas that were divided along racial lines during apartheid. It includes highly uneven distribution of city trees and green spaces, a situation that has been dubbed “<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/25148486221110438">green apartheid</a>”.</p>
<h2>Our research</h2>
<p>We have been <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11205-023-03063-3">researching</a> for the past decade the relationships isiXhosa-speaking people in urban and rural settings in South Africa’s Eastern Cape Province have with their natural environment. Our definition of “nature” includes anything from dense natural forest in rural areas, to patches of bush and communal grazing land around towns and villages.</p>
<p>We found that across a range of urban to rural locations, age and gender, most people we interviewed had a strong <a href="https://archive.sajs.co.za/index.php/SAJS/article/view/880/1195">appreciation</a> for nature. Even though many had limited access to natural spaces, and seldom visited them, they <a href="https://bioone.org/journals/journal-of-ethnobiology/volume-36/issue-4/0278-0771-36.4.820/Ways-of-Belonging--Meanings-of-Nature-AMong-Xhosa-Speaking/10.2993/0278-0771-36.4.820.full">valued</a> such spaces for their contribution to a sense of well-being, identity and shared heritage. Many also <a href="https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/145055514.pdf">described</a> how visiting nature eased feelings of hardship, stress, and loneliness.</p>
<p>Employment, housing, water and sanitation remain urgent priorities for urban and rural development. Nevertheless, as our research shows, the contribution access to nature makes to people’s well-being is important. Growing <a href="https://natureplayqld.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/rbg260-nature-for-health-and-wellbeing-report-fa-r3-spreads.pdf">evidence</a> suggests that access to green space has the most pronounced benefits among the lowest socioeconomic groups.</p>
<p>Making access to nature a luxury that few can afford continues to reinforce existing patterns of deep inequality.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/growing-plants-on-buildings-can-reduce-heat-and-produce-healthy-food-in-african-cities-191190">Growing plants on buildings can reduce heat and produce healthy food in African cities</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Relationships with nature</h2>
<p>To test the generality of our qualitative findings, we conducted an in-depth, questionnaire-based survey of nearly 700 Eastern Cape rural and urban residents. This included questions about respondents’ feelings of attachment to nature, past and present nature access and resource use, cultural and religious beliefs and practices, and socio-economic indicators.</p>
<p>We also explored the contribution that being in nature made to the best and worst times respondents remembered experiencing during their life.</p>
<p>Religion and spirituality featured strongly in the lives of people we interviewed. Three quarters of respondents practised both Christian and African indigenous religions, including recognition of ancestral spirits. Only 1% neither belonged to a church nor held African indigenous religious beliefs. Ninety percent of respondents engaged in various rituals including male initiations, and many of these require time spent in natural settings and use of natural products. </p>
<p>Access to nature thus helps to ensure that spirituality remains a part of everyday reality, and vice versa.</p>
<p>We asked respondents to remember and describe the happiest period they had experienced in their lives, and whether being in nature featured and contributed. The most commonly reported best time was childhood or youth, often associated with rural life and being in nature. People reminisced about stick fighting and traditional parties for young people, safe spaces for teenage courtship in nature and swimming in rivers and dams.</p>
<p>Other times widely remembered as the best in people’s lives were associated with educational and related achievements, marriage and relationships, the birth of children, and men’s time spent in the bush as part of their traditional initiation into manhood. </p>
<p>Overall, best periods strongly related to social aspects of life, such as family relationships, community and personal achievements. Only 27% of respondents mentioned best times that reflected material domains such as work, money or housing.</p>
<p>Fifty-six percent of the respondents said they accessed nature during the best time in their life, and nearly all of those (94%) felt that accessing nature contributed to it being the best time in their life. The reasons for this included the contribution of being in nature to a sense of well-being and joy, and as a site for celebrations, recreation and ritual practices.</p>
<p>We also asked respondents to describe the worst time they had experienced in their life. The death of loved ones was overwhelmingly associated with the worst period. Other worst experiences included ill health or injury, and setbacks or failure in life. Thirty-six percent of respondents reported spending time in nature during this difficult time, and of these, 74 % felt that it helped them cope better. </p>
<p>Mourners found that experiencing peace and calm in nature assisted with the healing process. Some respondents said the peaceful surroundings were conducive to prayer. Others felt the presence of the ancestors when being in nature. </p>
<p>Of those who did not spend time in nature during their most difficult time, 30% thought that it might have helped them cope better. Overall, 45% of respondents felt that accessing nature either helped or could have helped them deal with the worst time in their lives. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A group of children swimming" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521628/original/file-20230418-14-gwlihx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521628/original/file-20230418-14-gwlihx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521628/original/file-20230418-14-gwlihx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521628/original/file-20230418-14-gwlihx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521628/original/file-20230418-14-gwlihx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521628/original/file-20230418-14-gwlihx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521628/original/file-20230418-14-gwlihx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Access to nature benefits children’s mental and physical health but this is becoming more difficult in urban areas.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tony Dold</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Nature access: a basic necessity or a luxury?</h2>
<p>The rural areas and urban townships of the Eastern Cape are among the <a href="https://southafrica-info.com/people/mapping-poverty-in-south-africa/">least developed</a> in South Africa. They are characterised by high rates of <a href="https://journals.co.za/doi/full/10.10520/ejc-ajpa_v12_n1_a8">poverty</a>, dependence on social welfare, unemployment, poor access to quality schooling and medical care, and high rates of crime, including gender-based violence. </p>
<p>Within this context, we found that well-being and happiness are multidimensional and strongly enhanced by social and family relationships, religion and spirituality, and access to natural spaces for material, recreational and spiritual purposes. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, access to natural spaces is becoming increasingly difficult and dangerous for many people, especially women and girls and in urban areas. For <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10745-015-9755-z">children</a>, and especially girls, fear of crime and competing expectations around the home are limiting opportunities to play outdoors in natural spaces. This means they miss out on the benefits that being in nature has for <a href="https://jech.bmj.com/content/72/10/958#T2">mental</a> and physical health in children.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203791/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Susanne Vetter receives funding from The South African National Research Foundation and Rhodes University.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Cocks receives funding from National Research Foundation (NRF) and South Africa-Netherlands Research Programme on Alternatives in Development (SANPAD).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Valerie Møller receives funding from South African National Research Foundation.</span></em></p>Experiencing nature helps people in times of joy and pain. However, inequity of access to green spaces means that South Africans cannot enjoy nature when they need to.Susanne Vetter, Associate Professor, Department of Botany, Rhodes UniversityMichelle Cocks, Associate Professor of Environmental Anthropology, Rhodes UniversityValerie Møller, Professor of Sociology, Rhodes UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2030642023-04-20T12:55:46Z2023-04-20T12:55:46ZClimate change increases the risk of extreme wildfires around Cape Town – but it can be addressed<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519251/original/file-20230404-23-aqpufb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Fire at the University of Cape Town, South Africa.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Brenton Geach/Gallo Images via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Across the globe, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969719355871">many recent severe wildfires</a> have moved from wildlands into the urban periphery (the <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/22737/fires-in-the-wildland-urban-interface-wui-an-emerging-global-phenomenon-threatening-modern-society#overview">“wildland urban interface”</a>). In their wake, they’ve left <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2023.103618">death, destruction and disruption</a>. This has led to questions about the extent to which climate change is to blame.</p>
<p>A field of study called <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2752-5295/ac6e7d?_hsmi=217900917&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--vIRNcML-N5eyhXNbUkFRofJMkOnQu1XYSZ1h_C1qgDnUdoOBCxFrsBkay1X6WZvEJ7egPLQ-Vog5y9mcE8Jm4WSnZZw">extreme event attribution</a> has developed to answer such questions. These studies quantify the links between global climate change, regional extreme weather events, and their effects on people, property and environment. </p>
<p>This branch of attribution science aims to <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-021-03071-7">inform climate change adaptation following extreme events</a>. It also highlights that long-term, global-scale climate change is having real impacts, now, at the scale of human experience. Attribution studies can make the public <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-021-03071-7">more acutely aware</a> of climate change effects and increase support for mitigation measures.</p>
<p>But the rapidly growing body of event attribution analyses shows a strong <a href="https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-19-0317.1">bias</a> towards extreme events in the global north. <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-015-1432-0">Few attribution studies have considered African events</a>. </p>
<p>One of us, Zhongwei, recently led and Stefaan was involved in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-22-0204.1">the first attribution study</a> to quantify the role of climate change in the risk of extreme fire weather conditions in southern Africa. </p>
<p>Wildfires are <a href="https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/fee.2359">complex phenomena</a>. They can only be understood fully by considering social, environmental and weather conditions together. We know, however, that extreme wildfire events occur almost exclusively under extreme fire weather conditions. Studying associations between global warming and fire weather can provide evidence for how <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41612-022-00248-4">wildfire potential</a> is changing and help to inform responses. </p>
<p>We analysed the destructive <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-vulnerable-is-the-university-of-cape-town-to-destructive-wildfires-182169">April 2021 wildfire</a> on the slopes of Devil’s Peak in Cape Town, South Africa under extreme fire weather conditions. We concluded that such extreme fire weather has become around 90% more likely in a warmer world.</p>
<h2>The April 2021 Cape Town wildfire</h2>
<p>The wildfire we studied started as a small grass burn. Within a few hours it had destroyed historical buildings and priceless materials in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/significant-archives-are-under-threat-in-cape-towns-fire-why-they-matter-so-much-159299">University of Cape Town African Studies collection</a>. </p>
<p>The event received <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-fire-on-cape-towns-iconic-table-mountain-was-particularly-devastating-159390">widespread coverage</a>, documenting the <a href="https://www.news.uct.ac.za/article/-2021-04-23-sad-moment-as-treasured-jagger-reading-room-remembered">resulting losses</a> and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-table-mountain-fire-what-we-can-learn-from-the-main-drivers-of-wildfires-159477">factors responsible</a> for its destructiveness. Questions were raised that required <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/sunday-times/opinion-and-analysis/2021-05-09-the-fire-at-uct-not-just-the-usual-suspects/">further research</a>. One issue was the role of climate change in the weather conditions during the event.</p>
<p>Shortly after 10 am on that day, 18 April 2021, <a href="https://www.csag.uct.ac.za/2022/04/18/devils-peak-fire-18-19-april-2021-one-year-later/">hot, extremely dry and windy conditions took hold</a>. These extreme conditions resulted in <a href="https://www.news.uct.ac.za/article/-2021-06-23-reflecting-on-the-devastating-uct-fire">highly unusual fire behaviour</a>, which made suppressing the fire exceptionally challenging. Burning embers transported by the wind set vegetation alight at least <a href="https://www.sanparks.org/assets/docs/parks_table_mountain/tmnp-fire-investigation-report.pdf#page=4">350 metres</a> ahead of the main fire. </p>
<p>We found that the observed fire weather conditions were the most extreme in the 1979–2021 autumn (March–May) record. These conditions have become almost twice as likely as a result of climate change. </p>
<h2>How we came to this conclusion</h2>
<p>We used multiple climate model simulations selected from those run for the <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/">Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change</a> assessments. These gave us many years of data to provide a robust risk estimate. This is important because our study area was the smallest over which a wildfire event attribution has been done. Over small domains, local variability makes climate change signals harder to detect. The more data you have, the better the chance of picking up signals.</p>
<p>Using temperature, wind, humidity and rainfall, we calculated the value of an <a href="https://www.nwcg.gov/publications/pms437/cffdrs/fire-weather-index-system">index of fire weather (FWI)</a> over Cape Town on 18 April 2021. Then we compared a past climate before human-driven warming with our current climate to see how often the models output Cape Town autumn FWI values that are at least as extreme.</p>
<p>Our results strongly suggest that the weather conditions under which extreme Cape Town wildfires can occur are happening ever more frequently in this area in a warming world. This adds to a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-022-00344-6">broader body</a> of <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/acba33/meta">literature</a> <a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2020RG000726">indicating</a> that climate change is increasing the potential for “megafires” in the world’s dry-summer climates. </p>
<p>Responding to this risk requires interpreting findings in context and engaging across disciplinary boundaries. </p>
<p>In addition to suitable weather conditions, <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-science-tells-us-about-fire-hazards-facing-cape-town-and-its-surrounds-125069">wildfires require</a> a source of ignition and fuel (vegetation that can burn). Cape Town’s mountain slopes are covered by fire-prone indigenous fynbos and alien vegetation that can burn very intensely. Given the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-table-mountain-fire-what-we-can-learn-from-the-main-drivers-of-wildfires-159477">increasing numbers of people</a> around the mountain, some fires are bound to start. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-table-mountain-fire-what-we-can-learn-from-the-main-drivers-of-wildfires-159477">The Table Mountain fire: what we can learn from the main drivers of wildfires</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>We outline three avenues for risk mitigation. </p>
<h2>Steps to mitigate risk</h2>
<p><strong>Adopting more holistic <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab541e/meta">fire management</a> approaches</strong></p>
<p>Focusing exclusively on fire suppression (putting fires out as <a href="https://www.westerncape.gov.za/general-publication/wildfire-season">quickly as possible whenever they occur</a>) can allow very high fuel loads to build up. Experts have warned that this widely used strategy is “<a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab541e/meta">destined to fail</a>”. It can also <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/gcb.14861">threaten biodiversity</a> in fire-dependent ecosystems. In the fynbos biome of south-western South Africa, fast-growing <a href="https://theconversation.com/invasive-alien-plants-in-south-africa-pose-huge-risks-but-they-can-be-stopped-94186">alien invasive species</a> and low-density <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/capeargus/news/researchers-warn-the-cape-to-prepare-for-more-disastrous-fires-like-the-2017-knysna-fires-5efb43d9-20e1-4ee4-9ba3-05abc0f73d74">urban expansion</a> into surrounding wildlands enhance the risk of megafires. </p>
<p>Instead, <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/ffgc.2022.848254/full">researchers</a> suggest wildfire risk management should also involve limiting flammable plants and materials immediately around buildings (“defensible space”) in the urban periphery, developing evacuation plans and conducting fire-aware urban planning.</p>
<p><strong>Timely and accurate forecasting and communication of extreme fire weather risk</strong> </p>
<p>This must incorporate understanding of <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/gcb.14861">fire pathways that pose the greatest risk locally</a>.</p>
<p>Doing this can aid <a href="http://www.riskreductionafrica.org/assets/files/Knynsa%20Fires%20Report%202019.pdf">short-term preparedness</a> and risk reduction. The <a href="https://www.geonetcastamericas.noaa.gov/products/navigator/details/EO_EUM_DAT_INFO_LFDI.html">fire weather index</a> that’s used in South Africa was developed for the savannah and grasslands of the hot, summer-rain Lowveld in the country’s far north-east. The ecology, climate and fire risk factors in the Lowveld are <a href="https://pta-gis-2-web1.csir.co.za/portal/apps/GBCascade/index.html?appid=a726c58f435141ba80b57fe21d3ec744">very different</a> to those in the fynbos. Consequently, this fire weather index <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s42408-018-0001-0">appears</a> not to have been able to identify <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2023.103618">unprecedented fire weather risk</a> associated with recent <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333682368_THE_KNYSNA_FIRES_OF_2017_LEARNING_FROM_THIS_DISASTER">extreme wildfires</a> in the fynbos biome.</p>
<p><strong>Further <a href="https://www.news.uct.ac.za/article/-2021-06-23-reflecting-on-the-devastating-uct-fire">research</a> to inform vegetation management</strong> </p>
<p>It’s crucial to understand which <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2021-04-24-born-to-burn-the-alien-trees-that-turned-cape-town-fire-into-a-disaster/">alien and possibly indigenous vegetation</a> can produce “ember showers”, such as those responsible for setting alight buildings and plants haphazardly on Devil’s Peak. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2023.103618">Case studies</a> to assess factors associated with building loss and survival can also inform locally relevant policy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203064/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stefaan Conradie received PhD funding from the South African National Research Foundation (NRF). </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Zhongwei Liu received funding from the Coventry University Trailblazer PhD studentship scheme.</span></em></p>Autumn extreme fire weather around Cape Town in South Africa has become 90% more likely in a warmer world.Stefaan Conradie, PhD student, University of Cape TownZhongwei Liu, PhD researcher, Coventry UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2022242023-03-22T15:52:41Z2023-03-22T15:52:41ZStar Wars: Earth will never be an ‘ecumenopolis’ like Coruscant, but our cities are devouring the world<p>Any fan of the galaxy far, far away will have loved the newest information gleaned from The Mandalorian about life on the planet-city Coruscant. The latest instalments of Disney’s streaming series, now in its <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Znsa4Deavgg">third season</a>, have seen a new storyline take root <a href="https://www.starwars.com/news/star-wars-inside-intel-coruscant">in the galactic capital</a> of the Star Wars universe – a planet instantly recognisable from outer space for the cog-like rings and lines of lights that completely cover its surface.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A fictional planet in dark space." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516920/original/file-20230322-20-59jqj2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516920/original/file-20230322-20-59jqj2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516920/original/file-20230322-20-59jqj2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516920/original/file-20230322-20-59jqj2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516920/original/file-20230322-20-59jqj2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516920/original/file-20230322-20-59jqj2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516920/original/file-20230322-20-59jqj2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Coruscant as seen from outer space.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Coruscant.jpg">Dark Attsios/Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>First introduced in George Lucas’s 1997 <a href="https://pureadmin.qub.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/242523842/Final_Thesis_Draft_Daniel_Willis_.pdf">special edition</a> of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, Coruscant is an <a href="https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/186332074.pdf">iconic world</a>. Up close, it presents an impossibly dense planetary cityscape. Streams of airborne traffic travel between endless high-rise mega-structures. These literally reach for the sky, their elevation covering more than 5,000 levels – from the <a href="https://myresearchspace.uws.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/36078430/2022_01_04_Atkinson_Deception_final.pdf">criminal underworld</a> to the upper strata inhabited by <a href="https://www.prp.unicamp.br/inscricao-congresso/resumos/2020P17237A35057O266.pdf">the politically powerful</a>.</p>
<p>Strikingly, this built environment is completely disconnected from the planet’s natural systems. In the latest episode of the Mandalorian, an ex-imperial officer shows a newly arrived scientist around a public square. She tricks him into trying to touch what looks like a landscaped boulder, only for him to rebuked by a flying police droid. The rock is, in fact, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKyxtRCZUvw">the peak of Umate</a>, the planet’s tallest mountain. “They say it’s the only place on the entire surface where you can see the planet itself,” the officer reveals. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A bird's eye view of a dense high-rise fictional cityscape." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516919/original/file-20230322-984-capxez.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516919/original/file-20230322-984-capxez.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516919/original/file-20230322-984-capxez.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516919/original/file-20230322-984-capxez.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516919/original/file-20230322-984-capxez.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516919/original/file-20230322-984-capxez.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516919/original/file-20230322-984-capxez.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Coruscant’s Senate district.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CoruscantSenateDistrict.jpg">Shane Crotty/Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Coruscant, the scientist had learnt earlier, is one of only a handful of city-planets in the galaxy. “It is known as an ecumenopolis,” a digital voice explains.</p>
<p>This term, coined by Greek architect and urban planner Constantinos Doxiadis in the early 1960s, <a href="https://www.doxiadis.org/Downloads/ecumenopolis%20tommorow's%20city.pdf">means</a> “planet-spanning city”. For Coruscant, it is the perfect descriptor. If it has proven a less accurate predictor for urban expansion on Earth, the world-devouring nature of Coruscant’s urban sprawl presents, nonetheless, a cautionary tale.</p>
<h2>How the idea of an ecumenopolis came about</h2>
<p>In the era of the Star Wars saga in which the Mandalorian story is set, Coruscant is the political and economic centre of the New Republic. A well-managed, democratic, free and peaceful world, it is nonetheless constrained by unwieldy bureaucracy and stark social inequalities dividing those in the higher and lower levels. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1635931459080056832"}"></div></p>
<p>The city-planet has an estimated population of <a href="https://www.sciencefocus.com/planet-earth/will-the-earth-ever-become-a-city-planet/">3 trillion residents</a>, which works out at 430 times the Earth’s current population of <a href="https://theconversation.com/global-population-hits-8-billion-but-per-capita-consumption-is-still-the-main-problem-194568">8 billion</a>. This demographic comparison is instructive. </p>
<p>Doxiadis was part of a cosmopolitan generation of 20th-century urbanists – also including French philosopher <a href="https://www.soziologie.arch.ethz.ch/en/implosions-explosions-towards-a-study-of-planetary-urbanization/">Henri Lefebvre</a> and Brazilian geographer <a href="https://antipodeonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/8_grimm_reflections-on-planning-in-the-trajectory-of-milton-santos.pdf">Milton Santos</a> – whose social and spatial theory encompassed continental and even planetary scales. Doxiadis based his thinking on everything from the individual home to <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0308518X18763370">worldwide infrastructure</a>. </p>
<p>When he <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/43617611.pdf?casa_token=8HzVxLH-wHIAAAAA:JO73K3hk1488bGKpCQB3NwVsdOQiAiT79O82t0fA-F5XyIHiKHJbVBkHstlEiQItLtNjFwfZK-NysgvcTkfeA6LlCzDjOT7rmZ5zG7JmHOoKNQhGtOhA">wrote about</a> the “universal city” of the 21st century in 1962, he extrapolated the growth rates of the time to predict that the world’s population could reach 50 billion by the year 2100. He forecast that 98% would be urban residents, spread over a total surface of 48 million sq km – the equivalent of about a third of the Earth’s land surface. </p>
<p>As early as the late 1920s, the American historian and influential urban architecture specialist Lewis Mumford <a href="https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/99/05/16/specials/mumford-city.html">had feared</a> that the expansive modern metropolis of the early 20th century was giving way to a <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1191/0309132504ph514oa?casa_token=f0JibEuo8g8AAAAA:-faZn3tMBo2xNmfCgtpa6OhyRESYV_742yJxQuXt-l-EQUvhgNw0XO-IQzzDYf4HKo_kGphsG3qM-Q">monstrous megalopolis</a>. In his 1961 book, The City in History, he took the idea <a href="https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1961/04/16/101457879.html?pageNumber=129">even further</a>.</p>
<p>Mumford argued that this unrelenting expansion – the megalopolis’s “profoundly disastrous success” – would exploit its surrounding territories for resources, while fostering chaos and violence within. This, he said, would eventually lead to the city’s abandonment. He predicted the demise in an era of what he termed “the <a href="https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,897786,00.html">necropolis</a>”: the city of death. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A bird's eye view of a sprawling bay-side cityscape." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516956/original/file-20230322-941-qyzhdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516956/original/file-20230322-941-qyzhdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516956/original/file-20230322-941-qyzhdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516956/original/file-20230322-941-qyzhdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516956/original/file-20230322-941-qyzhdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516956/original/file-20230322-941-qyzhdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516956/original/file-20230322-941-qyzhdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hong Kong, in the gloaming.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/lZXyGjsRnP0">Natalya Letunova/Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Doxiadis shared Mumford’s fears, but he was less concerned with the collapse of western civilisation. On the contrary, he thought that, provided the right network of transport and communications were built alongside new settlements to support the ecumenopolis’s growth, its megalopolitan expansion would result in a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/43617611.pdf?casa_token=8HzVxLH-wHIAAAAA:JO73K3hk1488bGKpCQB3NwVsdOQiAiT79O82t0fA-F5XyIHiKHJbVBkHstlEiQItLtNjFwfZK-NysgvcTkfeA6LlCzDjOT7rmZ5zG7JmHOoKNQhGtOhA">“city of life”</a>. </p>
<p>Doxiadis’s research and practice espoused the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/43619521?searchText=&searchUri=&ab_segments=&searchKey=&refreqid=fastly-default%3Ae5e9be161c9c9774974ad495910ad7c7&seq=10">optimistic belief</a> that urban expansion, both demographic and physical, could be scientifically managed in proper balance “with the survival of open spaces”. In other words, the ecumenopolis he envisaged was enormous, but it was not planet-wide. </p>
<h2>How our world is more than urban</h2>
<p>We might only be in the early stages of the 21st century, but the urban-rural balance of the world has already tipped towards cities. By 2050, the UN’s Population Division <a href="https://www.un.org/development/desa/en/news/population/2018-revision-of-world-urbanization-prospects.html">predicts</a> that over two-thirds (68%) of the world’s population will be concentrated in urban centres. This represents a complete reversal of the rural-urban <a href="https://www.un.org/development/desa/pd/sites/www.un.org.development.desa.pd/files/files/documents/2020/Jan/un_2018_worldcities_databooklet.pdf">population distribution</a> of just a century ago. And by 2100, this ratio <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-era-of-the-megalopolis-how-the-worlds-cities-are-merging-193424">could top 85%</a>.</p>
<figure>
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<p>Doxiadis correctly foresaw this urban transition en masse. In terms of total population size, however, we are still light years away from what he envisaged in the 1960s. </p>
<p>Since the publication in 1972 of <a href="http://www.ask-force.org/web/Global-Warming/Meadows-Limits-to-Growth-Short-1972.pdf">The Limits to Growth</a>, the landmark report led by American environmental scientist Donella Meadows, our understanding of the factors limiting urban demographic, economic and physical expansion has sharpened. Scientists term these <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4980311/">planetary boundaries</a>. </p>
<p>For some fans, Coruscant is the <a href="https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Human">original home world of humanity</a> in the Star Wars galaxy. In our own, however, were the Earth to ever actually be subsumed into a single cityscape, the resulting ecumenopolis would collapse under the weight of its ecological footprint. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1637851536347758593"}"></div></p>
<p>Excessive land-system change or freshwater consumption, among other things, would increase the risk of <a href="https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/planetary-boundaries.html">irreversible environmental change</a>. And if such planetary boundaries were crossed, humanity would simply not be able to survive, let alone thrive like Coruscanti society does.</p>
<p>From a global justice perspective, it is not enough to acknowledge that we live at a time of unprecedented <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0263775818757510?casa_token=Qlzwc7SBjuAAAAAA:WXKBUlnBMUkm9KjULMbIzmcBdZeMj8XoyOQtw0ZyRM2B7oJKtWmEs79mv54sUNhU_3jTnk0ZXpAhVA">planetary urbanisation</a>. We must find ways to curb the <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/d13128p#">predatorial tendencies</a> that urbanisation has of devouring the wider world. We need to protect what is left <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Lisa-Ausic/publication/362702994_Pluriversal_Politics_the_Real_and_the_Possible_by_Arturo_Escobar_Durham_London_Duke_University_Press_2020_232_pp_2595_paperback_ISBN_978-1-4780-0846-0/links/62fba6ebe3c7de4c34602fdf/Pluriversal-Politics-the-Real-and-the-Possible-by-Arturo-Escobar-Durham-London-Duke-University-Press-2020-232-pp-25-95-paperback-ISBN-978-1-4780-0846-0.pdf?_sg%5B0%5D=started_experiment_milestone&origin=journalDetail">of the Earth</a> – and come up with <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1468-2427.00397">better alternatives</a> to the modern capitalist city as the paragon of human settlement.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202224/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Juan Miguel Kanai works for the University of Sheffield. He receives funding from the British Academy, the Economic and Social Research Council, the Royal Academy of Engineering and the European Research Council. </span></em></p>If the Earth were ever subsumed into a single cityscape, it would collapse under the weight of its own ecological footprint.Juan Miguel Kanai, Senior Lecturer in Human Geography, University of SheffieldLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1993252023-03-12T07:41:45Z2023-03-12T07:41:45ZNigeria’s cities are growing fast: family planning must be part of urban development plans<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514165/original/file-20230308-387-khb6j1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Government investments in infrastructure in Nigeria will remain insufficient as urban populations grow. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-jankara-market-in-lagos-island-on-march-10-2016-in-news-photo/646132122?phrase=markets%20in%20nigeria&adppopup=true">Frederic Soltan/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Nigeria is rapidly urbanising, with more people living in urban areas than in rural communities. A recent World Bank <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.URB.TOTL.IN.ZS?locations=NG">estimate</a> shows that 53% of the <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL?locations=NG">213 million Nigerians</a> live in urban areas. That’s projected to rise above <a href="https://www.un.org/fr/desa/around-25-billion-more-people-will-be-living-cities-2050-projects-new-un-report">70%</a> by 2050. </p>
<p>Lagos, Nigeria’s biggest city, already has <a href="https://worldpopulationreview.com/continents/africa/cities">over 15.9 million people</a>. The country’s urban growth rate is <a href="https://dhsprogram.com/publications/publication-fr359-dhs-final-reports.cfm">6%</a> and the general population growth rate is about <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.GROW?locations=NG">2.4%</a>.</p>
<p>Although urban areas are hubs for socioeconomic development, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5676403/">many large cities are unsafe and unhealthy</a>. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, infrastructure development and service delivery <a href="https://health-policy-systems.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12961-022-00924-0">aren’t keeping pace</a> with urban population growth in Nigeria. <a href="https://www.whp-journals.co.uk/JPS/article/view/768">Millions of urban residents face enormous challenges</a> like housing deficits, overcrowding and limited economic opportunities. Poverty, air and noise pollution, insecurity, heightened criminality and environmental degradation are others. Climate change is also causing rising sea levels, flooding, heatwaves, more intense droughts, crop failures and famines that <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/news/briefing/2022/10/635b913a4/millions-face-harm-flooding-across-west-central-africa-unhcr-warns.html">affect residents of urban areas across Nigeria</a>. </p>
<p>All these pressures, combined with poor planning, make life difficult in the country’s cities. One of the tools to deal with unsustainable urbanisation is family planning.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://health-policy-systems.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12961-022-00924-0">my study</a> I explored how family planning policy and urban development programmes in Nigeria were linked between 2000 and 2020. The study suggests the need to integrate family planning and health more effectively into urban and territorial planning. This will contribute to preventing unsustainable urbanisation and urban poverty. </p>
<h2>Migration, fertility and urban growth</h2>
<p>High population growth in cities across Africa is mainly driven by a natural increase: <a href="https://blogs.afdb.org/fr/inclusive-growth/urbanization-africa-191">more births than deaths</a>. When a country is 30% or more urban, the contribution of natural increase to urban growth <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/padr.12407">becomes larger than that of migration</a>. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://dhsprogram.com/publications/publication-fr359-dhs-final-reports.cfm">total fertility rate for Lagos is 3.4 children per woman</a> – higher than the replacement fertility level of 2.1. </p>
<p><a href="https://dhsprogram.com/pubs/pdf/FR359/FR359.pdf">Nigeria’s total fertility rate is 5.3</a> (4.5 in urban and 5.9 in rural areas), which is far higher than the rate of countries <a href="https://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/Report-03-01-63/Report-03-01-632011.pdf">like South Africa (2.7)</a> and <a href="https://www.statistics.gov.rw/publication/Rwanda_population_2022">Rwanda (3.6)</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/africa/just-12-women-in-nigeria-used-modern-contraceptive-methods-report-78730">Only 12% of married women in Nigeria use modern contraceptives</a> (18.2% in urban and 7.8% in rural areas). Again, this is far lower compared to <a href="https://dhsprogram.com/publications/publication-fr337-dhs-final-reports.cfm">South Africa (48%)</a> and <a href="https://reproductive-health-journal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12978-022-01517-4">Rwanda (58%)</a>. </p>
<p>The unmet need for family planning among currently married women is <a href="https://www.dhsprogram.com/pubs/pdf/FR359/FR359.pdf">high in urban Nigeria, at 20%</a>.</p>
<h2>Evidence from research</h2>
<p>Meeting the family planning needs of the urban population can help to achieve population growth rates that make cities to be good places to live. But family planning remains a neglected subject in urban development programmes in Nigeria. My study set out to explore how population and city planning could be integrated better.</p>
<p>Part of the study consisted of interviews with 37 key informants in the family planning and urban development sectors in Ibadan, south-west Nigeria and Kaduna, north-west Nigeria. </p>
<p>More than two thirds of the informants recognised the importance of making family planning part of urban development initiatives. It can help address complex urban governance challenges such as pressure on infrastructure and social services.</p>
<p>But I found that family planning and urban development actors mostly worked in silos. This was a result of systemic barriers like the lack of a policy framework and support for sectors to work together.</p>
<p>The respondents said there were no policy documents or programmes that clearly linked family planning to urban development. Existing guidelines in each sector weren’t always carried out or monitored properly. For example, housing standards to prevent overcrowding weren’t enforced. And some people working in these fields didn’t have enough knowledge about each other’s work, or were frequently transferred to other government jobs. Buy-in was also identified as an issue: family planning can be a sensitive area for religious reasons. And informants noted a lack of will among professionals in different sectors to work as a team.</p>
<p>Urban development stakeholders, city planners and municipal authorities didn’t see family planning as a critical element in their initiatives. </p>
<p>But actors in both sectors suggested possible ways to achieve more effective working relationships. These included more research and sharing of knowledge, involving civil society organisations and the media, and sensitisation talks with government officials and political leaders.</p>
<p>They said a policy and regulatory framework would need to be in place to guide collaboration. </p>
<h2>Family planning for healthy cities</h2>
<p>Effective family planning services can give women more control over their health, time and activities. They can then play a greater part in meeting national development goals. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-nigerias-weak-health-system-affects-women-and-girls-the-most-163904">Why Nigeria's weak health system affects women and girls the most</a>
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<p>With a high rate of natural population increase across urban Nigeria, government investments in infrastructure won’t be sufficient. Housing deficits – already at <a href="https://housingfinanceafrica.org/countries/nigeria/">28 million units</a> – and overcrowding will remain big challenges. Slums – already home to <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.POP.SLUM.UR.ZS?locations=NG">49% of Nigeria’s urban population</a> – will grow. Urban poverty – already afflicting <a href="https://nigerianstat.gov.ng/news/78">42% of urban residents in Nigeria</a> – will rise. <a href="https://theconversation.com/nigerias-spiralling-insecurity-five-essential-reads-186696">Insecurity</a> will remain a big problem. Climate change crises will worsen. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/nigeria-floods-expert-insights-into-why-theyre-so-devastating-and-what-to-do-about-them-192409">Nigeria floods: expert insights into why they're so devastating and what to do about them</a>
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<p>There is no single solution to unsustainable urbanisation in Nigeria. But adequate investments in family planning programmes will help. </p>
<p>Effective and consistent use of family planning will reduce unintended pregnancies and unwanted fertility. A slower population growth rate consistent with national development goals can be achieved. </p>
<p>National and sub-national governments ought to consider the critical role of family planning in their urban development initiatives. This will make rapidly growing Nigerian cities more suitable for healthy living.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199325/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sunday Adedini receives funding from Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation through the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP). </span></em></p>Cities are increasingly unsafe and unhealthy. Family planning can help curb unsustainable urbanisation.Sunday Adedini, Associate Professor, Federal University, Oye EkitiLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2007532023-03-07T10:10:16Z2023-03-07T10:10:16ZA new invasive mosquito has been found in Kenya – what this means for malaria control<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513173/original/file-20230302-19-92bytq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Malaria transmission in Kenya has been largely limited to the coast and western parts of the country.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Kenya Medical Research Institute <a href="http://kemri.go.ke/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Evidence-Brief-Anopheles-stephensi-in-Kenya-potentially-substantial-threat-to-malaria-transmission-in-urban-and-rural-areas.pdf">recently detected</a> an invasive mosquito species in Laisamis and Saku subcounties of Marsabit county in Kenya’s northern region. </p>
<p>This mosquito, <em>Anopheles stephensi</em>, is native to South Asia and the Middle East. It <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33496217/">transmits the two malaria parasites</a> that pose the greatest risk of severe illness and death: <em>Plasmodium falciparum</em> and <em>Plasmodium vivax</em>. </p>
<p>The detection of this mosquito poses a major public health threat to Kenya for several reasons. </p>
<p>Malaria transmission in Kenya has been largely limited to the coast and western parts of the country. This is far from its major urban centres. The areas where <em>Anopheles stephensi</em> has been detected are urban and peri-urban. This mosquito thrives in urban settings. </p>
<p>Until now, Kenya’s malaria transmission has been driven by <a href="https://www.kemri.go.ke/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/"><em>Anopheles gambie</em></a> and <a href="https://www.kemri.go.ke/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/"><em>Anopheles funestus</em></a>. These vectors don’t cope very well with polluted water in urban centres.</p>
<p><em>Anopheles stephensi</em> on the other hand, <a href="https://malariajournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12936-016-1321-7">can breed in</a> cisterns, jerrycans, tyres, open tanks, sewers, overhead tanks, underground tanks and polluted environments. Furthermore, the mosquito is invasive. It spreads very fast to new areas. It can adapt to various climatic conditions, unlike the non-invasive malaria vectors whose survival in cold temperatures in high altitude areas is restricted.</p>
<p>The invasion by this mosquito could pose a significant threat to Kenya’s efforts to control and eliminate malaria. The country must take immediate action to assess the threat and put prevention strategies in place. </p>
<h2>What are the consequences?</h2>
<p>If <em>Anopheles stephensi</em> were to spread in a city like Nairobi, the consequences would be serious. </p>
<p>First, malaria could spread to the inner-city areas. Until now, these areas have had little or no transmission and their populations have not acquired immunity against malaria. </p>
<p>Secondly, urban development would no longer be assumed to contribute to malaria elimination. Urbanisation has added to many health problems. But it has tended to “<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1050-5">build out</a>” malaria through better housing and gradual pollution of the landscape. Traditional malaria vectors can’t breed in small containers or in water with organic pollution. The new invasive species may mean that the development of new suburbs is building malaria into the landscape.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/mosquito-species-from-asia-poses-growing-risk-to-africas-anti-malaria-efforts-188837">Mosquito species from Asia poses growing risk to Africa's anti-malaria efforts</a>
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<p>Traditional malaria vectors are <a href="https://malariajournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12936-021-03891-z">already finding space</a> in urban areas because of extensive urban agriculture, untended green space, and unplanned urban sprawl with poor water management. Some of these characteristics have enabled mosquito vectors to maintain malaria transmission, in some cases like in Bioko Island, Equatorial New Guinea, at <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/1756-3305-5-253">prevalence rates</a> as high as 30% to 40%. </p>
<p>There is also the risk that malaria from the cities will be exported to the rural areas. Regions in western Kenya and the coast are likely to suffer from spikes especially during the seasons where town dwellers visit during holiday seasons like Christmas.</p>
<p>The densely populated urban centres in these regions are likely to suffer the most. They are <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2003976117">seen as</a> highly suitable for <em>Anopheles stephensi</em> expansion due to the high population and conducive environmental and ecological factors like warm temperatures.</p>
<p>Traditional anti-malaria tools such as insecticide residual spraying are harder to use against <em>Anopheles stephensi</em> because its resting and feeding behaviour are different from other vectors.</p>
<p><em>Anopheles stephensi</em> has also proved to be <a href="https://malariajournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12936-021-03801-3">resistant</a> to most of the publicly available insecticides.</p>
<h2>A few solutions</h2>
<p>What can be done to stop the spread of this invasive species: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>Increase collaboration and encourage integrated management. Since this is an urban malaria vector, the ministries of agriculture, health, education, environment, sanitation and water resources and county governments all need to work together. National responses to <em>Anopheles stephensi</em> should be integrated with efforts to control malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases, such as dengue fever, yellow fever and chikungunya. </p></li>
<li><p>Develop guidance for national malaria control programmes on appropriate ways to respond to <em>Anopheles stephensi</em>.</p></li>
</ul>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/invasive-mosquito-species-could-bring-more-malaria-to-africas-urban-areas-147530">Invasive mosquito species could bring more malaria to Africa's urban areas</a>
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<li><p>Strengthen surveillance. The extent of the spread and the impact <em>Anopheles stephensi</em> has on malaria transmission in Kenya is not clear yet. Confirming both would be important in laying down management strategies to protect against disease outbreaks, particularly in urban settings, in the coming years. </p></li>
<li><p>Improve information exchange. Awareness of <em>Anopheles stephensi</em> should be boosted in communities most at risk. They should be advised to frequently replenish stored water for domestic use. People must also keep their environments free of discarded containers as these could be good breeding grounds for this invasive species.</p></li>
<li><p>A global policy and cross-border collaboration between the affected countries. Eradicating <em>Anopheles stephensi</em> from the Horn of Africa would be much cheaper in the long run than leaving it to spread to towns and cities.</p></li>
</ul><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200753/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eunice Anyango Owino receives funding from National Research Fund of Kenya (NRF) and International Foundation For science. </span></em></p>This mosquito spreads very fast to new areas and can adapt to various climatic conditions, unlike the non-invasive malaria vectors.Eunice Anyango Owino, Medical Entomologist at the School of Biological Sciences, University of NairobiLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1973002023-02-13T13:12:31Z2023-02-13T13:12:31ZDakar’s clandestine taxis are essential for daily travel - but they’re illegal<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506827/original/file-20230127-14-aiscwm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A clando taxi stand in downtown Rufisque, Dakar metropolitan area.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">G. Lesteven, 2021</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Africa’s major cities are growing <a href="https://unhabitat.org/global-state-of-metropolis-2020-%E2%80%93-population-data-booklet">at a rapid pace</a>. In Dakar, Senegal’s capital, for instance, the population has almost doubled in 20 years, reaching <a href="https://www.ansd.sn/">4 million inhabitants</a> today. </p>
<p>But in most metropolises, like Dakar, planning isn’t keeping up with the expansion. One example of this is the city’s transport system. Public transport plays a fundamental role in providing access to any city. However, in many cities, it’s lacking, particularly in areas of urban sprawl. This worsens the quality of life for people living in these areas, where there is a shortage of jobs and amenities.</p>
<p>Meeting essential needs – such as employment, social interaction, healthcare, education and food – depends on mobility. In a context where incomes are low and public services and facilities are scarce, daily travel is necessary but difficult.</p>
<p>Dakar is attempting to better organise its transport system to meet growing travel demand. Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) and suburban railway lines are constructed or under way. But public transport remains insufficient. Various forms of informal transport fill this gap and account for a significant proportion of motorised trips. Among them are taxis which people share, commonly called “clandestine taxis” or “clandos.” But they’re illegal because they operate without a licence. </p>
<p>Clandos are typically old, unmarked sedan cars which carry four to six passengers. Many clandos operate in the Dakar region. There is no official figure, because clandos aren’t registered. However, according to our estimates, there are well over 5,000 operating regularly. People know them as they run along fixed routes, leaving the taxi stand when they are full. Most of the time, the stands are well located, close to main roads or main buildings. They also serve remote areas. They are more expensive than buses but provide a better quality of service.</p>
<p>We carried out <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/11/6769">research</a> on how people move around Dakar and found that clandos play a vital role, particularly in the city’s outskirts. Even if bus operators consider them as competitors, in most situations clandos are complementary to them and should be better integrated into transport and planning strategies for the peripheral areas.</p>
<h2>How to move around in the peripheries</h2>
<p>Our research – based on the <a href="https://shs.hal.science/halshs-01346869/">2015 Dakar household travel survey</a> and a survey we carried out in 2021 and 2022 – found that residents in Dakar’s peripheral areas are on average poorer than the city’s other residents. Because of this, they mainly travel on foot and their access to public transport is limited. When they use motorised transport, a significant proportion of their trips are made by clandos.</p>
<p>People generally use clandos for two types of trip: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>long commutes from the peripheries to the centre. They generally use the clando for a part of the trip, to get to or from bus stops. Clandos help people to avoid long trips on foot and actually contribute to increase the number of people taking buses. Most of these commuters are men.</p></li>
<li><p>short, local trips within the outskirts. These trips are shorter, and less expensive, than the long commutes. They account for almost two out of three trips made by clandos. The users are a fairly diverse group: housewives, schoolchildren, informal workers. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>Clandos are sought out for their speed and comfort. Our surveys show that they are relatively expensive for households. That explains why the use of clandos may be irregular and limited to certain types of trips, like visiting relatives, going to the clinic or coming back from the market.</p>
<h2>Urban planning and clandos</h2>
<p>Currently, decision-makers are focusing on organising public transport around mass transit. This means that informal modes, like clandos, are doomed to vanish on the grounds that they compete with high-capacity transport; or at best will be used only as a feeder mode to buses and mass transit. </p>
<p>The role clandos play - as a complementary mode, for both feeder services to public transport stops and, more importantly yet, for internal trips in peripheries - offsets their contribution to unnecessary competition and congestion. </p>
<p>Better recognition would make it possible to take better advantage of their unique strengths and capabilities and enable them to play a full role in supporting mobility and daily life. In practice, this means better consolidation of the operation and of the distribution of stands in the public space, less police harassment, access to credit for drivers who own their vehicle and for owner-investors to renew the vehicles.</p>
<p>These considerations must be incorporated into a more comprehensive analysis of the urbanisation of peripheral areas and the need for public action to address transport and urban planning in an integrated way. Considering clandos in planning could initiate a bottom-up development of the transport system. It may also offer job opportunities in the context of a very tight labour market.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197300/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The field surveys are funded by ENTPE (Taxis-Clandos Grant)</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>The field surveys are funded by ENTPE (Taxis-Clandos Grant). </span></em></p>Urban expansion in Sub-Saharan Africa and the need for daily mobilityPape Sakho, Maître de conférences CAMES, Université Cheikh Anta Diop de DakarGaele Lesteven, Researcher, LAET, École nationale des travaux publics de l'ÉtatMomar Diongue, Lecturer and Researcher, Université Cheikh Anta Diop de DakarPascal Pochet, Researcher, LAET, École nationale des travaux publics de l'ÉtatLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1989602023-02-01T13:51:25Z2023-02-01T13:51:25ZPlanting more trees could reduce premature heat-related deaths in European cities by a third – new research<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507592/original/file-20230201-583-dxwqbe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C0%2C5259%2C3482&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Planting trees in urban areas can reduce the impacts of urban heat islands.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/amsterdam-netherlands-12-june-2022-couple-2179666331">Dutch_Photos/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Urban development leads to fewer shaded areas and more heat-absorbing paved surfaces. Cities tend to be warmer than their rural surroundings as a result, a phenomenon known as the <a href="https://www.epa.gov/green-infrastructure/reduce-urban-heat-island-effect#:%7E:text=%22Urban%20heat%20islands%22%20occur%20when,heat%2Drelated%20illness%20and%20mortality.">urban heat island (UHI) effect</a>. During the summer daytime, cities can be <a href="https://www.epa.gov/heatislands/heat-island-compendium">up to 12°C</a> hotter than rural areas.</p>
<p>UHIs are a major environmental hazard for urban dwellers. <a href="https://jech.bmj.com/content/64/9/753.short">Research</a> suggests that for each 1°C rise in temperature, the risk of death increases by between 1% and 3%. Heat exposure also increases the risk of suffering <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2542519622001176">cardiovascular</a> and <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22531668/">respiratory illnesses</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(22)02585-5/fulltext">Our research</a> calculated the death rates of urban inhabitants across 93 European cities (57 million people in total) between June and August 2015. We found that 6,700 premature deaths during this period were linked to UHIs. </p>
<p>But the pace of <a href="https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-global-temperature">global warming</a> is accelerating and <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab4b71">2 billion to 3 billion</a> people are expected to live in cities by 2050. The health impacts of UHIs will likely worsen in the coming years. </p>
<p>Several strategies exist to protect urban residents from the impacts of heat. These include <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0378778814009700?via%3Dihub">covering roofs and facades in vegetation</a> (green roofs), decorating them in lighter colours, and replacing paved surfaces with areas of vegetation. Our modelling revealed that one-third (2,644) of UHI deaths in Europe could be prevented by increasing tree canopy cover to 30% in every urban neighbourhood.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A graphic showing why urban areas are hotter than nearby rural areas." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507545/original/file-20230201-21-prrajt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507545/original/file-20230201-21-prrajt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507545/original/file-20230201-21-prrajt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507545/original/file-20230201-21-prrajt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507545/original/file-20230201-21-prrajt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507545/original/file-20230201-21-prrajt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507545/original/file-20230201-21-prrajt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The urban heat island effect.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(22)02585-5/fulltext">Èlia Pons/ISGlobal</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Urban tree guidelines</h2>
<p>This <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11676-022-01523-z">target</a> was established last year by a study published in the <a href="https://www.springer.com/journal/11676/">Journal of Forestry Research</a>. Since then it has been adopted by several cities worldwide, including <a href="https://www.c40knowledgehub.org/s/article/Trees-for-Life-Master-Plan-for-Barcelona-s-Trees-2017-2037?language=en_US">Barcelona</a> (Spain), <a href="https://bristolgreencapital.org/new-ambitious-target-launched-double-city-tree-canopy-cover-2050/">Bristol</a> (UK), <a href="https://www.phila.gov/programs/greenworks/">Philadelphia</a> (US), <a href="https://www.environment.act.gov.au/cc">Canberra</a> (Australia) and <a href="https://www.seattle.gov/documents/Departments/Trees/Mangement/Canopy/Seattle2016CCAFinalReportFINAL.pdf">Seattle</a> (US). </p>
<p>Urban forests regulate a city’s microclimates effectively. <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2210670721008301?via%3Dihub">Research</a> found that urban forests cooled the average temperature of 601 European cities by 1.1°C and by as much as 2.9°C.</p>
<p>Leafy neighbourhoods are also linked to improved mental and physical health. In California, a <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1353829216301332">10% increase</a> in neighbourhood tree cover has been associated with a 19% reduction in rates of obesity and type 2 diabetes.</p>
<p>Surrounding greenness, particularly greenness at schools, can be important in the <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.1503402112">cognitive development</a> of children. Cognitive testing of schoolchildren in Barcelona revealed a 6% better working memory development in children at schools with the highest levels of greenness compared to those at the least-green schools.</p>
<h2>More trees means less heat</h2>
<p>We found substantial variation in UHI death rates across European cities. In 2015, Gothenburg in Sweden recorded no premature UHI deaths, while urban heat was responsible for 32 premature deaths per 100,000 people in the Romanian city Cluj-Napoca.</p>
<p>The cities with the highest UHI death rates were in southern and eastern Europe. Most of these cities generally had low tree coverage and recorded the highest UHI effect. </p>
<p>Just 3.3% of Thessaloniki in Greece is covered by trees, resulting in urban temperatures 2.8°C higher than the surrounding area. By contrast, 27% of Gothenburg is covered by trees, delivering an UHI effect of just 0.4°C. </p>
<p>Overall, southern European cities will benefit most from increasing their tree cover. Our model estimates that Barcelona could reduce its UHI death rate by 60% by meeting the 30% tree coverage target.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A street view of Gothenburg with trees lining the road and colourful buildings in the background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507559/original/file-20230201-17-5z86tz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507559/original/file-20230201-17-5z86tz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507559/original/file-20230201-17-5z86tz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507559/original/file-20230201-17-5z86tz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507559/original/file-20230201-17-5z86tz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507559/original/file-20230201-17-5z86tz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507559/original/file-20230201-17-5z86tz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The urban heat island effect is minimal in Gothenburg, Sweden.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/goteborg-sweden-august-25-2016-view-756809815">trabantos/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The way forward</h2>
<p>But the intensity of the UHI effect depends on multiple factors and is specific to each city. While vegetation cover influences urban temperatures during the day, nighttime temperatures are driven by the height of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_canyon">urban canyon</a>.</p>
<p>The cooling capacity of a tree canopy also varies. This depends on the type and size of trees, which are themselves contingent on the city’s natural climate and the degree to which trees are maintained.</p>
<p>Drier climates, like Thessaloniki, favour smaller trees that have fewer leaves. By contrast, Gothenburg’s cooler and wetter climate favours larger and leafier trees that provide better protection from daytime heat.</p>
<p>Due to this variation, we built a tool called the Cooling Efforts Index. The index assesses how much cooling can be achieved in each city for every 1% increase in tree cover. We also generated high-resolution maps for each city to identify the areas where tree coverage is needed most urgently.</p>
<p>In some cities, the majority of urban forests will grow on private land. Tree planting programmes must therefore encourage residents to plant trees.</p>
<p>In Victoria, a city on Canada’s western coast, <a href="https://www.victoria.ca/EN/main/residents/parks/urban-forest/trees-in-cities-challenge.html">neighbourhoods are offered</a> a CAD$1,000 (£610) grant to plant residential trees. So far, over 78 trees have been planted on private property across the city.</p>
<p>Space can also be a major constraint in compact urban areas. So increasing tree cover to 30% may be challenging for some European cities. </p>
<p>But each city can adapt this target to its local context. For example, a lower tree canopy target can be combined with alternative measures like green roofs in compact urban areas. </p>
<p>Terrace roofs account for 67% of <a href="https://www.c40knowledgehub.org/s/article/Trees-for-Life-Master-Plan-for-Barcelona-s-Trees-2017-2037?language=en_US">Barcelona’s</a> roof surface area. As the city’s urban population continues to rise, the city council has launched a <a href="https://www.c40knowledgehub.org/s/article/Guide-to-living-terrace-roofs-and-green-roofs?language=en_US">guide</a> to transform roofs into areas with partial or total plant cover. The guide sets out the social and environmental benefits of green roofs and offers advice for choosing the right kind of terrace roof for the building.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="View from the rooftop terrace overlooking Barcelona's skyline." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507565/original/file-20230201-3729-xvmqx2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507565/original/file-20230201-3729-xvmqx2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507565/original/file-20230201-3729-xvmqx2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507565/original/file-20230201-3729-xvmqx2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507565/original/file-20230201-3729-xvmqx2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507565/original/file-20230201-3729-xvmqx2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507565/original/file-20230201-3729-xvmqx2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Terrace roofs account for 67% of Barcelona’s roof surface area.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/barcelona-spain-june-1-2022-view-2187870367">Kirk Fisher/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Incorporating urban green infrastructure into cities should make them more resilient to climate change. But planting trees may not be enough. Tree growth is a long processes and around half of newly-planted trees <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1618866711000422">die within two years</a>. Preserving existing trees and complementing tree planting schemes with other measures that reduce the intensity of UHIs, such as reducing car use, are similarly important.</p>
<p>Urban trees provide substantial public health and environmental benefits. Our study suggests that by increasing tree coverage, premature UHI deaths in European cities can be reduced. But for the resilience of cities to increase, it remains important to combine greater tree coverage with other urban green infrastructure.</p>
<p><em>The headline of this article was amended to make clear it referred to heat-related deaths and not all premature deaths.</em></p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Imagine weekly climate newsletter" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption"></span>
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<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198960/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Nieuwenhuijsen receives funding from European Union Horizon funding </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Meelan Thondoo and Tamara Iungman do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In 2015, 6,700 premature deaths were caused by urban heat – this can be reduced by a third by planting more trees.Meelan Thondoo, Research Associate, MRC Epidemiology Unit, University of CambridgeMark Nieuwenhuijsen, Research Professor ISGlobal Barcelona and Professorial Fellow, ACU Melbourne, Australian Catholic UniversityTamara Iungman, PhD researcher, Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1984582023-01-30T14:27:27Z2023-01-30T14:27:27ZKampala, Kigali and Addis Ababa are changing fast: new book follows their distinct paths<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506296/original/file-20230125-22-fk3erh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Kampala is one of the three Eastern African cities that transformed with little historical precedence</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GettyImages</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Kampala, the Ugandan capital where I live, is naturally the city I have studied and worked on the most as an urban economist. Yet even with this background, reading <a href="https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/usp/people/academic-staff/tom-goodfellow">Tom Goodfellow’s</a> recently published book, <a href="https://academic.oup.com/book/44624">Politics and the Urban Frontier: Transformation and Divergence in Late Urbanizing East Africa</a>, I learned astonishing new facts about Kampala. </p>
<p>I also learnt a great deal about the urbanisation processes of two other major East African cities – Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, and Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. </p>
<p>Goodfellow is <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/tom-goodfellow-119040">professor of urban studies and international development</a> at the University of Sheffield. His research focuses on the political economy of urban development and change in Africa. He has also worked with universities across Africa.</p>
<p>In this review I provide a glimpse of the comparative analytical journey Goodfellow takes across these three cities. I also make the case that anyone interested in East Africa’s dynamic urbanisation process should have this book as a core part of their reading list. </p>
<h2>Three cities</h2>
<p>At the start of the 2000s, Addis Ababa, Kampala and Kigali were some of the least urbanised cities in the region. And, for different reasons, they didn’t command much attention from national policy makers. </p>
<p>Fast forward to 2023, and all three cities are undergoing an urban transformation that has little historical precedence in terms of speed or scale. They have become, for differing reasons, central to national, regional and in some senses even global, policy making. </p>
<p>Based simply on this fact, the cities are unique. </p>
<p>The histories that shaped them include their colonial pasts, or resistance to it in the case of Ethiopia, their struggles for independence and post independence political and economic policies. </p>
<p>Take the varied approaches that Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Uganda adopted to the World Bank’s structural adjustment programmes in the 1980s and 1990s. The Bank’s misguided neoliberal approach continues to have lingering after-effects on each of them. This is particularly true when it comes to the composition of their urban economies. In particular, the increased privatisation promoted by the programmes led to cuts in formal employment opportunities in the public sector as well industry, pushing people into informality. </p>
<p>Another consequence was the sharp decline in public service provision, particularly in urban areas.</p>
<p>They have also been influenced by external economic forces. East Africa, as a global latecomer to the urbanisation process, is urbanising at a time when globalisation has resulted in significant flows of capital. For example, East Africa as a region receives one of the <a href="https://repository.hanyang.ac.kr/bitstream/20.500.11754/114286/1/Official%20Development%20Assistance%20and%20Economic%20Growth%20in%20East%20African%20Countries.pdf">largest shares of development assistance</a>. It is also a central focus for China’s Belt and Road Strategy. </p>
<p>As Goodfellow illustrates, these forces of globalisation are continuously reshaping East Africa’s cities in terms of the infrastructure investments that are currently taking place. Influence can also be seen in the new patterns of commerce, employment and entrepreneurialism within them.</p>
<h2>A granular comparison</h2>
<p>Goodfellow’s most formidable achievement in the book is that he has been able to draw clear comparisons between three very different cities. At the same time he hasn’t lost critical details that have shaped each one of their unique and complex systems. </p>
<p>To do this, he employs a comparative framework with four dimensions. They are:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>each city’s urban planning vision, including major infrastructure projects, which has affected political outcomes </p></li>
<li><p>changing patterns of urban property development (propertyscapes) and how these interacted with and have been shaped by the underlying institutions</p></li>
<li><p>the diverse and powerful forces of the urban marketplace, generically termed “the informal sector”, as centres of urban working lives and livelihoods</p></li>
<li><p>the forms political mobilisation has taken in each of these contexts and how these have been institutionalised and therefore generally resisted change.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Throughout Goodfellow’s book he keeps drawing on the theme of infrastructure creating property value, while property, shaped by several prevailing forces, creates the demand and need for infrastructure.</p>
<p>For example, he illustrates how the affordable housing crisis has played out in each city. There are differences of course, which can clearly be seen in Addis Ababa’s immense public condominium construction project compared to Kampala’s near lack of government engagement in the housing space.</p>
<p>But there are also similarities. For example, across all three cities construction costs are substantial and much of the housing finance being provided is coming from the domestic and diaspora elites. This partially reflects constraints across the banking systems in the three countries. </p>
<p>A further similarity is the prevalence of expensive international aid worker housing resulting from substantial inflows of development assistance. This has skewed property markets in all three cities to an oversupply of high-end properties. The extent of this is huge. For example, the average rent for someone working in the diplomatic corps or an international institution in Kigali is usually upwards of US$4,000 a month. In contrast the annual GDP per capita of Rwanda is currently about <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=RW">US$822</a>. </p>
<h2>New and dynamic forms of urbanism</h2>
<p>Over the past years all three cities have been experimenting with new forms of urban visioning. This has shaped, and been shaped by, property, infrastructure and the underlying state-society relations in highly contested political spaces. </p>
<p>Perhaps this is most aptly illustrated by the Kigali Urban Master Plan that was developed by <a href="https://surbanajurong.com/sector/kigali-city-master-plan/">Singaporean firm Surbana Jurong</a>. The plan aspires to transform Kigali into a type of Singapore of Africa – essentially proposing to replace the existing city with something entirely new. </p>
<p>In Addis Ababa, the vision is epitomised by a major infrastructure investment, namely the light rail train system. A Chinese company constructed the rail system at a cost of <a href="http://www.china.org.cn/business/2019-04/25/content_74720232.htm">US$475 million for 34km</a>. This was an expensive undertaking that has reorganised the economic form of the city.</p>
<p>Similar spatial disruption has occurred in Kampala through the Chinese constructed expressway that connects it to the airport in Entebbe. This is now the <a href="https://www.thevaluechainng.com/the-most-expensive-road-in-the-world-is-located-in-east-africa/">most expensive road per kilometre in the world</a>. </p>
<h2>The devil is in the complex details</h2>
<p>Goodfellow’s book is a must-read for those who are working in policy or project development within any of these cities. </p>
<p>It manages to show why attempting to supplant models from urban development elsewhere, including “best practices”, will not work. Rather we need to understand local contexts and complex systems.</p>
<p>The imperative for this is clear: East Africa is one of the fastest urbanising regions in the world, but it’s still in the early phases of this process. There’s a major opportunity to get the region’s cities right.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198458/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Astrid R.N. Haas does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>East Africa is one of the fastest urbanising regions in the world, but it’s still in the early phases. There’s a big opportunity to get the region’s cities right.Astrid R.N. Haas, Fellow, Infrastructure Institute, School of Cities, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1975512023-01-16T18:19:33Z2023-01-16T18:19:33ZJapan is paying families 1 million yen to move to the countryside – but it won’t make Tokyo any smaller<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504664/original/file-20230116-16-dga048.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/7Xl0a6KCDyM">Denys Nevozhai | Unsplash</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Japanese government <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/03/million-yen-per-child-to-leave-tokyo-japans-offer-to-families">has announced</a> a fresh round of incentives for people to move out of the Tokyo region. From April 2023, families seeking a new life in greener pastures will receive JPY1 million (£6,380), per child. This represents an increase of JPY700,000 on previous such payments. </p>
<p>Once the whole benefits package is included, the maximum amount a family will be able to receive is JPY5 million. 5 million yen might sound like a lot of money. However this translates to £31,900, which <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/m7gdzy/japan-pays-families-leave-tokyo">will be quickly used up</a> in relocating to a new home, job and community, and reduced incomes.</p>
<p>The main purpose of the scheme is to contribute both to easing overcrowding in the Tokyo region and revitalising more rural and remote areas of Japan with an injection of youth and entrepreneurialism.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Grasses in the foreground of a deep countryside view under sunshine." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504663/original/file-20230116-12-q5m884.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504663/original/file-20230116-12-q5m884.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504663/original/file-20230116-12-q5m884.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504663/original/file-20230116-12-q5m884.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504663/original/file-20230116-12-q5m884.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504663/original/file-20230116-12-q5m884.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504663/original/file-20230116-12-q5m884.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The government is seeking to revitalise the Japanese countryside.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/dfdFyCyKHto">Muhammad Faiz Zulkeflee | Unsplash</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is significant that this new scheme was announced in December, ahead of the new year holidays when many urban dwellers return to their rural roots, and conversations inevitably turn to what the future holds. </p>
<p>Even more significant is the fact that this is not the first time the government has launched such a scheme. In fact, successive Japanese administrations have tried – and largely failed – to stabilise rural prefectures’ populations and reduce urban overcrowding for 70 years.</p>
<h2>Attempts at counterurbanisation</h2>
<p>The scheme concerns residents from the 23 wards of Tokyo proper, as well as commuter cities in neighbouring Chiba, Saitama and Kanagawa prefectures, seeking to move to one of 1,800 provincial municipalities. The government hopes that around 10,000 people annually will take advantage of the offer.</p>
<p>There are conditions, of course. At least one earner in each household must either set up a business in their new locale or take up employment in a small or medium sized enterprise there. And the family must stay for a minimum of five years. Failure to do so may result in having to repay the whole amount.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An empty, run-down train station platform." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504660/original/file-20230116-6411-caekqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504660/original/file-20230116-6411-caekqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504660/original/file-20230116-6411-caekqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504660/original/file-20230116-6411-caekqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504660/original/file-20230116-6411-caekqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504660/original/file-20230116-6411-caekqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504660/original/file-20230116-6411-caekqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rural Japan is emptying of residents and investment.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/gMVsDTcWyzI">Tzepang Ngaa | Unsplash</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Japan is not the only country where governments pay people to relocate to the countryside. In 2021, Ireland started to move up to 68,000 government workers out of Dublin in its <a href="https://www.gov.ie/en/publication/4c236-our-rural-future-vision-and-policy-context/">Our Rural Future</a> plan. </p>
<p>Many countries have taken similar advantage of the increased flexibility of remote working the pandemic has stimulated, such as with the so-called <a href="https://www.william-russell.com/blog/zoom-towns-the-countries-and-states-that-will-pay-you-to-move-there/">“Zoom towns”</a> in rural US. Other examples include <a href="https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/business/paid-to-relocate_albinen-cash-incentives-attract-new-residents/44308024">Albinen</a> in Switzerland, various <a href="https://www.thinkspain.com/news-spain/33497/rural-allure-six-villages-that-have-paid-people-to-move-in">Spanish villages</a> and <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/presicce-italy-pay-to-move/index.html">Presicce</a> in Italy, which is offering £30,000 to buy an empty dwelling and take up residency.</p>
<p>There have been a long list of such measures in Japan since world war two. As detailed by <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/udi.2012.26">German geographer Thomas Feldhoff</a>, starting with the 1953 Remote Island Promotion Act, most of them met with only marginal success.</p>
<p>In the early 1970s, Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei’s government invested in huge infrastructure development programmes in Japan’s provinces. This was partly in an effort to boost employment and stabilise populations. </p>
<p>Tanaka was so ambitious that he wrote a book about it, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1795023#metadata_info_tab_contents">Remodelling the Japanese Archipelago</a>, which was published in 1972. And his plan did work for a while. However, it generated enormous environmental damage in the process, with which Japan is still coming to terms.</p>
<p>In the 1980s, the <em>Isson Ippon</em>, or One Village One Product movement, as it is known in English, was launched in Oita prefecture in Kyushu. It provided a gentler alternative, which is still being <a href="https://www.fao.org/3/cc2693en/cc2693en.pdf">promoted internationally</a> by the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, as part of Japan’s overseas development activities. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A street scene in a small town in the mountains." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504667/original/file-20230116-26-yi0k29.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504667/original/file-20230116-26-yi0k29.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504667/original/file-20230116-26-yi0k29.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504667/original/file-20230116-26-yi0k29.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504667/original/file-20230116-26-yi0k29.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504667/original/file-20230116-26-yi0k29.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504667/original/file-20230116-26-yi0k29.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Oita prefecture, in Kyushu.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/LJil2jfhTxU">Tayawee Supan | Unsplash</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>More recently, <a href="https://academic.oup.com/ssjj/article-abstract/13/2/187/1698938">research</a> I have undertaken with my colleague Yasuyuki Sato has shown how rural municipalities have resigned themselves to ever reducing populations. In an attempt to take control of such futures, they have begun instead to focus on the health, wellbeing and living conditions of those people who remain.</p>
<h2>A global concern</h2>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/the-era-of-the-megalopolis-how-the-worlds-cities-are-merging-193424">Urban sprawl</a> and rural emptying are two sides of the same 21st-century coin, and are global in their extent. In the 19th and 20th centuries, as populations across the world grew exponentially, urbanisation processes didn’t necessarily affect rural regions negatively. Some communities benefited from younger people moving out to seek employment, education, and marriage in nearby cities, as families often had more children than they could adequately support.</p>
<p>In the 21st century, however, as family size has shrunk dramatically nearly everywhere, the so-called <a href="https://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1274.html">demographic dividend</a> – that is, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/as-the-8-billionth-person-is-born-heres-how-africa-will-shape-the-future-of-the-planets-population-194067">benefits</a> of a growing population – has come to an end in developed countries. </p>
<p>Japan has led the way in East Asia. In 1974, the Japanese total fertility rate <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?locations=JP">fell below</a> the population replacement rate of 2.1. Demographers would have known then that, should conditions persist, the country would eventually slip into depopulation. Sure enough, conditions did persist, and in 2008 Japan registered its <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/psp.2543">first peacetime population decrease</a>.</p>
<p>Although Tokyo’s population is now 13 million, the Kanto region of which it is the core boasts more than 37 million people – 30% of the whole population of Japan. Elsewhere in the country, hundreds of rural hamlets and villages face <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jennawang/2019/07/31/waiting-for-the-end-in-japans-terminal-villages/">imminent extinction</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An aerial view of a city and traffic at sunset." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504668/original/file-20230116-26-82jp3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504668/original/file-20230116-26-82jp3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=357&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504668/original/file-20230116-26-82jp3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=357&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504668/original/file-20230116-26-82jp3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=357&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504668/original/file-20230116-26-82jp3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504668/original/file-20230116-26-82jp3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504668/original/file-20230116-26-82jp3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Seoul cityscape.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/01hH6y7oZFk">Mathew Schwartz | Unsplash</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Japan is not unique. Greater Seoul has around 25 million people, nearly half of South Korea’s population in one urban area with the rest spread out across the rest of the country. And in China, the Pearl River delta area, which encompasses Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Macau and Guangzhou, counts <a href="https://www.thestoryinstitute.com/pearl-river">100 million people</a> living within it, while the wider country now boasts <a href="https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/cities/china">155 cities</a> with more than 1 million population.</p>
<p>Further afield, at 1.7 million, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/05/bulging-at-the-seams-auckland-a-super-city-struggling-with-its-own-success">the city of Auckland</a> comprises nearly a third of New Zealand’s population. Only 1.2 million people, <a href="https://www.citypopulation.de/en/newzealand/southisland/">by contrast</a>, live in all of the South Island. </p>
<p>The spatial impacts of this demographic transition have been felt most deeply in rural regions of the Asia-Pacific. These grew most rapidly in the 20th century, and now face almost as rapid a depopulation in the 21st. <a href="https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/78027/1/MatanleFCO2014_Deposit.pdf">Entire communities</a> are disappearing. Land and housing are being abandoned. Infrastructure is decaying.</p>
<p>As the rest of east and south-east Asia follows in Japan’s footsteps, the archipelago is to some extent a laboratory for devising effective policies for dealing with the socioeconomic and environmental outcomes of depopulation, a phenomenon which will increasingly be felt globally.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197551/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>In the course of his research on Japanese spatial demography Peter Matanle received funding from the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation, the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation, the Economic and Social Research Council, the Arts and Humanities Research Council, and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.</span></em></p>Successive Japanese administrations have tried – and largely failed – to reduce urban overcrowding for 70 years.Peter Matanle, Senior Lecturer in Japanese Studies, University of SheffieldLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1934242022-11-22T16:50:06Z2022-11-22T16:50:06ZThe era of the megalopolis: how the world’s cities are merging<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496172/original/file-20221118-13-3hmo7a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">shutterstock</span> </figcaption></figure><p>On November 15 2022, a <a href="https://ph.news.yahoo.com/baby-girl-born-manila-symbolizes-070929612.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly90aGVjb252ZXJzYXRpb24uY29tLw&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAACZON24C_Rp9fgLGVObkebb78761YzAajlc-lzRoCD0nLGsq-eYozsKi_fEYYWd-7M1BARQNheIi6sahq16dIi5N7W_6uxh17ijB6VaeZmWuf2ooqBLoyxGIOcIMsIrMmflBmu6jE2TLDt-n40gjVRI0KyGZnpM4FUsUzuOg6PdC">baby girl named Vinice Mabansag</a>, born at Dr Jose Fabella Memorial Hospital in Manila, Philippines, became – symbolically – the <a href="https://theconversation.com/8-billion-humans-how-population-growth-and-climate-change-are-connected-as-the-anthropocene-engine-transforms-the-planet-193075">eight billionth person</a> in the world. Of those 8 billion people, <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.URB.TOTL.IN.ZS">60%</a> live in a town or city. By the end of the 21st century, cities will account for 85% of Earth’s <a href="https://www.oecd.org/regional/regional-policy/The-Metropolitan-Century-Policy-Highlights%20.pdf">predicted 10 billion inhabitants</a>. </p>
<p>Cities don’t only grow by the number of inhabitants. The more people they host, the more services (public transport, energy infrastructure, water supply) they need, the more governance they require and the more resilient their economy has to be. It might be surprising then to learn that there is no single definition of what a city actually is. </p>
<p>In medieval times, cities from London to Seoul were delineated by their walls. And even well into the 20th century, the idea of a city’s limits still held water. Today, if the process of urbanisation still brings to mind the biggest pre-millennial metropolises (Tokyo, São Paulo, New York or Mumbai), they represent nonetheless a decreasing proportion of all the world’s cities. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A view of high-rise buildings with afternoon sunlight." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496190/original/file-20221118-12-see71z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496190/original/file-20221118-12-see71z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496190/original/file-20221118-12-see71z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496190/original/file-20221118-12-see71z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496190/original/file-20221118-12-see71z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496190/original/file-20221118-12-see71z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496190/original/file-20221118-12-see71z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">New York represents the city of the 20th century.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/wpU4veNGnHg">Ben O'Bro | Unsplash</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By contrast, in the more rapidly growing urban centres, <a href="https://urbanage.lsecities.net/data/urban-expansion-lagos">such as Lagos</a>, the geographic extent of a mayor’s official jurisdiction often ends long before the populace it serves does. Its economy, meanwhile, is often deeply intertwined with those of the neighbouring cities. </p>
<p>The question of where to draw the line between what is and what is not a city – not to mention where one ends and another begins – is getting harder to answer. As the world moves towards total urbanisation, settlements are spreading out by merging into one another to create what urban experts term “<a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2199-8531/8/3/126/pdf">megalopolises</a>”.</p>
<h2>How machines saw cities grow</h2>
<p>The largest of these mega-cities already exceeds 60 million people. In China, the region of Guangdong province around the Pearl River estuary now known as the <a href="https://www.atlasoftheinvisible.com/">Greater Bay Area</a> effectively merges 11 cities, from Macao all the way around to Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Hong Kong. </p>
<p>With a total population <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14649357.2021.1958539">of over 70 million inhabitants</a>, it counts 2 million more people than the entire population of the UK, squeezed into roughly a fifth of the area. In economic terms, it looms just as large: at US$1.64 trillion (£1.39 trillion) in 2018, its GDP represents 11.6% of China’s total. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A map of a coastline showing light emissions." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496151/original/file-20221118-9310-fz02zk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496151/original/file-20221118-9310-fz02zk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496151/original/file-20221118-9310-fz02zk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496151/original/file-20221118-9310-fz02zk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496151/original/file-20221118-9310-fz02zk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496151/original/file-20221118-9310-fz02zk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496151/original/file-20221118-9310-fz02zk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A map of light emissions beaming from the Guangdong-Hong Kong megalopolis.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">James Cheshire</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On the west African coast, meanwhile, the 600km stretch between Abidjan, Ivory Coast and Lagos, in Nigeria, is rapidly catching up. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/27/megalopolis-how-coastal-west-africa-will-shape-the-coming-century">Experts predict</a> that by 2100, this agglomeration of nine cities will be the most densely populated on earth, with up to 500 million people.</p>
<p>Cities only really started growing in the mid-18th century when we began to build machines that would propel us much faster – and further – than any technology invented so far. For the first time, cities and London, in particular, broke through the threshold of around 1 million people in size that had dominated the urban world hitherto. </p>
<p>Some cities, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/apr/02/worlds-first-skyscraper-chicago-home-insurance-building-history">including Chicago</a> and New York, grew upwards as the technologies of the steel frame and the elevator enabled those with the resources to erect the early skyscrapers, those “cathedrals of commerce”. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hKbdpO428M0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>With the invention of the automobile, many cities, such as Los Angeles, have grown outwards, despite widespread <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Exploding_Metropolis.html?id=N6MwDwAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y">resistance</a> to the idea of urban sprawl. </p>
<p>Some large cities in the developing world including Dar es Salaam in Tanzania or Nairobi in Kenya have grown <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/africa-regional-studies/publication/african-cities-opening-doors-to-the-world">inwards</a>. Here, the idea of the compact city based around public transport and higher residential densities has taken root. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A bird's eye view of a sprawling cityscape." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496189/original/file-20221118-18-t49zw0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496189/original/file-20221118-18-t49zw0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496189/original/file-20221118-18-t49zw0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496189/original/file-20221118-18-t49zw0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496189/original/file-20221118-18-t49zw0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496189/original/file-20221118-18-t49zw0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496189/original/file-20221118-18-t49zw0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The gridded urban sprawl of Los Angles, California.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/b7d0fNna4as">Yuxuan Wang | Unsplash</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How the metaverse is redefining the city</h2>
<p>Most people today live in medium-sized or even <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Urban-Empires-Cities-as-Global-Rulers-in-the-New-Urban-World/Glaeser-Kourtit-Nijkamp/p/book/9781138601710">small cities</a>. We still largely depend on the internal combustion engine to move between different activities, typically home and work. </p>
<p>However, over the last 50 years, the advent of computers and networked communications has meant that people can now live at huge distances from their colleagues. This blurs the physical boundaries of any city.</p>
<p>Counting a city’s inhabitants and mapping its geographical boundaries are only some of the aspects to consider when defining what a city is. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-the-metaverse-and-what-can-we-do-there-179200">digital skin</a> that now covers the planet enables the citizens of any city to interact with anyone and everyone, in any place, at any time. </p>
<p>Cities will continue to grow and change physically. By the end of the 21st century, every place will no doubt be one form of city, but the term itself is not likely to disappear. Instead, its meaning will change. </p>
<p>In 1937 already, in a compendium entitled The City Reader, the historian Lewis Mumford <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780203869260-21/city-architectural-record-1937-lewis-mumford">argued</a> that although cities might be identified as physical entities, they were places of social interaction, of communications. </p>
<p>This resonates strongly with the notion that in the future we will no longer think of cities simply as distinct physical hubs in a rural landscape but as patterns of digital movement, crisscrossing the planet over many scales from the mega city down to the local neighbourhood. Boundaries will no longer have the same meaning as they did before the first industrial revolution in Britain in 1830. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A map of a coastal area in West Africa." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496152/original/file-20221118-6248-fy14dr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496152/original/file-20221118-6248-fy14dr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496152/original/file-20221118-6248-fy14dr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496152/original/file-20221118-6248-fy14dr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496152/original/file-20221118-6248-fy14dr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496152/original/file-20221118-6248-fy14dr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496152/original/file-20221118-6248-fy14dr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The West African megalopolis stretches from Lago in Nigeria to Abidjan in Ivory Coast.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">James Cheshire</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Scholars agree that as cities get bigger, they <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.0610172104">generate</a> economies of scale that increasingly dominate their economic growth and prosperity. Evidence suggests that the urban world is even more complex. </p>
<p>Cities increasingly <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262038959/inventing-future-cities/">resemble biological systems</a> more than they do mechanical systems, with transportation networks reaching out into the hinterlands around them resembling arboreal <a href="http://www.fractalcities.org/book/fractal%20cities%20low%20resolution.pdf">fractals</a>.</p>
<p>The emerging urban world is <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-metaverse-could-change-the-purpose-and-feel-of-cities-182628">vastly different</a> from anything that has gone before. Trying to determine the physical limits of the city remains important. In figuring out how to reckon with this new complexity, however, it may well be too superficial.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/193424/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Cheshire receives funding from UKRI. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Batty receives funding from The Alan Turing Institute.</span></em></p>Quite how to gauge the size of a city – or where one ends and the next begins – is getting harder to determine. The 21st century belongs to the limitless city.James Cheshire, Professor of Geographic Information and Cartography, UCLMichael Batty, Chair and Professor of Planning, UCLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.