Africa’s Smart City Foundation: Urbanization, Urban Form and Structure, Land Tenure and Basic Infrastructures

Abstract

Cities grow in population size as well as in land use. This chapter assesses the spatial growth of city and how populations are spatially distributed. It assesses the spatial growth of cities and how populations are spatially distributed in terms of density, compactness and land use (infill, extension, inclusion and leapfrogging). While the population of the city has been well researched and presented in the tradition of the UN Population Division to update the urban levels and trends and city growth in its yearly publication titled: World Urbanization Prospects, few studies provide sufficient accurate information on spatial growth of cities in different periods. Little was known on the spatial growth of cities until recently with the development and use of GIS technologies. The chapter will also analyse land tenure and the provision of basic infrastructures such as water, sanitation in African cities. It will also introduce the concept and measurement of a smart city foundation. A smart city is viewed as a sustainable, inclusive, resilient and prosperous city that promotes a people-centric approach based on three core components and seven dimensions. The three core components are Smart City Foundation, ICT, and Smart Institutions and Laws, which in turn are the pillars of the other dimensions of a smart city: Infrastructure Development, Environmental Sustainability, Social Development, Social Inclusion, Economic Development, Disasters Exposure, Resilience, Peace and Security. The three components together with the seven dimensions make a Smart Economy. A smart city foundation is composed of three elements: Urban Planning and Design, Land Policies and Basic Infrastructure. For a city foundation to be smart, it must be inclusive at the onset of the urban planning and promotes mixed neighbourhoods where social clustering is discouraged.