Building safe and resilient cities: Lessons from Ghana

Abstract

In this chapter, Boateng raises the need for conversation around building collapses, which are becoming a common, tragic occurrence in cities in developing countries. The chapter opens with the conversation on the subject from Ghana. Boateng then shows how the intersectionality of colonial and postcolonial modernization, and recent market-led neoliberal urban policies of successive governments and international bodies have shaped Ghana’s informal settlement of building supply and customary land tenure systems into structural impediments that undermine compliance and enforcement of building safety imperatives, with repercussions for building collapses in the cities. The chapter discusses the need for the various global, national, and local actors working on the health of cities to be more reflective of the decisions they take about urban infrastructure, buildings/housing, land use and management.