The uncharted foreign actors, investments, and urban models in African new city building

Abstract

Over a dozen countries in Africa are currently constructing more than 70 new cities from scratch. There has been a recent surge of scholarship on the role of Chinese investors in urban projects in Africa, particularly as part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. However, there are other powerful foreign actors from emerging economies engaged in new city building, including state-owned companies, that have received little scholarly attention to date, leaving a broader research gap on the implications of their growing role in contemporary African urbanism. In this article, we highlight some of these uncharted foreign actors and the urban models they are circulating and propose three directions for future research on: the mechanisms through which foreign actors have become powerful players in new city building in Africa; the types of urban models they are introducing and their local adaptations; and the geopolitics of foreign interventions in urban mega-developments across Africa.