We promote and disseminate quality publications by African scholars on urban topics in general, but rooted in our programmes.
Mina Plaatjies is a domestic worker and trade unionist. She is also a mother of two adolescent children. It is a delicate balancing act fulfilling her duties as domestic labourer, union organiser and weekend mom. Her story, one of the 12 that form part of the City Desired exhibition, is featured in the new issue of Cityscapes Magazine.
One city, eleven people, ten ideas. This, in a nutshell, is what this issue is about. In a departure from past issues of this magazine, we pause to look at one city in detail. The city: Cape Town, home to nearly 4 million inhabitants
Where past issues of Cityscapes have looked east, particularly to the Indian subcontinent, issue five shifts the focus decisively west. Inaugurating our collaboration with USP Cidades, a research centre at the University of São Paulo, architectural critic Fernando Serapião recapitulates the history of social housing design in Brazil. “Heirs of an architectural school with deep roots, Brazilian designers still believe in the ideals of linear blocks and it is difficult for them to dialogue with the precariousness,” writes Serapião.
Edgar Pieterse speaks to Aromar Revi, The Indian Institute for Human Settlements future-orientated director, about his revolutionary approach to curriculum and imagining what is possible.
An interview with Susan Parnell, Executive Member of the African Centre for Cities and Co-Editor of ‘Africa’s Urban Revolution’, published by Zed Books. Sue discusses informal settlements, the effects of global environmental change & the true economic potential of Africa’s cities.
Cape Town and Durban are both large metropolitan municipalities where climate change adaptation is being championed from within the environment departments. However, embedding these plans into municipal budgets and operations to progress implementation is proving difficult.
The Routledge Handbook on Cities of the Global South, Edited by Susan Parnell and Sophie Oldfield engages the twenty-first-century city through a ‘southern urban’ lens to stimulate scholarly, professional and activist engagements with the city.
This paper offers a reflection upon the epistemological project that lives at the heart of the African Centre for Cities (ACC) at the University of Cape Town, a young interdisciplinary space dedicated to rethinking urban things.
Drawing on the expertise of scholars and practitioners associated with the African Centre for Cities, and utilising a diverse array of case studies, Africa’s Urban Revolution provides a comprehensive insight into the key issues – demographic, cultural, political, technical, environmental and economic – surrounding African urbanisation.
