Laurent Fourchard and Simon Bekker provided a fresh perspective on urban governance in Sub-Saharan Africa in their report "Governing Cities in Africa: Politics and Policies." In their report, they attempted to reframe the study of urban governance in Sub-Saharan Africa by shifting the focus from the nation-state and geopolitical dynamics (e.g. Anglophone vs. Francophone) to the local political economy, social, and environmental dimensions driving urbanization in cities across the region from Addis Ababa and Yaoundé, which are as complex as any other region in the world. Their analytical approach is a departure from traditions rooted in the colonial era and Cold War, which undervalued the agency of local actors, underestimated the political motivations and economic incentives of the urban elite, and neglected the power of local communities to engage the political process in both formal and informal ways to demand social accountability and hold their government accountable. I would recommend this report to anyone who is interested in investigating the political economy and social, spatial, and environmental complexities of cities across Sub-Saharan Africa. I also suspect that international development practitioners will find value in this report; this is especially true for practitioners who have used analytical tools/approaches such as political settlement analysis (PSA) and problem-driven iterative adaption (PDIA) to improve public service delivery, urban development, and local governance. The moral of the story is that we need to place politics at the center of development policy and programming.