AFRICAN URBAN SPACES IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE Edited by Steven J. Salm and Toyin Falola University of Rochester Press, 2005 ISBN: 1-58046-163-8 ISSN 1092-5228; V.21 About the editors: Steven J. Salm is a Professor in History focusing on Africa (culture, urbanization, and globalization). Tayin Falola, Nigerian, is also a PH.D. in History, author of more than one hundred books on a wide range of subjects. Africa has a long and complex history of urbanization; like elsewhere it must be analyzed as a multidisciplinary process as well as interrelated to the nonurban space. This book, being a compilation of 15 research papers produced by scholars of African urban studies throughout the world presented at a Conference held at the University of Austin Texas in 2003, is organized and divided in four parts. The book explores subjects such history, culture, languages, labor relations, demography, economics, law and policies, among others, having had all of them important roles in the formation, shape, structure and evolution of African cities. Here follows a brief summary of each part: I. “Constructing Built Space” deals with the notion of built space from an ethnic and historiographical angle, pointing out the role that religion, and ideology played in using the space for human settlements; the chapter manifests the links between the historical past and the present as well as among indigenous and external imposed urban styles. Three papers are presented; the first related to the Sokoto Empire where Islam had a major role in urban planning. The second poses a relationship between language and urbanization as well as the imbalance resulting from urban rapid growth and the possibilities of meeting the urban needs in terms of infrastructure and governance, thus resulting a gap between rich and poor with an expression in insecurity, but insecurity is greater as a collective imaginary issue. The third expresses how built forms encompass the circumstances of its production, use, interpretation and transformation, conveying meaning. (Müller-Friedman, Fatima “Just Build It Modern”: Post-Apartheid Spaces on Namibia’s Urban Frontier. 48) II. “Racialized and Divided Space” brings about ethnic and racial issues in Kenya and South Africa, which created a segregational pattern in their territories, handled by colonial governments throughout various instruments such as laws, policies, restrictions in land ownership as well as in employment, housing and business enterprises, lack of infrastructure and social services for Africans. Papers are presented on case studies of Kenya and South Africa. The belief prevailed that the so-called Non-Europeans would gradually assimilate into the dominant culture, fear of racial mixing, gave way to new segregationist policies which sought to preserve racial purity by limiting interracial contact. (Sandwith, Corinne. The Importance of Being Educated: Strategies of an Urban Petit-Bourgeois Elite, South Africa, 1935–50. 164) III. “Shifting Space and Transforming Identities”. This section talks about the development of cosmopolitan cities, starting at colonial times under the influence of commerce, migrations, external ideologies; the result was great contrast with rural areas. Case studies come from Gabon, Kenya, Senegal (which comprehended actual Senegal, Guinea, Ivory Cost and part of Sudan). Gradually, African identities became distinctive derived from the presence of different religious groups as well as the origin of migrants. The West coast of Africa held tremendous importance for commerce and navigation, the port of Livreville received immigration from many places, races, cultures and languages, becoming a very cosmopolitan place where slave trade, financial opportunities an commerce were widely developed. (Rich, Jeremy. Where Every Language is Heard Atlantic Commerce, West African and Asian Migrants, and Town Society in Libreville, Ca. 1860–1914.192) IV. “Colonial Legacies and Devitalized Space” depicts the problems of actual urban society such as poverty, violence, etc. and suggests paths to governance in some countries such as Somalia, Zimbabwe, Nigeria and Cameroon based on the understanding of the urbanization process and the origin of these problems. A paper states that poverty is a cause of crime. As a result of the Great Depression and until the end of World War II (1929-1945), with the rise of unemployment, urban delinquency grew; indigenes were excluded from commercial benefits; housing and urban conditions worsened but cities continued to attract inmigrants. Juvenile delinquency also grew, as reported by the British; it is attributed that in those years organized crime arose in the cities. “Three areas of crime that appeared during this era are particularly relevant in understanding the rise of an organized crime milieu: the adult exploitation of juvenile delinquents, armed robbery, and armed burglary” (Fourchard, Laurent. Urban Poverty, Urban Crime And Crime Control: The lagos and Ibadan Cases 1929-45 p.299). Although understanding the particularities of each African city, as a generalization it can be said that African big cities do not differ from many other cities of our globalized and westernized world; its problems such as poverty, segregation, violence. In order to create better urban spaces a good urban management should be the aim, where public and private spaces would be in balance to fulfill individual and collective human needs.