Alonso Ayala & Ellen Geurts (Eds.) – Urbanising Africa: The City Centre Revisited Experiences With Inner-City Revitalisation From Johannesburg (South Africa), Mbabane (Swaziland), Lusaka (Zambia), Harare And Bulawayo (Zimbabwe)

This working paper contains a selection of 7 articles written by participants in a Refresher Course organised by IHS in August 2010 in Johannesburg, South Africa. The title of the course was Urbanising Africa: the city centre revisited – Ensuring liveable and sustainable inner-cities in Southern African countries: making it work for the poor. The course dealt in particular with inner-city revitalisation in Southern African countries, namely South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Inner-city revitalisation processes differ widely between the various cities and countries; e.g. in Lusaka and Mbabane few efforts have been undertaken, whereas Johannesburg in particular but also other South Africa cities have made major investments to revitalise their inner-cities. The definition of the inner-city also differs between countries; in Lusaka the CBD is synonymous with the inner-city, whereas in Johannesburg the inner-city is considered much larger than only the CBD. Contributions in the course were made by participants from the following cities: Buffalo City (East London), Bulawayo, Cape Town, eThekwini (Durban), Harare, Johannesburg, Mangaung (Bloemfontein), Mbabane, Lusaka, and Tshwane (Pretoria).