City shapes and climate change in Africa
Africa is undergoing an unprecedented urban and climate transition; yet, given the
right conditions, compact urban forms can encourage greater sustainability, resilience
and liveability in the coming decades. Using novel techniques and newly available
data, this report fills in existing data gaps by producing measures of compactness
for 5 625 urban agglomerations, along with other urban form attributes. Even though
urbanisation is often unplanned and uncoordinated, a promising trend has emerged:
very large cities (of over 4 million inhabitants) are more compact, discounting the
population effect, on average, than larger (1 million to 4 million inhabitants) and
intermediate cities (50 000 to 1 million inhabitants). Moreover, less compact agglomerations
tend to have smaller buildings, flat, low skylines, less complete centres (reflecting
a less optimal use of space) and polycentric patterns (i.e. multiple centres, rather
than a single, monocentric city). This report analyses the consequences of less compact
agglomerations for sustainability and liveability. The disadvantages include higher
energy demand, less accessibility to services and opportunities, less walkable urban
landscapes and greater car dependency, in addition to higher outdoor air pollution.
It also considers the potential trade-offs with resilience; for example, compactness
can lead to a loss of green space and an increase of urban heat island effects. The
report offers opportunities in the coming years to single out potential areas of action
for resilience, as well as for monitoring and evaluating progress.
Published on September 08, 2023Also available in: French
In series:West African Papersview more titles