The governance and politics of urban space in the postcolonial city: Kampala, Nairobi and Dar es Salaam

With the fading of colonial memory in postcolonial Africa, dramatic changes are emerging and are shaping urban cities in quite significant ways. Urbanization is exploding. Large numbers of Africans are becoming town dwellers. Informal settlements alike are becoming the norm rather than the exception. Urban challenges have thus become complex, hence the need for an infrastructural rethink to urban governance and development in Africa. The interest for this paper is to explore the governance and politics of urban space in the postcolonial African city. My research question, put in its most general form, asks: what constitutes the governance and politics of urban space in postcolonial African city? By taking three East African cities of Kampala, Nairobi and Dar es Salaam as my main analytical units, I focus on: (1) understanding urban structures and dynamics of urban governance and political frameworks and networks of survival, and (2) exploring realities that shape urban governance within the global and neo-liberal context of postcolonial Africa. I draw upon comparative, qualitative and reflective exploratory research within the ream of socioanthropological, legal–political and architectural–geographical investigation. The article is hoped to invite further debate on this important phenomena.