Special Issue of African Review of Economics and Finance Editorial : Urbanity, Urbanism, and Urbanisation in Africa

Fifty years ago, less than 20 per cent of the people in Africa lived in urban areas. Now, 40 percent of them do so. Africa now has megacities (cities inhabited by more than 10 million people) in Egypt (Cairo) and Nigeria (Lagos). Soon, Kinshasa in Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly, Zaire) will join the league of megacities. Today, there are both city regions and urban corridors that cut across several cities (such as the Suez-Cairo-Alexandria area) and borders (such as Luanda-N'Djamena) in Africa. These developments are significant by both African and global standards. The Brazzaville-Kinshasa regional urban corridor is simultaneously the most populous in the world and the fastest growing globally (UN-HABITAT, 2008; 2010)