Abstract
Building and improving the resilience of villages, towns and cities in developing regions of the world and in Central Africa specifically, demands a lean approach of small-scale, incremental developments that require fewer resources to incubate and mature. This chapter views the pathways to Lean Urbanism in Africa through the lens of its physical scales, development patterns, regulatory standards and zoning anomalies. Both time-tested strategies and innovations in design and construction, essential in the building of resource-efficient, durable, and healthy communities, differ in the methods and practices from those deployed in the United States (US) and European Union (EU) where the movement of Lean Urbanism began, because of great differences in the physical, social, and economic contexts.
When the final night falls on us as it fell upon our parents, we shall retire to our modest home earth-sure, secure that we have done our duty by our people; we met the challenge of history and were not afraid.
Ghanaian poet Kofi Awoonor, who was killed during the Westgate mall attack in 2015
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Notes
- 1.
The Report: Gabon 2012, (P. 129). Google Books Result. https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1907065695. Under the SmartCode system, public services are designed to be integrated into building plans to ensure orderly urban development.
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Coyle, S. (2019). Lean Urbanism in Central Africa. In: Arefi, M., Kickert, C. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Bottom-Up Urbanism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90131-2_12
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