Making the African City, por Luce Beeckmans

A tese de doutoramento de Luce Beeckmans, agora publicada em livro, analisa o desenvolvimento de três cidades africanas - Dakar (Senegal), Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) e Kinshasa (Congo) - no período 1920-1980.

The volume Making the City begins by observing that the African city depicted in urban plans rarely coincided with the real African urban space, often a wide gap existed between the theory of urban design, with its corresponding discourse, and the actual implementation. This discrepancy sheds light on the role played by those from outside the urban planning milieus in the production of urban space. In this thesis, we bring to light how both local governments and city dwellers influenced the production of urban space by, for instance, forcing adjustments to the urban designs, hindering their implementation or appropriating urban spaces.