GDI Lecture: Living the Urban Periphery: Our Book and Related Thoughts...
| Dates: | 14 May 2025 |
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| Times: | 16:30 - 18:00 |
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| What is it: | Lecture |
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| Organiser: | Global Development Institute |
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The edges of cities are increasingly understood as places of dynamism and change, but there is little research on the complexities of African urban peripheries and the varied nature of building, growth, investment and decline that is shaping them. Our multi-authored collaboratively-produced monograph ‘Living the urban periphery’ (2024) examines African urban peripheries through a dual focus on the forces driving the transformation of these spaces (what we refer to as drivers of change), and the lived experiences of these changes by diverse residents. Using substantial comparative empirical data from city-regions in Ethiopia, South Africa and Ghana, in conversation with research in other African contexts, the book provides a cogent analysis of spatial transformations and everyday life on the African city periphery. It shows how urban peripheries are formed through five distinct but interconnected logics that capture the complexities of periphery formation and change. This seminar will discuss these five logics and wider themes analysed in the book, including housing, transport and social processes. It will also point to more recent arguments emerging from the project and flowing from those presented in the book.
Paula Meth is a Professor of Southern Urbanism at the University of Glasgow. She researches everyday life, with a focus on gender, housing and social relations. Projects include the lived experiences of change in African urban peripheries, the youth, work / housing nexus, and gender and housing change. She is lead author of 'Living the urban peripheries' and of various journal articles. Paula is an Honorary Associate Professor at the University of Witwatersrand, and co-lead of the Safety and Security Domain, part of the African Cities Research Consortium.
Tom Goodfellow is a Professor of Urban Studies and International Development at the University of Sheffield. His research focuses on the comparative political economy of urban development in Africa, particularly the politics of urban land and transportation, conflicts around infrastructure and housing, migration, and urban institutional change. Recent books include Politics and the Urban Frontier: Transformation and Divergence in Late Urbanizing East Africa (OUP, 2022); Living the urban periphery: Infrastructure, everyday life and economic change in African city-regions (Manchester University Press, 2024; with Meth, Charlton and Todes), and Controlling the Capital: Cities and Dominance in the Urbanizing World (OUP, 2023; co Editor with Jackman). He is currently also part-seconded as a Senior Research Fellow at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.
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