Dakar and Abidjan, two of West Africa’s fastest-growing metropolises, are racing toward modernity with massive investments in transport and urban infrastructure. But beyond the concrete and cables, a deeper story unfolds – of two rival cities, imagined as sisters.

As African cities chart their own paths toward sustainability, the focus shifts from imitation to mutual learning. Exchange across the Global South becomes a form of solidarity, where shared experience is in the center of transformation.  

The Lagos State Development Plan 2052 is an elitist and male-colonial tool that favors orthodox planning ideals over local needs, our authors criticize. Not only in access to clean water are elites given preferntial treatment.

As Senegal's rural borderlands transform under urbanisation, villages emerge as frontiers of change. Fueled by trade, migration, and identity ties. They reveal how urban growth is reshaping life along the Senegal-Gambia border and redefining rural space.

The poems turn their attention to Africa’s secondary cities: they highlight the lack of infrastructure and scarce resources, but also offer ideas for change. Environmental education, entrepreneurship, and civic engagement point the way toward cities that shape their own futures.

Africa is urbanising fast. New “smart” cities rise, but copy-paste foreign models, sideline local communities, and shrink the right to the city.