CONCRETE CITY “Armelle Choplin’s Concrete City weaves a novel and engaging analysis of urbanization by tracing the journeys of cement and people making urban life in West Africa. From post-independence high modernist ambitions to building the opportunities to make a living, the emerging transnational corridor along the West African coast provides a starting point for insights which will expand and inform understanding of both established and newly emerging urbanization processes in many different contexts.”
—Jennifer Robinson, Professor of Geography, University College of London, UK
“In this very innovative and superbly illustrated book, Armelle Choplin makes cement vibrant with affect, politics, economic interests and cultural meanings. She takes us to a fascinating journey along the West African urban corridor following the social life of concrete and showing how this material shapes contemporary urbanization and everyday life.”
—Ola Söderström, Professor of Geography, University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland
Concrete City: Material Flows and Urbanization in West Africa delivers a theoretically informed, ethnographic exploration of the African urban world through the life of concrete. Emblematic of frenetic urban and capitalistic development, this material is pervasive, shaping contemporary urban landscapes and societies and their links to the global world. It stands and circulates at the heart of major financial investments, political forces and environmental debates. At the same time, it epitomises values of modernity and success, redefining social practices, forms of dwelling and living, and popular imaginaries.
The book invites the reader to follow bags of cement from production plant to construction site, along the 1000-kilometre urban corridor that links Abidjan to Accra, Lomé, Cotonou and Lagos, combining the perspectives of cement tycoons, entrepreneurs and political stakeholders, but also of ordinary men and women who plan, build and dream of the Concrete City. With this innovative exploration of urban life through concrete, Armelle Choplin delivers a fascinating journey into and reflection on the sustainability of our urban futures.
List of Figures xi Series Editors’ Preface xiii Acknowledgements xv Introduction: Concrete and the City 1 A Gray Matter 1 Age of Concrete 4 Africa Rising and Cement’s New Frontier 6 The Lagos-Abidjan Corridor: A Megacity Region under Construction 8 Cement As A Theoretical Binder 12 (Afri)Capitalism and Neoliberalism 13 Material Matters 15 Building, Dwelling, and Inhabiting a Postcolonial World 18 Tracking Urban Materiality: A Methodological Approach 21 Following Bags of Cement and the City under Construction 21 Thinking Cities Through West Africa 24 Notes 30 1 Concrete Politics 31 Africanizing Cement 33 From Colonial Import to Gray Gold “Made in Africa” 33 Patriotic Consumption and National Identity 37 Dangote, a Cement Magnate 39 Cement Business 42 Conquering Africa 42 “The Price of Cement Is like the Stock Market” 45 On the Road: Trucks and Logistics 47 The Rhetoric of Development 51 Emerging Through Concrete 53 Promoting Cement and Boosting the Economy 53 From Developmental States to Entrepreneurial Presidents 55 Builder Businessmen and Other Africapitalists 58 Conclusion 61 Notes 63 2 Making the City Concrete 65 The Multifaceted Concrete City 67 Premium City–Megaprojects and the Business of the City 67 Affordable City–Social Housing Programs 72 Low Cost City–Autoconstruction in the Outskirts 76 A Booming Building Sector 83 Real Estate Agent: From Broker to Preacher 83 Property Developers and the Diaspora 86 Architects and Building Permits 88 Wholesalers and Retailers: Lebanese, Indian, and Chinese Connections 90 Materials: From Foundations to Finishing 93 A Matter of Sand 95 Reinforcing Steel and Corrugated Iron 98 Tiling from Floor-to-Ceiling 100 Digital Banking or How to Buy your Cement Online 102 Conclusion 104 Notes 106 3 The Social Life of Concrete 109 Caution – Work in Progress! 111 Concrete – Child’s Play? 111 Concrete Block: The Ingot of the Poor 115 The Plot and the Block 117 I Build (with Concrete) Therefore I Am 117 The Incremental City: “Building Bit by Bit” 120 Right to Concrete for a Right to the City 125 Afropolitan Modernity, Imaginaries, and Experience 128 Desire and Success 128 Women at Work! Virility, Gender, and Emancipation 130 Concrete Palace, or Walter Benjamin in Lagos 134 Six-Bedroom-Villas 136 Concrete Fetishes and Voodoo 139 Conclusion 142 Notes 143 Contents ix 4 Uninhabitable Concrete 145 (De)Construction and Destruction 148 Collapse, Rubble, and Ruins 148 Sustainability and Greenwashing 151 Sand: Rarer than you Think 154 Green Expectations: Alternatives to Concrete? 156 Heritage and Vernacular Architecture 157 Back to Earth, Back to the Local 159 “Tropicalizing” Construction 163 Toward Innovation in the Concrete Industry 167 Putting African Architecture on the Map 169 Conclusion 172 Notes 173 Conclusion: Concrete Utopia 177 The West African Corridor: An Urban Laboratory 178 Utopia/Dystopia and Afro/Africanfuturism 182 Toward A Post-concrete World 185 References 189 Index 209
Armelle Choplin is Professor of Geography and Urban Planning at the University of Geneva. Her research explores how cities are produced in the Global South, especially in Africa. Combining ethnographic and comparative methods, she analyses the city as a place of encounter, confrontation and innovation between multiple ways of experiencing and inhabiting the world.
