Everyday Urban Practices in Africa

Disrupting Global Norms

Nadine Appelhans, Carmel Rawhani, Marie Huchzermeyer , Basirat Oyalowo

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English

Routledge
26 December 2025

Regional studies; Development studies; Urban communities; Development economics; Civil engineering, surveying & building

Series: Routledge Studies in African Development

This book disrupts the dominant underlying international norms informing urban development strategies across African cities. International policy frameworks have created a new universal agenda for developing cities. However, these frameworks have also imposed global paradigms and discourses that are often in conflict with local urbanisms. As we approach the deadline for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, there is need for reflection and deliberation on a post-2030 agenda.

The authors identify powerful assumptions, norms, and positionalities that obfuscate the efforts to achieve sustainable development in African cities, as well as along the North–South divide. They argue that a disruptive critique of these normative concepts, grounded in the lived African urban everyday, opens up opportunities to dismantle their assumed neutrality. Through disruption, the authors critically re-interpret the meanings of policy and the praxis of local urbanism, ultimately challenging the logic of universalising concepts underpinning implementation in the current international policy system, and asserting the need for contextualised urban policies.

The book will be of interest to scholars and students of urban studies, development planning, urban governance, human settlements, development studies, urban geography, and African studies. It will also be useful for practitioners including town and regional/urban planners, urban policy consultants, and international development cooperation agencies.

The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Edited by: Nadine Appelhans, Carmel Rawhani, Marie Huchzermeyer, Basirat Oyalowo, Mfaniseni Fana Sihlongonyane
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 156mm,
Weight: 453g
ISBN: 9781032466996
ISBN 10: 1032466995
Series: Routledge Studies in African Development
Pages: 266
Publication Date: 26 December 2025
Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Primary , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Nadine Appelhans is Senior Researcher at the Habitat Unit, TU Berlin, Guest Researcher at the School of Architecture and Planning at the University of the Witwatersrand, and Scientific Coordinator of the Wits-TUB-UNILAG Urban Lab. Carmel Rawhani is the Impact Evaluation, Research, and Learning Manager at Fairtrade International, working from Bonn, Germany, and contributing to the Wits-TUB-UNILAG Urban Lab as Research Fellow. Marie Huchzermeyer is Professor in the School of Architecture and Planning at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, and is Director of the Centre for Urbanism and Built Environment Studies in that school. Basirat Oyalowo is a senior lecturer in Real Estate at the Oxford Brookes University. Previously, she was Senior Lecturer and WITS-TUB-UNILAG Urban Lab Post doctoral fellow at the University of Lagos, Nigeria. Mfaniseni Fana Sihlongonyane is Professor of Development Planning and Urban Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand, School of Architecture and Planning.

Reviews for Everyday Urban Practices in Africa: Disrupting Global Norms

""This is a great intellectual product. Its main premise is that everyday lived experiences are neither sufficiently noticed nor accounted for in the crafting of urban policy agendas at the global level, and this book takes a bold step toward this objective."" Daniel K. B. Inkoom, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, AAPS former Chair ""Seen through the lens of the everyday in urban Africa as representing a multitude of both daily practices and realities, as well as a generative epistemic framework, this book brings together a varied set of thought-provoking contributions. Together, they call for a move beyond the 'business as usual' of development by urging us to rethink the global norms that drive the global post-2015 agenda. An important read for scholars and policymakers alike."" Sylvia Croese, Assistant Professor of Global and International Studies, University of California, Irvine, and editor of Localizing the SDGs in African Cities