Peri-urban transformation as suburbanization: drivers and dynamics of urban expansion in African cities

The scale and pace of urban expansion across Africa has fuelled academic interest in transformations occurring on the periphery of African cities and how such transformations should be conceptualized. In this chapter suburbanization is used as a conceptual lens for understanding the drivers and dynamics of on-going transformations in the periphery of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The chapter focus on incremental construction of residential housing by private individuals and households, which is a pervasive and widespread mode of urban expansion across African cities. The chapter draws on empirical insights from selected sites in Dar es Salaam’s periphery, where new residential developments have emerged in the past decades. The residential nature of emerging developments, the strong functional integration with and orientation towards the city in resident’ economic activities and their persistent efforts to improve services and infrastructure to perceived urban standards are important characteristics rendering suburbanization a meaningful conceptualization.