In the 1960s, only 15 percent of sub-Saharan Africans lived in cities; now about 37 percent do (see the Figure 7.22 map). Estimates are that by 2030, half of all Africans will be urban dwellers. In 1960, just one sub-Saharan African city—Johannesburg, South Africa—had more than 1 million people; in 2009, fifty-two did. The largest sub-Saharan African city is Lagos, Nigeria, where various estimates put the population at between 11 and 13 million; by 2020, Lagos is projected to have 20 million people. Much of this growth is taking place in primate cities (see Chapter 3). For example, Kampala, Uganda, with 1.8 million people, is almost 10 times the size of Uganda’s next-largest city, Gulu. Migration from rural areas to cities is the biggest factor behind sub-Saharan cities’ growth rate of 5 percent per year, the highest in the world.

Most of this urbanization is happening in an uncontrolled fashion that makes urban life extremely difficult. Because governments and private investors have paid little attention to the need for affordable housing, most migrants have to construct their own dwellings using found materials. The vast, unplanned, one-story slums surrounding older urban centers house 72 percent of Africa’s urban population. Transportation in these huge and shapeless settlements is a jumble of government buses and private vehicles, and boats in waterfront locales (see Figure 7.22A). Parents often have to travel long hours through extremely congested traffic to reach distant jobs, getting much of their sleep while sitting on a crowded bus and leaving their children unsupervised and susceptible to the influence of gangs (see Figure 7.22B).

This rapid and uncontrolled urbanization has major implications for the region, economically, politically, demographically, and in relation to gender. Economically, further development of manufacturing industries and the service sector will be needed to provide jobs to the growing urban population. Politically, governments will have to become more responsive to the needs of urban slum dwellers who are already a large and volatile political force that will become more powerful as their numbers grow.

In terms of population, urbanization is slowing growth. This is because urban life strengthens all the factors that influence the demographic transition—increased education, better health care, and more opportunities for women to work outside the home. Hence, while rural sub-Saharan African women give birth to about six children, urban African women give birth to about four. While this is still almost double the world average, the demographic transition has only just begun; urban sub-Saharan Africa’s birth rates will continue to decline.

Part of the reason that urban fertility rates are still as high as they are is that compared to cities in other regions, sub-Saharan Africa’s cities are still plagued by health risks that compel families to have large numbers of children so that a few may survive into adulthood (see Figure 7.22A, C). Although improved over rural conditions, poverty and disease are still relatively widespread in cities and clean water and sanitation are generally lacking. Urban families also tend to have many children because of low levels of education and economic opportunities for women and limited access to birth control (when compared to global levels).

Rural-and-Urban Migration The migration of sub-Saharan people looking for work in North Africa, Europe, Turkey, or the United States is now a familiar pattern, but the vast majority of African migrants are moving between rural and urban areas within Africa. People generally move to the cities for jobs and educational opportunities. However, the volatility of many African commodity-based economies, combined with the low living standards found in many slums, means that there is a great deal of what geographer Deborah Potts describes as circular migration, or back-and-forth migration between rural and urban areas. When urban economies stagnate and jobs become scarce, the higher cost of living in cities combines with the hazards of slum life to convince many migrants to move back to the countryside at least temporarily. This constant movement makes it hard to estimate urban or rural populations, and it is possible that urban populations and their growth rates are being overestimated. However, even accounting for circular migration, sub-Saharan Africa still has the highest urbanization rate in the world.

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Much of the migration between African cities and rural areas crosses international borders, which makes estimating urban and rural populations even harder. In 2005, the United Nations estimated that there were 17 million such migrants, most going to West Africa and Southern Africa, because jobs are more numerous in both areas. Migrants often go to rural areas as agricultural laborers, or to the cities to work in various jobs in the informal sector. The five sub-Saharan African countries with the most immigrants in 2005 were: Côte d’Ivoire (2.4 million), Ghana (1.7 million), South Africa (1.1 million), Nigeria (1.0 million), and Tanzania (0.8 million). Together, these countries have 40 percent of the migrants in Africa. Even though the migrants typically make few demands, the impact on receiving areas, especially on crowded cities that are unable to provide adequately for existing residents, is substantial. Like migrants who leave the continent, internal migrants live frugally and send much of their earnings home to families.

Food Security in Urban Areas Food supplies for urban residents can be brought in from the countryside, imported from distant lands, or, as is increasingly common, be grown in cities by urban residents. In some cities, residents have taken the initiative to produce their own food in the tiny spaces between houses (see Figure 7.22D) and in the wastelands that surround urban shantytowns.

The Scarcity of Clean Water in Sub-Saharan Cities Public health is a major urban concern, as many water distribution systems are susceptible to being contaminated by harmful bacteria from untreated sewage and garbage (see Figure 7.22C). Only the largest sub-Saharan African cities have sewage treatment plants, and few of these extend to the slums that surround them. The result is frequent outbreaks of waterborne diseases such as cholera, dysentery, and typhoid. It is estimated that unsafe water and sanitation facilities result in an annual loss of $28.4 billion from illness and premature death in Africa alone.

Although the safety of city water supplies is improving, there are frequent periodic water shortages in as many as 11 out of 14 sub-Saharan cities. To control usage during a crisis, city officials limit service to a few hours a day, causing people to store water in vessels that may become contaminated. Recent reassessments of the availability of groundwater resources may eventually alleviate these urban water shortages, but recall that the natural distribution of groundwater does not match up well with the locations of the big cities (see Figure 7.9).