Cities and the Environment in Africa

Abstract The capacity of African cities to respond to environmental challenges has been confounded by a host of political, demographic, ecological, and financial issues for decades. Cities are rarely provided the revenue or given authority to spend revenue to provide sufficient environmental services. City governments are also often in conflict with national governments over their policy choices or political orientation. Multilevel collaboration is needed to address urban challenges, but African city governments and citizens do independently produce solutions. This chapter examines the evolution of responses to urban environmental challenges in two sub-Saharan African cities—Durban, South Africa, and Nairobi, Kenya—and argues that, central to advancing improvements, is understanding urban political processes and the spaces that city-based organizations create to shape and improve their future.