Sylvia Croese
Biographic Data
| ID | 1257516 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Sylvia Croese |
| GIVEN NAMES | Sylvia |
| FAMILY NAME | Croese |
| SIGNATURE | CROESE S |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Cape Town |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3197-1363 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 89 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 19 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2013 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Reframing urban development politics
This paper develops the idea of transcalarity to reframe analyses of urban development politics. Our analysis starts from African contexts but is relevant to, and in conversation with, experiences on other continents. Accounts of the politics of urban development have rarely benefitted from the experiences of African urban settings. Characterised by relatively weakly resourced municipalities, informality of the urban setting and of the state, and…
African Urban Studies
Scholarship on African cities represents a growing yet still scarce subfield in urban studies, especially considering the scale and variety of African urbanisation patterns. The purpose of this Virtual Special Issue is to review the scholarship published on urban Africa in Urban Studies over the past five decades. In this Editorial, we reflect on the contributions of African urban scholarship and present a selection of articles to highlight the w…
Negotiating Urban Development in Africa
This article brings together recent debates in urban and development studies to illuminate the understudied politics and compromise involved in the rollout of globally funded urban development in Africa. The argument presented builds on a detailed analysis of the World Bank's urban development portfolio in Tanzania, with a specific focus on the Dar es Salaam Metro-politan Development Project, to draw attention to the disjuncture between rising ur…
The persistence and rise of master planning in urban Africa
Master plans have long been criticized by critical planners who have argued in favour of more strategic, collaborative and relational forms of spatial planning that can more adequately respond to local needs and realities, especially in the context of the global South. Rather than critiquing master planning, this paper seeks to interrogate its recent rise in urban Africa. Building on a review of international planning trajectories, the paper seek…
Persistent, pragmatic and prolific
This paper interrogates the persistence of urban master planning in African cities. Critiques of master planning in Africa label it as a stifling product of colonial legacies, an inappropriate imposition of external ideas, or a device to achieve the goals of global actors, all seen as being at odds with the rapidly changing settlement patterns and needs of many African urban contexts. This paper instead focuses on the role of local planning actor…
The transcalar politics of urban master planning
This article sheds light on the growing, but understudied role of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) in supporting the local production of master plans across the African continent as a tool for guiding long-term investments in urban development. To explore the multiple logics, actors and interests driving the conception, preparation and implementation of these plans, we approach urban master planning as a transcalar process, throu…
Co-producing urban expertise for SDG localization
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are used as an entry point to consider issues and questions surrounding the forms of urban expertise that are required to achieve transformative and sustainable urban development. The article builds on the authors’ experiences as researchers working co-productively with South African municipalities through the African Centre for Cities, an interdisciplinary research hub at the University of Cape Town. Insi…
Laurent Fourchard 2021
Refractions of the National, the Popular and the Global in African Cities
Case studies of metropolitan cities in nine African countries from Egypt in the north to three in West and Central Africa, two in East Africa and three in Southern Africa make up the empirical foundation of this publication. The interrelated themes addressed in these chapters the national influence on urban development, the popular dynamics that shape urban development and the global currents on urban development make up its framework. All author…
Adapting the Sustainable Development Goals and the New Urban Agenda to the city level
The Sustainable Development Goals and the New Urban Agenda recognise the role of cities in achieving sustainable development. However, these agendas were agreed and signed by national governments and thus implementing them at the local level requires a process of adaptation or localisation. In this paper, we analyse five aspects that practitioners and researchers need to consider when localising them: (1) delimitation of the urban boundary; (2) i…
Ordering power? The politics of state-led housing delivery under authoritarianism – the case of Luanda, Angola
The urban studies literature has extensively analysed the modernist, developmental or neoliberal drivers of urban restructuring in the global South, but has largely overlooked the ways in which governments, particularly those with authoritarian characteristics, try to reinforce their legitimacy and assert their political authority through the creation of satellite cities and housing developments. From Ethiopia to Singapore, authoritarian regimes …
He Will Know How to Explain
This article applies Partha Chatterjee's concept of political society to the case of postwar urban Angola in order to draw attention to the everyday ways in which popular politics are practiced in Africa beyond episodic moments of popular revolt. It looks at the case of the Zango social-housing project, which was created to resettle evicted shack dwellers in Luanda. While in the initial stages of the project responses to resettlement were marked …
Global Urban Policymaking in Africa
A burgeoning literature looks into the processes and actors involved in the adoption and emulation of best practices and models of urban policy and development across the globe, often with the aim of attracting investment and making cities more competitive. With its focus on leisure, tourism and global capital, the redevelopment of the Bay of Luanda, in the capital of Angola, echoes the rhetoric, policies and projects underpinning such practices.…
State-led housing delivery as an instrument of developmental patrimonialism
This article examines state-led housing delivery in post-war Angola as an instrument of developmental patrimonialism. It draws on a growing literature on political settlements to highlight the role of rents, informal institutions, and power arrangements in managing political stability and economic growth. In the case of post-war Angola, key forms of rent distribution take place at the level of the presidency through the centralized use of actors …
Towards Habitat III
The ‘challenge of slums’ is a global challenge, but particularly acute in Sub-Saharan Africa where in 2001 71.9% of the urban population lived in slums. This article reviews the housing programmes of a selected number of African countries (Angola, Namibia, Ethiopia and South Africa) to argue that while until recently African shelter policies at least in name continued to be mostly in line with international enabling and participatory approaches t…
The petro-developmental state in Africa
The literature on oil and development in Africa is traditionally marked by the resource curse thesis, or the notion that oil resources lead to bad governance, poverty and underdevelopment. This boo
Magnificent and beggar land
Magnificent and beggar land: Angola since the civil war." South African Journal of International Affairs, 23(1), pp. 127–129
Political identity and conflict in Central Angola, 1975-2002
Angola gained independence from Portugal in 1975 in the midst of a struggle for power between three liberation movements: the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), the National Unio
Inside the Government, but Outside the Law
This article explores the workings of public authority in post-war Angola through an analysis of the history and current functioning of residents' committees at neighbourhood level in peri-urban Luanda, based on case-study research in the Zango housing project. While recognising that power in Angola is highly centralised, and the autonomy of regular state structures limited, it argues that, when power is studied from below, state officials and th…
Uncovering African agency
Ordering power? The politics of state-led housing delivery under authoritarianism – the case of Luanda, Angola
The urban studies literature has extensively analysed the modernist, developmental or neoliberal drivers of urban restructuring in the global South, but has largely overlooked the ways in which governments, particularly those with authoritarian characteristics, try to reinforce their legitimacy and assert their political authority through the creation of satellite cities and housing developments. From Ethiopia to Singapore, authoritarian regimes …
Towards Habitat III
The ‘challenge of slums’ is a global challenge, but particularly acute in Sub-Saharan Africa where in 2001 71.9% of the urban population lived in slums. This article reviews the housing programmes of a selected number of African countries (Angola, Namibia, Ethiopia and South Africa) to argue that while until recently African shelter policies at least in name continued to be mostly in line with international enabling and participatory approaches t…
State-led housing delivery as an instrument of developmental patrimonialism
This article examines state-led housing delivery in post-war Angola as an instrument of developmental patrimonialism. It draws on a growing literature on political settlements to highlight the role of rents, informal institutions, and power arrangements in managing political stability and economic growth. In the case of post-war Angola, key forms of rent distribution take place at the level of the presidency through the centralized use of actors …
Global Urban Policymaking in Africa
A burgeoning literature looks into the processes and actors involved in the adoption and emulation of best practices and models of urban policy and development across the globe, often with the aim of attracting investment and making cities more competitive. With its focus on leisure, tourism and global capital, the redevelopment of the Bay of Luanda, in the capital of Angola, echoes the rhetoric, policies and projects underpinning such practices.…
Inside the Government, but Outside the Law
This article explores the workings of public authority in post-war Angola through an analysis of the history and current functioning of residents' committees at neighbourhood level in peri-urban Luanda, based on case-study research in the Zango housing project. While recognising that power in Angola is highly centralised, and the autonomy of regular state structures limited, it argues that, when power is studied from below, state officials and th…
Co-producing urban expertise for SDG localization
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are used as an entry point to consider issues and questions surrounding the forms of urban expertise that are required to achieve transformative and sustainable urban development. The article builds on the authors’ experiences as researchers working co-productively with South African municipalities through the African Centre for Cities, an interdisciplinary research hub at the University of Cape Town. Insi…
Refractions of the National, the Popular and the Global in African Cities
Case studies of metropolitan cities in nine African countries from Egypt in the north to three in West and Central Africa, two in East Africa and three in Southern Africa make up the empirical foundation of this publication. The interrelated themes addressed in these chapters the national influence on urban development, the popular dynamics that shape urban development and the global currents on urban development make up its framework. All author…
Reframing urban development politics
This paper develops the idea of transcalarity to reframe analyses of urban development politics. Our analysis starts from African contexts but is relevant to, and in conversation with, experiences on other continents. Accounts of the politics of urban development have rarely benefitted from the experiences of African urban settings. Characterised by relatively weakly resourced municipalities, informality of the urban setting and of the state, and…
Negotiating Urban Development in Africa
This article brings together recent debates in urban and development studies to illuminate the understudied politics and compromise involved in the rollout of globally funded urban development in Africa. The argument presented builds on a detailed analysis of the World Bank's urban development portfolio in Tanzania, with a specific focus on the Dar es Salaam Metro-politan Development Project, to draw attention to the disjuncture between rising ur…
Persistent, pragmatic and prolific
This paper interrogates the persistence of urban master planning in African cities. Critiques of master planning in Africa label it as a stifling product of colonial legacies, an inappropriate imposition of external ideas, or a device to achieve the goals of global actors, all seen as being at odds with the rapidly changing settlement patterns and needs of many African urban contexts. This paper instead focuses on the role of local planning actor…
The transcalar politics of urban master planning
This article sheds light on the growing, but understudied role of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) in supporting the local production of master plans across the African continent as a tool for guiding long-term investments in urban development. To explore the multiple logics, actors and interests driving the conception, preparation and implementation of these plans, we approach urban master planning as a transcalar process, throu…
He Will Know How to Explain
This article applies Partha Chatterjee's concept of political society to the case of postwar urban Angola in order to draw attention to the everyday ways in which popular politics are practiced in Africa beyond episodic moments of popular revolt. It looks at the case of the Zango social-housing project, which was created to resettle evicted shack dwellers in Luanda. While in the initial stages of the project responses to resettlement were marked …
Uncovering African agency
Inside the Government, but Outside the Law
This article explores the workings of public authority in post-war Angola through an analysis of the history and current functioning of residents' committees at neighbourhood level in peri-urban Luanda, based on case-study research in the Zango housing project. While recognising that power in Angola is highly centralised, and the autonomy of regular state structures limited, it argues that, when power is studied from below, state officials and th…
Towards Habitat III
The ‘challenge of slums’ is a global challenge, but particularly acute in Sub-Saharan Africa where in 2001 71.9% of the urban population lived in slums. This article reviews the housing programmes of a selected number of African countries (Angola, Namibia, Ethiopia and South Africa) to argue that while until recently African shelter policies at least in name continued to be mostly in line with international enabling and participatory approaches t…
The petro-developmental state in Africa
The literature on oil and development in Africa is traditionally marked by the resource curse thesis, or the notion that oil resources lead to bad governance, poverty and underdevelopment. This boo
Magnificent and beggar land
Magnificent and beggar land: Angola since the civil war." South African Journal of International Affairs, 23(1), pp. 127–129
Political identity and conflict in Central Angola, 1975-2002
Angola gained independence from Portugal in 1975 in the midst of a struggle for power between three liberation movements: the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), the National Unio
State-led housing delivery as an instrument of developmental patrimonialism
This article examines state-led housing delivery in post-war Angola as an instrument of developmental patrimonialism. It draws on a growing literature on political settlements to highlight the role of rents, informal institutions, and power arrangements in managing political stability and economic growth. In the case of post-war Angola, key forms of rent distribution take place at the level of the presidency through the centralized use of actors …
Global Urban Policymaking in Africa
A burgeoning literature looks into the processes and actors involved in the adoption and emulation of best practices and models of urban policy and development across the globe, often with the aim of attracting investment and making cities more competitive. With its focus on leisure, tourism and global capital, the redevelopment of the Bay of Luanda, in the capital of Angola, echoes the rhetoric, policies and projects underpinning such practices.…
Adapting the Sustainable Development Goals and the New Urban Agenda to the city level
The Sustainable Development Goals and the New Urban Agenda recognise the role of cities in achieving sustainable development. However, these agendas were agreed and signed by national governments and thus implementing them at the local level requires a process of adaptation or localisation. In this paper, we analyse five aspects that practitioners and researchers need to consider when localising them: (1) delimitation of the urban boundary; (2) i…
Ordering power? The politics of state-led housing delivery under authoritarianism – the case of Luanda, Angola
The urban studies literature has extensively analysed the modernist, developmental or neoliberal drivers of urban restructuring in the global South, but has largely overlooked the ways in which governments, particularly those with authoritarian characteristics, try to reinforce their legitimacy and assert their political authority through the creation of satellite cities and housing developments. From Ethiopia to Singapore, authoritarian regimes …
He Will Know How to Explain
This article applies Partha Chatterjee's concept of political society to the case of postwar urban Angola in order to draw attention to the everyday ways in which popular politics are practiced in Africa beyond episodic moments of popular revolt. It looks at the case of the Zango social-housing project, which was created to resettle evicted shack dwellers in Luanda. While in the initial stages of the project responses to resettlement were marked …
Laurent Fourchard 2021
Refractions of the National, the Popular and the Global in African Cities
Case studies of metropolitan cities in nine African countries from Egypt in the north to three in West and Central Africa, two in East Africa and three in Southern Africa make up the empirical foundation of this publication. The interrelated themes addressed in these chapters the national influence on urban development, the popular dynamics that shape urban development and the global currents on urban development make up its framework. All author…
The transcalar politics of urban master planning
This article sheds light on the growing, but understudied role of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) in supporting the local production of master plans across the African continent as a tool for guiding long-term investments in urban development. To explore the multiple logics, actors and interests driving the conception, preparation and implementation of these plans, we approach urban master planning as a transcalar process, throu…
Co-producing urban expertise for SDG localization
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are used as an entry point to consider issues and questions surrounding the forms of urban expertise that are required to achieve transformative and sustainable urban development. The article builds on the authors’ experiences as researchers working co-productively with South African municipalities through the African Centre for Cities, an interdisciplinary research hub at the University of Cape Town. Insi…
The persistence and rise of master planning in urban Africa
Master plans have long been criticized by critical planners who have argued in favour of more strategic, collaborative and relational forms of spatial planning that can more adequately respond to local needs and realities, especially in the context of the global South. Rather than critiquing master planning, this paper seeks to interrogate its recent rise in urban Africa. Building on a review of international planning trajectories, the paper seek…
Persistent, pragmatic and prolific
This paper interrogates the persistence of urban master planning in African cities. Critiques of master planning in Africa label it as a stifling product of colonial legacies, an inappropriate imposition of external ideas, or a device to achieve the goals of global actors, all seen as being at odds with the rapidly changing settlement patterns and needs of many African urban contexts. This paper instead focuses on the role of local planning actor…
African Urban Studies
Scholarship on African cities represents a growing yet still scarce subfield in urban studies, especially considering the scale and variety of African urbanisation patterns. The purpose of this Virtual Special Issue is to review the scholarship published on urban Africa in Urban Studies over the past five decades. In this Editorial, we reflect on the contributions of African urban scholarship and present a selection of articles to highlight the w…
Negotiating Urban Development in Africa
This article brings together recent debates in urban and development studies to illuminate the understudied politics and compromise involved in the rollout of globally funded urban development in Africa. The argument presented builds on a detailed analysis of the World Bank's urban development portfolio in Tanzania, with a specific focus on the Dar es Salaam Metro-politan Development Project, to draw attention to the disjuncture between rising ur…
Reframing urban development politics
This paper develops the idea of transcalarity to reframe analyses of urban development politics. Our analysis starts from African contexts but is relevant to, and in conversation with, experiences on other continents. Accounts of the politics of urban development have rarely benefitted from the experiences of African urban settings. Characterised by relatively weakly resourced municipalities, informality of the urban setting and of the state, and…
Political science (20 works) · Sociology (16 works) · Urban and Rural Development Challenges (15 works) · Economics (14 works) · Law (12 works) · Politics (11 works) · Urban Planning and Governance (11 works) · Economic growth (10 works) · Geography (8 works) · Law (8 works)