Disposable Cities: Garbage, Governance and Sustainable Development in Urban Africa [Hardcover]

Based on in-depth fieldwork in three cities, Dar es Salaam, Zanzibar and Lusaka, this book provides a critical analysis of the United Nations Sustainable Cities Program in Africa (SCP). Focusing on the SCP's policies for solid waste management, which was identified as the top priority problem by the SCP, the book examines the success of these pilot schemes and the SCP's record in building new relationships between people and government. It argues that the SCP has operated in a political vacuum, without recognition of the long and problematic histories and cultural politics of urban environmental governance in Eastern and Southern Africa. This book brings these cultural and political histories to the fore in its examination of the contemporary dynamics. In doing so, it not only provides an insightful analysis of the policies and outcomes for the SCP, but also puts forward a historically grounded critique of neoliberalism, good governance and sustainable development discourses.Contents: Foreword; Toward a political ecology of African cities; The Sustainable Cities Program and African cities; Dar es Salaam: model city for the world; The mirror that Zanzibar holds up for the world; Lusaka: The years of the rule of money; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.Based on in-depth fieldwork in three cities, Dar es Salaam, Zanzibar and Lusaka, this book provides a critical analysis of the United Nations Sustainable Cities Program in Africa (SCP). It also puts forward a historically grounded critique of neoliberalism, good governance and sustainable development discourses.Garth Andrew Myers is Associate Professor of Geography and African/African-American Studies at the University of Kansas, USA.African cities are now receiving the degree of critical intellectual scrutiny that they have long deserved. Myers unique study of the environmental dilemmas facing Dar es Salaam, Zanzibar and Lusaka is a vital contribution to this burgeoning literature. Matthew Gandy, University College LlD