The facts of Africa's rapid urbanisation are startling. By 2030 African cities will have grown by more than 350 million people and over half the continent's population will be urban. Yet in the minds of policy makers, scholars and much of the general public, Africa remains a quintessentially rural place. This lack of awareness and robust analysis means it is difficult to make a policy case for a more overtly urban agenda. As a result, there is across the continent insufficient urgency directed to responding to the challenges and opportunities associated with the world's last major wave of urbanisation.

Drawing on the expertise of scholars and practitioners associated with the African Centre for Cities, and utilising a diverse array of case studies, Africa's Urban Revolution provides a comprehensive insight into the key issues - demographic, cultural, political, technical, environmental and economic - surrounding African urbanisation.

Edgar Pieterse is Director of the African Centre for Cities and Professor in the School of Architecture, Planning and Geomatics, both at the University of Cape Town. He is also a founding director of Isandla Institute; an urban policy think-tank where he continues advocacy oriented research work. His publications include: Voices of the Transition: The Politics, Poetics and Practices of Social Change in South Africa (2004), Democratising Local Government: The South African Experiment. (2002) and Consolidating Developmental Local Government: Lessons from the South Africa Experience (2007).

1. Africa's urban revolution in context - Edgar Pieterse and Susan Parnell
2. Conflict and post-war transition in African cities - Jo Beall and Tom Goodfellow
3. Sub-Saharan African urbanisation and global environmental change - Susan Parnell and Ruwani Walawege
4. Linking Urbanisation and development in Africa's economic revival - Ivan Turok
5. Religion and social life in African cities - Carole Rakodi
6. Feeding African cities: the growing challenge of urban food insecurity - Jonathan Crush and Bruce Frayne
7. Transport pressures in urban Africa: practices, policies, perspectives - Gordon Pirie
8. Decentralisation and institutional reconfiguration in urban Africa - Warren Smit and Edgar Pieterse
9. The challenge of urban planning law reform in African cities - Stephen Berrisford
10. The education and research imperatives of urban planning professionals in Africa - James Duminy, Nancy Odendaal and Vanessa Watson
11. Filling the void: an agenda for tackling African urbanisation - Edgar Pieterse
12. Infrastructure, real economies and social transformation: assembling the components for regional urban development in Africa - AbdouMaliq Simone
13. National urbanisation and urban strategies: necessary but absent policy instruments in Africa - Susan Parnell and David Simon
14. Urbanisation as a global historical process: theory and evidence from sub-Saharan Africa - Sean Fox
Postscript: Building new knowledge and networks to foster sustainable urban development - Thomas Melin