Title:	Urban Growth and Land Degradation in Developing Cities
Authors:	ROY MACONACHIE Robert W. Bradnock and Kathy Baker-Smith
Keywords:	Urbanization Nigeria Kano Metropolitan Area
Issue Date:	2007
Publisher:	Ashgate
Description:	The peri-urban interface in poor countries is often an area of great dynamism but it is also a focus of competition for basic resources. In Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, peri-urban livelihood strategies have become increasingly important as survival mechanisms for a wide range of actors in the context of rapid urban population growth. Yet remarkably little attention has been paid to the sustainability of these strategies. In attempting to move beyond the dichotomous Malthusian vs. Boserupian people–environment debate, this book examines the social, economic and cultural contexts of land degradation in peri-urban areas, with specifi c reference to recent developments in and around the burgeoning city of Kano in northern Nigeria. Based on fi eld research which illuminates local actors’ knowledge and perceptions of land degradation, this book identifi es some of the most signifi cant forces that are currently shaping the process of peri-urban change. While many previous studies maintain that Kano and its hinterland will continue to support sustainable intensifi cation for many years to come, the evidence in this book highlights how more than ever before, Kano’s ‘ecological footprint’ is having an extensive impact on both environment and society in its ‘close-settled zone’. Although peri-urban land managers often adopt creative and ingenious strategies for coping in increasingly diffi cult situations, recent increases in competition for resource use between local actors point to mounting evidence that the sustainability of a once apparently resilient system may be starting to break down. In revisiting much of the earlier (but perhaps now dated) research conducted in the Kano region, the point of departure that makes the research in this book unique is its engagement with human–environment interaction in its wider context. The dynamism and intricacy of people–environment relationships are often misunderstood or ignored, and more literature is needed to highlight the nexus between decisionmakers and environmental change in different contexts. This book attempts to fi ll this gap by exploring Kano’s land–society debate in a new context and by looking at an entirely new set of socio-economic pressures that have not adequately come into the discussion in the past. Although the study is one of locality and focuses on one specifi c region in the West African drylands, it is hoped that this book will contribute wider lessons for peri-urban areas under pressure elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa and beyond. In a broader sense, the fi ndings are transferable to other growing Third World cities where increased pressures on urban hinterlands have intensifi ed contests amongst various actors, made access to resources much more diffi cult and made traditional smallholder mechanisms of adaptation and resilience increasingly challenging. As such, this book has relevance for a wide range of individuals beyond the academy, including the many planners and policy makers in the Third World who must grapple with the issues of sustainable urbanization and land degradation much more directly, and in a more ‘hands on’ manner. Indeed it would appear that many of the themes and issues described in this book are becoming increasingly timely and relevant and are of growing interest to a wide audience.
URI:	http://10.6.20.12:80/handle/123456789/54319
ISBN:	978-0-7546-4828-4
Appears in Collections:	Population Studies

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