Urban Expansion and Sustainable Water Argumentation for Africa’s Cities

The chapter argues that urban expansion and sustainable water augmentation is a colonial engineered problem whose impact if not tamed will perpetuate unabated in the context of expanding African cities. It is observed that most African cities have been largely characterized by rapid population, poor planning, and urbanization. The colonial masters created cities that were going to cater to the urban elite group and failed to know that 1 day things would change. Most employed migrants in African cities have poor water connection as a result that they were never a top priority in the planning of cities, hence the problem has grown exponentially. It is unfortunate that there has been a default carryover of water problems over the past decades and important to note is that with the ushering of independence the urban expansion and sustainable water augmentation problem has just grown by leaps and bounds. This has resulted in precarious water shortages in most urban areas in Africa today. The chapter uses descriptive analysis and existing literature from the four corners of Africa, including cities such as Cairo (Egypt), Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), Lagos (Nigeria), and Bulawayo (Zimbabwe). Emerging from the case studies and related literature is that the current problem of water argumentation is a result of the colonial designs, plans, and policies. The current African local governments have failed to address water augmentation, and the problem is being worsened daily by other compounding factors like climate change, increasing demographics, center–local relations, and the poor planning choking the systems, leaving a trail of disasters.