WEBINAR
AFRICAN URBAN PLANNING HISTORIES
19 November 2026 (Thursday)
12:00 - 15:00 UTC
PROGRAM
12:00 (UTC) - Opening
Opening & Welcome
Carlos Nunes Silva, Guest-editor of Special Issue ‘African Urban Planning Histories’
African Urban Planning in the journal ‘Planning Perspectives’: Retrospective and Agenda
John R. Gold, Editor of Planning Perspectives
12:10 – 13:00 (UTC) – PANEL 1
Discussant: Alan Mabin, Professor Emeritus, School of Architecture and Planning, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa
Planning’s promises: reflections on South African experiences in the African context.
Philip Harrison & Alison Todes (School of Architecture and Planning, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa)
Spatial plan quality trends in post-apartheid South African municipalities.
Daniel J. Du Plessis (Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, Stellenbosch University, South Africa)
Spatial planning legacies and unauthorized land occupations in South Africa’s urban peripheries.
Abraham R. Matamanda; Leemisa S. Matooane; Johannes I. Bhanye; Kgosi Mocwagae & Lochner Marais (Urban and Regional Planning Department, University of the Free State & University of Cape Town, South Africa)
Planning after the fact.
Noor Mazhar (Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom)
13:00 - 13:10 – Break
13:10 – 14:00 (UTC) – PANEL 2
Discussant: Ambe J. Njoh, Professor, University of South Florida, USA
A tacit feedback – reflections of work in Africa on the architectural and planning practices of socialist Croatia.
Mojca Smode Cvitanović & Melita Čavlović (Faculty of Architecture, University of Zagreb, Croatia)
‘Crony planning’: limits to the public-private partnership model in urban marketplace modernization in Lagos, Nigeria.
Hakeem Bishi (Department of Geography, Planning & Environment, Concordia University, Canada)
Grounding infrastructure: community ownership of an international cooperation project in Kibera, Nairobi.
Sarah Williams & Gabriella Y. Carolini (Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA)
The quest for inclusive transit-oriented development in Mangaung, South Africa.
Mareli Hugo; Verna Nel & Johannes Bhanye (Urban and Regional Planning Department, University of the Free State & University of Cape Town, South Africa)
14:00 - 14:10 – Break
14:10 – 15:00 (UTC) – PANEL 3
Discussant: Eric Ross, Professor, Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco
Between codification and custom: law 08/15, informality, and Islamic urban ethics in postcolonial Béchar.
Houcine Abdelmalek (Department of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Béchar, Algeria)
Becoming dissonance: the path of recent urban heritage in Casablanca, Morocco.
Romeo Carabelli (CNRS & University of Tours, France)
The renewal of historic urban areas in Morocco: challenges and limits on the new ‘housing at risk of collapse’ policy.
Manon Troux & Pascale Philifert (Department of Geography, University Paris Nanterre, France)
Water practices: communal water rights in Moroccan river oases in times of climate change.
Heide Studer (tilia studio for landscape planning, Mödling, Austria)
15:00 – Closing
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o Special issue – Planning Perspectives, Vol. 41.4 (click here)
o Editorial - Special Issue (click here to download)
o Time in the program is UTC - compare with your location (click here)
o Participation is free. Registration required for access to the Zoom link.
o For registration click here
o Contact: Carlos Nunes Silva - cnsulisboa@gmail.com
