Small Town Geographies in Africa

Book excerpt: Urban geographic inquiry has for decades been biased towards a focus on larger cities and metropolitan areas, both in the developed and developing world contexts. Small towns are generally depicted as rural, and many people do not even consider the term urban to be applicable to small towns. The editors of this collection invited scholars from around the world to contribute chapters that explore the developmental challenges of small cities and towns empirically, theoretically and historically in specific urban contexts in Africa.