Investimenti stranieri e sviluppo di edilizia residenziale nell’Africa sub-sahariana: il caso di Lusaka, Zambia

Abstract

Foreign investments and residential urban development in Sub-Saharan Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa is increasingly subjected to fast urban development, with the private sector playing a crucial role in shaping new tissues of the residential urban texture. In addition to predominant dynamics, such as the densification of preexisting urban areas and the urbanization of agricultural land, Lusaka, the fast-growing capital of Zambia, is experiencing the increasing grafting of new urban morphologies into consolidated built environments and natural landscapes. Arguably, this phenomenon is partially the result of massive foreign investments in the housing sector. This study offers pieces of evidence of how foreign economic and cultural capital influences urban and peri-urban developments in Lusaka. Against this background, modifications of the urban fabric have been investigated by remote sensing, comparing the historical and current conditions of four representative project sites. Results show spatial alterations driven by simplistic urban design and disregard for the complexity and stratification of the preexisting urban fabrics. Relevant morphological dimensions of the representative projects have been further investigated and illustrated through three-dimensional modelling.

Keywords: urban morphologies, urbanization, foreign investments, Zambia