6. URBANISATION

YAOUNDE

In 1888 when German explorers penetrated for the first time into the area which is now Yaoundé, they found nothing but dense forest, populated by the Owondo whose culture was closely linked to the forest environment. Today, Yaoundé has "razed"²² the surrounding areas and has approximately one million inhabitants of varying origins. Peuls of the plains and sedentary agriculturists from the Logone and Chari valleys and the Madara mountains migrated from the north; forest peoples including the Beti, Boulou, Maka, Bassa etc. came from the south; and the Bamileke and Bakossi left the western parts of Cameroon to seek their fortunes in the capital. For these peoples and their urban counterparts throughout Africa, integration into city life corresponded with a transition from subsistence economic systems to a market economy.

KINSHASA

When in 1882 Henry Morton Stanley planted the flag of the Comité d'Etudes du Haut-Congo in what was to become Leopoldville, the spot (located between the Mayombe Hills, the forest and Congo Basin) was referred to administratively as une station. By 1910, Kinshasa was already a village of 30,000 inhabitants. It is now a megalopolis of five million inhabitants living in extremely precarious socio-economic conditions.²³

LIBREVILLE

At the turn of the century Libreville was also a village. By 1997 it is estimated that its population will exceed half a million, which will place more than one Gabonese out of two in the capital. Seven eighths of the preceding generation lived in Gabon's forest, today three quarters of the population live in urban areas.²⁴

While the phenomenon of urbanisation is relatively recent in African history, much of the continent's population lives in cities today. Urban: rural population ratios are 46:54, 40:60, 40:60 for Gabon, Cameroon and Zaire respectively.²⁵ The continent's cities can be considered as artificial entities, foreign to traditional political and economic organisational systems. They were developed to serve colonial administrations and to accommodate colonial commercial interests in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

While the European powers were able to control the size of urban populations to suit their employment needs and to guarantee political control, (they did so by enforcing strict administrative policies) independence brought a dramatic influx of peoples into the cities from the hinterland. In search of jobs, health and education services as well as excitement, or fleeing from taxing physical labour and the perceived drudgery and boredom of rural existence, they have continued to swell into these "modern enclaves" or "places of hope" ever since.²⁶ As a result of this migration, African cities have become melting pots of widely heterogeneous ethnic groups.

A corollary of this human traffic is the ongoing movement of merchandise from the hinterland toward the city. Be it for local consumption or re-shipping, the nature and volume of this merchandise has also influenced the way urban areas develop.