City profile - Luanda

Luanda, the capital city of Angola, faces extreme urban development challenges, due to the turbulent history of the country, the city's peripheral role in the global economy, and the resulting extremely high urban growth rates and widespread poverty. This profile reviews the historical and current political and economic basis for the city in three main periods, and the actual physical, demographic and socio-economic situation, as the background for understanding the successes and failures of urban development activities in recent years. It highlights the potential for scaling up pilot projects which engage the poor majority of urban dwellers pro-actively in urban development, with assistance from NGOs and international agencies, although it indicates the need to create a firm political base for secure social and economic urban development. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.