To browse Academia. Supported by the British Council and the Water Trust. Curated by Bo Tang and Shamoon Patwari. Sponsored by the British Council. This article surveys housing problems in Freetown and argues that the perpetuation of housing problems in Freetown and the failure to implement housing policies cannot be attributed merely to bureaucratic inadequacies and resource limitations.
They can only be fully understood by reference to the way the main agents of housing provision, the private market and the state, operate in the specific social and economic conditions of underdeveloped capitalism. The urban development and planning challenges facing Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone are typical of the significant issues which face most cities in Africa, including rapid growth, resource constraints, burgeoning informal settlements and inadequate planning regimes.
In parallel with many African cities, colonial neglect and racial bias in planning the urban form created a city which is ill-prepared to cope with post-independence growth. This paper examines how these trends have played themselves out in the case of Freetown, and also draws attention to particular issues which have exacerbated urban development, and the environmental and planning challenges facing the city. While the city council and local NGOs are attempting to address local development challenges, significantly more needs to be done to improve the well-being of Freetown's population and this paper provides an indication of how urban planning might contribute to this.
We are pleased to introduce an end section that focuses on issues that will be of interest to those currently studying Sierra Leone and those who will follow this generation. Sierra Leone has an area of 72, square kilometers and is bordered in the northeast by the Republic of Guinea, in the south and southeast by the Republic of Liberia, and in the west by the North Atlantic Ocean. The country is divided into five main geographical regions: coastline, interior lowland plains, interior plateau, mountains, and Freetown Peninsula.
The coastline is part of the general coastline of the West and Central Africa region, a low plain, sandy and surf beaten. The general coastline orientation, northwestβsoutheast, is strongly influenced by the local structural and lithological framework. Rice is the staple foodcrop in Sierra Leone, grown mainly by small-scale farmers. The impact of climate change is already felt in the country in s Long ago, scholars noted an inseparable link between poverty and the community, especially in works and social discourses concerning sustainable development and structural adjustment, although it is concluded that this link has not been explored systematically Fur, The cost of the community is sometimes affected by the level and degree of poverty experienced by people living in urban communities.
