A Capital in History: Widening the Temporal and Physical Context of Maputo

Abstract

This chapter presents an overview of Maputo in relation to its surrounding region, with an emphasis on spatial and temporal change. It supports an endogenous reading of these scales for what is now one of the top twenty urban conurbations in Sub-Saharan Africa. In doing so it aims to challenge dominant negative discourses of such rapid urbanisation—prevalent in both Global North and South—and stresses the essential dynamism of urban society and culture, albeit within constrained political and economic limits. The chapter is essentially an opinion piece and draws on more than forty years of the author’s personal experience, professional work and research in Maputo, and is accompanied by a wide range of the author’s prior publications for further reading and reference. Rapid urbanisation in Sub-Sahara Africa, with relatively weak states and still quite limited private sectors, will bring enormous changes in the next few decades to land and environments. The extent of this urbanisation process also means that the alignment of environmental resource management of the “rural” adjacent to these “urban” futures is crucial and Maputo and its surrounding region can be a case study from which much could be learnt for wider trends in Sub-Sahara Africa.