A Series of Essays on the Urban Future

The Future of Cities

The urban future in the coming decades will be largely an African one. The continent is now home to 12 of the world’s largest cities and four megacities — and more importantly, Africa has the world’s fastest-growing urban population.

This book is being published as a series, with permission of the American Enterprise Institute. Each week a new chapter will be published, with links to each chapter.

Click or tap a link below to read or download each chapter. (PDFs open in new tab or window)

Africa’s Urban Future – Hügo Krüger and Bheki Mahlobo (new this week)

Hügo Krüger was born in Pretoria, South Africa, and moved to France in 2015. He is a structural engineer with working experience in the nuclear, concrete, and oil and gas industry. He has worked on a variety of infra-structure projects in Europe and Southern Africa. He holds a bachelor’s in civil engineering from the University of Pretoria and a master’s in nuclear structures from the École Spéciale des Travaux Publics, du bâtiment et de l’industrie (ESTP Paris). He frequently contributes to various newspapers and online blogs including the South African newspaper Rapport and Rational Standard. He also coauthored articles for Quillette, Spiked, and UnHerd.

Bheki Mahlobo was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, and is a senior analyst at the Centre for Risk Analysis (CRA), a South African think tank with a global perspective. Mahlobo is a regular speaker and media commentator, providing analysis of the political and economic trends in South Africa and global markets. With John Endres, he is the coauthor of the CRA’s client Risk Alert, a weekly bulletin that identifies the key risks in South Africa and the world. He also contributes research to the Socio-Economic Survey of South Africa, the CRA’s flagship reference guide.