Urban Sprawl in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Case Study of the Greater Kumasi Metropolitan Area, Ghana

A key characteristic of urban form in the global North, especially in Northern America and Australia, is urban sprawl. Global South cities have been expanding rapidly since the 1990s and feature urban sprawl. Some defining characteristics of urban sprawl are low density development, widely separate land uses, and high dependency on automobiles with limited multi-modal accessibility. In this paper, we present the causes and effects of urban sprawl in Ghana, policies adopted by Ghanaian cities to manage urban sprawl, and how these strategies could be improved. We find that local governments in Ghanaian cities, especially Greater Accra Metropolitan Area and Graeter Kumasi Metropolitan Area, have not implemented any real, effective strategies to curb urban sprawl; instead, they have focused their efforts on providing essential infrastructure services. The only measure that many Ghanaian local governments have implemented is the reduction of the minimum permissible lot size for houses. Based on a systematic review of existing studies to identify the causes and effects of urban sprawl, and of best practices used by cities to combat it, we suggest a few practical measures employed in other countries be used in the Ghanian context.