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The Urban Book Series
Ransford A. Acheampong
Spatial
Planning in
Ghana
Origins, Contemporary Reforms and
Practices, and New Perspectives
The Urban Book Series
The Urban Book Series is a resource for urban studies and geography research
worldwide. It provides a unique and innovative resource for the latest developments
in the field, nurturing a comprehensive and encompassing publication venue for
urban studies, urban geography, planning and regional development.
The series publishes peer-reviewed volumes related to urbanization, sustainabil-
ity, urban environments, sustainable urbanism, governance, globalization, urban
and sustainable development, spatial and area studies, urban management, urban
infrastructure, urban dynamics, green cities and urban landscapes. It also invites
research which documents urbanization processes and urban dynamics on a
national, regional and local level, welcoming case studies, as well as comparative
and applied research.
The series will appeal to urbanists, geographers, planners, engineers, architects,
policy makers, and to all of those interested in a wide-ranging overview of
contemporary urban studies and innovations in the field. It accepts monographs,
edited volumes and textbooks.
123
Ransford A. Acheampong
Department of Planning and Environmental
Management, School of Environment,
Education and Development
The University of Manchester
Manchester, UK
This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
My mother, Florence Adwoa Sekyiwaa
Hackman
Preface
vii
viii Preface
Ghana. This may partly be as a result of the historically weak land use planning
system and the limited attention that the profession has received in public policy
discourse in the past. Yet another reason may be the shift in the focus and content of
planning education in the early 1990s, which emphasized the social and economic
dimensions of planning and development to the neglect of their physical expression
and distributional consequences within and between geographical entities (i.e.
neighbourhoods, towns, cities and regions).
The motivation to write this book, the first of its kind on the subject in Ghana,
therefore, stems partly from my passion for spatial planning as a profession and the
practical knowledge and first-hand experience I obtained through my involvement
in the delivery of some of the initiatives under LUPMP, which would contribute to
the establishment of a new spatial planning system in Ghana. I have always
believed that one of the most effective ways by which the future cadre of planners
would learn from these significant developments that have shaped spatial planning
would be if we can document the experiences and lessons while reflecting on ways
of improving the system and the associated practices to deliver its objectives.
Towards this end, I conceived the idea to write this book.
Furthermore, this book is the result of my desire as a researcher to contribute to
the scholarship needed to expand the frontiers of knowledge in the discipline while
searching for ways of making spatial planning useful in addressing the country’s
developmental challenges. Indeed, traditionally, books on spatial planning have
been written from Global North perspectives. In my student days, both in Ghana
and abroad, the key textbooks I read on the topic were mostly written from either
European or North American experiences. These sources have offered the oppor-
tunity to engage with the experiences and practices from their respective contexts.
However, we know that the experience in one context may not necessarily be
relevant in other contexts. Similarly, what has been proven to work in one context
might not necessarily work in another. This is particularly true for spatial planning
scholarship and practice because planning education and planning systems tend to
be deeply rooted in the sociocultural, legal, political and economic situations of the
countries of origin. I see this book on spatial planning in Ghana as being a part of an
ongoing effort to advance scholarship and knowledge on the subject from contexts
that have received limited attention in the past.
By focusing on Ghana, the book aims to provide an in-depth and comprehensive
discussion of the spatial planning system and associated practices from this context.
It hopes to take its audience on a journey to discover and understand spatial
planning from a unique social, cultural, legal and political-economy context.
Readers will engage with the wide-ranging issues covering the systems, processes,
procedures, mechanisms and practices that characterize the spatial planning system
and shape outcomes in this context. The book has been written with undergraduate
and graduate students, academic researchers and practitioners and policy-makers in
the multidisciplinary field of spatial planning in mind. In particular, this book aims
at readers who seek an international perspective in spatial planning systems and
practices.
Preface ix
Many individuals have helped me in cultivating the knowledge, skills and the
motivation that would enable me to write this book. I am particularly thankful to my
teachers for the inspiring lectures I have received on the subject. They passed on
useful knowledge and nurtured in me the passion that would ultimately culminate in
writing this book. I must thank Prince Aboagye Anokye, my long-time mentor from
my undergraduate days at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and
Technology. On his recommendation, I got the opportunity to get closer to the action
and to experience first-hand, some of the major initiatives that would help establish
the new spatial planning system in Ghana—an experience that would also be
indispensable in writing this book. I also want to thank Priscilla Ankomah-Hackman
for helping me in the digital production of most of the maps in this book.
I am grateful for the support I have received from the editorial team at Springer,
especially from Juliana Pintanguy, Selvaraj Divya, Sanjievkumar Mathiyazhagan
and Komala Jaishankar towards the publication of this book.
Finally, I could not have completed this book without the support of my wife,
Nana Adwoa Nyarko, who kept the distractions to the barest minimum and also
proofread most of the initial draft chapters of this book. What will I do without your
unconditional support and encouragement, Nana?
xi
Contents
xiii
xiv Contents
xxi
Abbreviations
xxiii
xxiv Abbreviations
xxvii
xxviii List of Figures
Fig. 9.4 Percentage of urban population in Ghana, West Africa and the
African Continent (1950–2050). Source Based on world
urbanization prospects data, United Nations (2014) . . . . . . . . . . 178
Fig. 9.5 Urban population growth rate in Ghana, West Africa and the
African Continent (1950–2050). Source Based on world
urbanization prospects data, United Nations (2014) . . . . . . . . . . 179
Fig. 9.6 Spatio-temporal built-up land-cover changes in the Accra
metropolis and surrounding areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
Fig. 9.7 Spatio-temporal built-up land-cover changes in the Greater
Kumasi sub-region . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Fig. 9.8 Spatio-temporal built-up land-cover changes in the
Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
Fig. 11.1 A three-level conceptual illustration of the links between
spatial development and transportation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
Fig. 11.2 Road and railway transport infrastructure networks
in Ghana . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
Fig. 11.3 Fibre-optic networks for ICT in Ghana . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
Fig. 11.4 A conceptual illustration of the spatial structure of
metropolitan regions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
Fig. 11.5 Map of the GKSR showing local government
administrative areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246
Fig. 11.6 Three broad urban zones in the KMA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
Fig. 11.7 Distribution of broad land use activity functions
in the KMA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
Fig. 11.8 A conceptual illustration major land use activity functions
in the KMA and road distances between them . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
Fig. 11.9 Institutional setting for integration between spatial
development and transportation policy and planning . . . . . . . . . 255
List of Tables
xxxi
List of Boxes
xxxiii
Part I
Setting the Scene
Chapter 1
Introduction
Abstract This chapter provides a general introduction for the book. It sets out the
aim, scope and structure of this book. It provides a brief account of the story of
spatial planning in Ghana, highlighting landmark events in spatial planning from
the mid-1940s when the planning system was first established to the contemporary
times. Following from this, it introduces the three main parts of the book and provides
an overview of the themes in spatial planning that are subsequently explored in the
remaining twelve chapters of the book.
Planning systems are deeply rooted in the sociocultural, legal, political and economic
situations of the countries that use them to achieve specific development goals. In
view of this, scholarship on the subject tends to take a country-specific focus and/or
a comparative approach by addressing spatial planning issues and experiences from
multiple countries. Historically, scholarship on spatial planning has based their nar-
ratives on perspectives and experiences from the Global North. The Global North
perspectives and experiences have therefore not only made significant contribution
to our understanding of the evolving meaning, scope, purpose and practices of spa-
tial planning, but also shaped spatial planning theory development and the models
that are currently applied globally. In recent years, however, there have been calls to
explore, analyse and document knowledge and experiences from different contexts
with respect to spatial planning. This, in turn, has generated a huge interest in and
demand for authoritative perspectives on contemporary spatial planning from other
contexts, particularly in countries in the Global South.
Efforts are currently underway to respond to the gaps in the existing academic lit-
erature by documenting spatial planning practices and experiences from previously
unexplored contexts. While some of these initial attempts have focused exclusively
on spatial planning as it relates to urban issues in multiple countries, others written as
compendiums, due to their relatively wider scope, have understandably been unable
to offer detailed discussions on the wider context of national governance structures
and political-economy ethos that shape the spatial planning systems, practices and
outcomes within the individual countries they cover.1 Thus, in addition to the afore-
mentioned endeavours, it is vital that we continue to have scholarly engagements with
spatial planning from unique sociocultural, legal and political-economy contexts on
wide-ranging issues, including the systems, processes, procedures, mechanisms and
practices that characterize the spatial planning system and shape outcomes in par-
ticular national contexts. This book is intended to be one of the responses to this
imperative.
This book is about spatial planning in Ghana. Although the main focus is on
Ghana, it situates the discussion within the wider contemporary discourse on the
evolving meaning, scope and purpose of spatial planning as both an established
academic discipline and a public-sector activity for addressing a plethora of social,
economic and environmental challenges. The mandate and expected outcomes of
spatial planning may be similar across different contexts. Yet, the actual scope of
issues embraced by the activity could be wide-ranging, depending on the prevailing
sociopolitical, economic, legal and cultural systems within which the activity takes
place and from which it derives its mandate and relevance.
The aim of this book is not to address every possible issue that may be delineated
and addressed through spatial planning. Instead, the core of this book engages with
some of the dominant themes in spatial planning globally, with a particular focus on
detailed analyses of the experiences and practices from the unique context of Ghana.
It provides a comprehensive and critical discussion on the changing socio-economic
conditions, institutional settings, legal arrangements and practices which have shaped
and defined Ghana’s spatial planning system for more than seven decades. The book
traces the history of spatial planning in Ghana to identify the landmark initiatives
that have been responsible for introducing, reforming and institutionalizing spatial
planning as we know it today. One of the major themes addressed in this book
is the geographical scale of spatial planning, where we examine the role of the
spatial planning system in formulating programmes, policies and plans at the national,
regional and local levels of governance and decision-making. The issue of policy
integration across spatial scales and between policy domains in spatial planning is
also addressed in this book. Adopting a problem-based approach and drawing on
primary and secondary data sources, the book also engages with important themes
in the field, including: public participation in spatial planning; urbanization and
sustainable growth management; spatial planning and housing development; spatial
planning and the transition towards sustainable urban transport; and spatial planning
and the informal economy.
Spatial planning in Ghana has had a chequered history. In the first decade fol-
lowing independence from British rule, physical planning, as it was then called,
became one of the most important machineries for articulating and realizing the
ambitious programme of socio-economic transformation envisioned by the socialist
government of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. Over this period, landmark spatial plan-making
projects including the formulation of the first National Physical Development Plan
Means of Defence
As a rule, among the Mollusca, the shell forms a passive mode of
resistance to the attacks of enemies. Bivalves are enabled, by
closing their valves, to baffle the assault of their smaller foes, and
the operculum of univalves, both marine and land, serves a similar
purpose. Many land Mollusca, especially Helix and Pupa, as well as
a number of Auriculidae, have the inside of the aperture beset with
teeth, which are sometimes so numerous and so large that it is
puzzling to understand how the animal can ever come out of its
shell, or, having come out, can ever draw itself back again. Several
striking cases of these toothed apertures are given in Fig. 24.
Whatever may be the origin of these teeth, there can be little doubt
that their extreme development must have a protective result in
opposing a barrier to the entrance, predatory or simply inquisitive, of
beetles and other insects. Sometimes, it will be noticed (G), the
aperture itself is fairly simple, but a formidable array of obstacles is
encountered a little way in. It is possible that the froth emitted by
many land snails has a similar effect in involving an irritating intruder
in a mass of sticky slime. The mucus of slugs and snails, on the
other hand, is more probably, besides its use in facilitating
locomotion, a contrivance for checking evaporation, by surrounding
the exposed parts of their bodies with a viscid medium.