A Study of Urban Sprawl Management in Ghana

Although urban sprawl is often seen as a natural manifestation of growing cities and has the tendency of creating opportunities for people to enjoy lower land and housing prices, the picture is different in Ghana where sprawl is a direct result of systematic failures in urban planning. Rapid urbanization and sprawl have created several problems for residents and planning authorities in Ghana. Using Kumasi as a case study, this book investigates the nature and extent of urban sprawl in Ghana with lessons from the US planning system. Currently, Kumasi is the largest urban agglomeration in Ghana with a population of 2,035,064 with an estimated annual growth of 5.4 percent. This rate of growth is well above the regional and national annual growth rates of 2.6 and 2.4 respectively.