Susan Parnell is an urban geographer in the Department of Environmental and Geographical Sciences at the University of Cape Town (UCT). She is centrally involved in the African Centre for Cities, serving on its executive.Edgar Pieterse is holder of the South African Research Chair in Urban Policy. He is director of the African Centre for Cities and professor in the School of Architecture, Planning and Geomatics, both at the University of Cape Town. He is the author of, amongst other books, City Futures: Confronting the crisis of urban development (Zed Books, 2008).

• 1. Africa's urban revolution in context - Edgar Pieterse and Susan Parnell2. Conflict and post-war transition in African cities - Jo Beall and Tom Goodfellow3. Sub-Saharan African urbanisation and global environmental change - Susan Parnell and Ruwani Walawege4. Linking Urbanisation and development in Africa's economic revival - Ivan Turok5. Religion and social life in African cities - Carole Rakodi6. Feeding African cities: the growing challenge of urban food insecurity - Jonathan Crush and Bruce Frayne7. Transport pressures in urban Africa: practices, policies, perspectives - Gordon Pirie8. Decentralisation and institutional reconfiguration in urban Africa - Warren Smit and Edgar Pieterse9. The challenge of urban planning law reform in African cities - Stephen Berrisford10. The education and research imperatives of urban planning professionals in Africa - James Duminy, Nancy Odendaal and Vanessa Watson11. Filling the void: an agenda for tackling African urbanisation - Edgar Pieterse12. Infrastructure, real economies and social transformation: assembling the components for regional urban development in Africa - AbdouMaliq Simone13. National urbanisation and urban strategies: necessary but absent policy instruments in Africa - Susan Parnell and David Simon14. Urbanisation as a global historical process: theory and evidence from sub-Saharan Africa - Sean FoxPostscript: Building new knowledge and networks to foster sustainable urban development - Thomas Melin

Provides policy makers with much-needed information as well as various avenues through which to improve cities for future generations.