those who study and govern cities. It is

one of those rare volumes that chal- lenge basic assumptions and truly stretch the mind, a book that makes you want to argue with the author.

Terry Christensen Department of Political Science

San Jose State University San Jose, CA, USA

multinationals move in to swallow their little local competitors. Nor does Jacobs deal with cor.sumption in an age of nationalized media and adver- tising. Are not products ‘as seen on tv’ a lot more appealing to most people than the ones made across town’? Finally, it is hard to apply Jacobs’ theories to the currently booming US

economy. Is the boom just ‘transac- tions of decline’ delaying the inevit- able? Maybe, but Jacobs will not persuade many readers without dis-

cussing it directly.

Whatever its shortcomings, it must

be conceded that Cities mrl the Wedth

of Nutiorw joins Jacobs’ previous ico- noclastic works as required reading for

City life in tropical Africa AFRICAN URBAN SOCIETY

by Margaret Peil with Pius O.Sada

Wiley, Chichester, 1984, 392 pp, f 19.50

This is a most impressive survey of many aspects of city life in tropical Africa. It should be essential back- ground reading for anyone concerned with urban policy in this part of the world, and will be of great interest to those engaged in comparative urban studies. Both groups of readers will find a wealth of helpful material here, all very clearly presented. The book provides a synthesis of a vast range of social science literature, and the 27- page bibliography is of great value in itself.

The opening chapters examine the nature of urbanization in an African context, and the evolution of urban systems within this continent. Then follows a rather curious chapter juxta- posing two very different topics: the extent and significance of primacy within national urban systems, and spatial structures within cities. With respect to the first a sharper distinc- tion might have been made between the issue of primacy and the issue of optimum absolute size, and with re- spect to the second there might have been more emphasis on dual struc- tures inherited from the colonial period such as the ‘ville blanche‘ and ‘ville noire’ of many of the fran- cophone capitals.

Later chapters deal with migration to the cities, kinship and other social relations within them, the urban eco- nomy and employment structures, and housing systems. Each is a compre- hensive review of the present African

CITIES November 1985

situation, incorporating the findings of various social surveys - some under- taken by Professor Peil herself. Each aims at much more than mere descrip- tion, often investigating the correla- tions among several variables. although in most cases neither clear trends nor simple explanations of pat- terns are found. Indeed, the complex- ity of African urban life is amply demonstrated.

From time to time theories formu- lated elsewhere are evaluated in the African context, but by page 80 it is stated that ‘it should be clear that models of urban society developed for industrialized countries do not neces- sarily fit well when applied to Africa’ and most of the discussion is based on the situation on the ground rather than deriving from abstract theory. Marxist approaches are considered. but ‘on the whole they have been more concerned with ideology than with empirical reality’ (p 64). and they are not adopted in this book. Even so, the small amount of attention given to class structures and class conflict is rather remarkable. The whole book stands firmly within the tradition of positivist rather than structuralist or humanistic social science: and it is also ‘positive’ in the sense that topics such as crime are only very briefly discus- sed. Also lacking is any treatment of matters such as music - clearly a distinction has been made between ‘society’ and ‘culture’.

The study is explicitly confined to tropical Africa, and there is a heavy emphasis on the countries formerly under British rule. Thus the index provides 5 I references to Lagos, 39 to Nairobi and 23 to Freetown. com- pared with only I I to Kinshasa. five to Addis Ababa and four to Brazzaville

(cities of comparable sizes). There is almost nothing on the cities of Angola and Mozambique, clearly reflecting the dearth of literature on these, even in Portuguese. None the less, the geographical scope is wide enough to show in every chapter the diversity of African cities, and the book is notably free of the overgeneralizations so often made about them. Even such distinctively African features as the significance of kinship ties are shown to differ substantially from place to place. One type of variation that might have been examined more sys- tematically is that between life in the major cities and life in the small provincial towns which collectively account for a comparable share of the total urban population.

Perhaps the most important chapter of all as we view Africa in the mid- 1980s is the concluding chapter, enti- tled ‘Poverty’. though this inevitably raises more questions than it resolves. Various policy issues are noted here. but the book as a whole is empharical- ly not on urban planning, and is concerned far more with the present than with the future. Perhaps this helps to explain the positive tone that it maintains even in the face of mount- ing problems in so many African

cities. These are of course in many

cases problems of African countries in

general rather than of cities in particu-

lar; and many readers of the journal Cities will probably welcome the rejec-

tion in this book of the current wide-

spread negative attitude, especially in

academic circles, to city growth in

poor countries. IIowever. one cannot

help feeling that most future books on

African urban life will bc rather less

optimistic in tone.

Anthony O’Connor Department of Geography University College London

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