Understanding Secondary City Typologies: A Food Governance Lens

Abstract Sub-Saharan Africa is urbanizing rapidly, but this urbanization process is not well understood, in intermediate or secondary cities in particular. Secondary cities will be home to the majority of Africans. Rapidly growing African urban areas encounter multiple, mutually reinforcing development realities related to food and nutrition. Development and governance challenges are amplified when food system-related transitions intersect with other transitions taking place in secondary African cities. Drawing on food systems studies carried out in three secondary African cities, this chapter calls for far greater focus on the different types of secondary cities, and not overly simplistic definitions that use population size as the defining metric. The typologies discussed in this chapter include the trunk city; the satellite city; and the resource city. Understanding the typology of city potentially offers greater governance focus and targeting, ensuring that governance outcomes are positive, pro-poor and health enhancing is food systems governance specific to the diverse African urban contexts.