“Armelle Choplin’s Concrete City weaves a novel and engaging analysis of urbanization by tracing the journeys of cement and people making urban life in West Africa. From post-independence high modernist ambitions to building the opportunities to make a living, the emerging transnational corridor along the West African coast provides a starting point for insights which will expand and inform understanding of both established and newly emerging urbanization processes in many different contexts.”
- Jennifer Robinson, Professor of Geography, University College of London, UK
“In this very innovative and superbly illustrated book, Armelle Choplin makes cement vibrant with affect, politics, economic interests and cultural meanings. She takes us to a fascinating journey along the West African urban corridor following the social life of concrete and showing how this material shapes contemporary urbanization and everyday life.”
- Ola Söderström, Professor of Geography, University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland
Concrete City: Material Flows and Urbanization in West Africa delivers a theoretically informed, ethnographic exploration of the African urban world through the life of concrete. Emblematic of frenetic urban and capitalistic development, this material is pervasive, shaping contemporary urban landscapes and societies and their links to the global world. It stands and circulates at the heart of major financial investments, political forces and environmental debates. At the same time, it epitomises values of modernity and success, redefining social practices, forms of dwelling and living, and popular imaginaries.
The book invites the reader to follow bags of cement from production plant to construction site, along the 1000-kilometre urban corridor that links Abidjan to Accra, Lomé, Cotonou and Lagos, combining the perspectives of cement tycoons, entrepreneurs and political stakeholders, but also of ordinary men and women who plan, build and dream of the Concrete City. With this innovative exploration of urban life through concrete, Armelle Choplin delivers a fascinating journey into and reflection on the sustainability of our urban futures.
Table of Contents
List of Figures xi
Series Editors’ Preface xiii
Acknowledgements xv
Introduction: Concrete and the City 1
A Gray Matter 1
Age of Concrete 4
Africa Rising and Cement’s New Frontier 6
The Lagos- Abidjan Corridor: A Megacity Region under Construction 8
Cement As A Theoretical Binder 12
(Afri)Capitalism and Neoliberalism 13
Material Matters 15
Building, Dwelling, and Inhabiting a Postcolonial World 18
Tracking Urban Materiality: A Methodological Approach 21
Following Bags of Cement and the City under Construction 21
Thinking Cities Through West Africa 24
Notes 30
1 Concrete Politics 31
Africanizing Cement 33
From Colonial Import to Gray Gold “Made in Africa” 33
Patriotic Consumption and National Identity 37
Dangote, a Cement Magnate 39
Cement Business 42
Conquering Africa 42
“The Price of Cement Is like the Stock Market” 45
On the Road: Trucks and Logistics 47
The Rhetoric of Development 51
Emerging Through Concrete 53
Promoting Cement and Boosting the Economy 53
From Developmental States to Entrepreneurial Presidents 55
Builder Businessmen and Other Africapitalists 58
Conclusion 61
Notes 63
2 Making the City Concrete 65
The Multi faceted Concrete City 67
Premium City-Megaprojects and the Business of the City 67
Affordable City-Social Housing Programs 72
Low Cost City-Autoconstruction in the Outskirts 76
A Booming Building Sector 83
Real Estate Agent: From Broker to Preacher 83
Property Developers and the Diaspora 86
Architects and Building Permits 88
Wholesalers and Retailers: Lebanese, Indian, and Chinese Connections 90
Materials: From Foundations to Finishing 93
A Matter of Sand 95
Reinforcing Steel and Corrugated Iron 98
Tiling from Floor- to- Ceiling 100
Digital Banking or How to Buy your Cement Online 102
Conclusion 104
Notes 106
3 The Social Life of Concrete 109
Caution - Work in Progress! 111
Concrete - Child’s Play? 111
Concrete Block: The Ingot of the Poor 115
The Plot and the Block 117
I Build (with Concrete) Therefore I Am 117
The Incremental City: “Building Bit by Bit” 120
Right to Concrete for a Right to the City 125
Afropolitan Modernity, Imaginaries, and Experience 128
Desire and Success 128
Women at Work! Virility, Gender, and Emancipation 130
Concrete Palace, or Walter Benjamin in Lagos 134
Six- Bedroom- Villas 136
Concrete Fetishes and Voodoo 139
Conclusion 142
Notes 143
4 Uninhabitable Concrete 145
(De)Construction and Destruction 148
Collapse, Rubble, and Ruins 148
Sustainability and Greenwashing 151
Sand: Rarer than you Think 154
Green Expectations: Alternatives to Concrete? 156
Heritage and Vernacular Architecture 157
Back to Earth, Back to the Local 159
“Tropicalizing” Construction 163
Toward Innovation in the Concrete Industry 167
Putting African Architecture on the Map 169
Conclusion 172
Notes 173
Conclusion: Concrete Utopia 177
The West African Corridor: An Urban Laboratory 178
Utopia/Dystopia and Afro/Africanfuturism 182
Toward A Post- concrete World 185
References 189
Index 209
