Beyond Informality: Middle-Class Urbanisation, Hybrid Governance, and Resilience Challenges in African Peripheries

Matshika, Lindokuhle and Gumbo, Trynos and Puren, Karen (2026) Beyond Informality: Middle-Class Urbanisation, Hybrid Governance, and Resilience Challenges in African Peripheries. EVERYBODY PLANS ... SOMETIMES. Cherish Heritage, Plan Now, Create a Better Future! Proceedings of REAL CORP 2026, 31st International Conference on Urban Development, Regional Planning and Information Society. pp. 203-210. ISSN 2521-3938

Text (Beyond Informality: Middle-Class Urbanisation, Hybrid Governance, and Resilience Challenges in African Peripheries) CORP2026_73.pdf - Published Version Download (270kB)

Abstract

Africa’s rapidly expanding peri-urban zones have become critical sites of urban transformation, yet dominant narratives continue to frame these spaces through poverty-centred understandings of informality. This paper challenges these framings by systematically examining the emerging role of the African Middle class in driving self-help housing developments on customary land. It draws on a systematic literature review of 32 peer reviewed studies published between 1994 and 2025, and interrogates the intersection of middle-class investment practices, neo-customary land tenure, hybrid governance arrangements, and the implications of these dynamics for urban resilience. The review reveals four core patterns reshaping the African periphery: the commercialisation and reconfiguration of traditional authority; the emergence of institutional multiplicity and fragmented planning legitimacy; the strategic but spatially fragmented logic of middle-class self-help; and the production of ecological and infrastrucutural vulnerabilities that undermine collective urban resilience. The paper argues for a reconceptualisation of informality that recognizes class-mediated urbanisation as a structurally significant mode of African city-making. It concludes by proposing a resilience-oriented planning paradigm grounded in engaged tenure pluralism, metagovernance, ecological protection and differentiated housing policy responses.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Peri-urbanisation, Middle-class self-help housing, hybrid governance, neo-customary land tenure, urban resilience
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor
Depositing User:	The CORP Team
Date Deposited:	09 Apr 2026 19:19
Last Modified:	09 Apr 2026 19:19
URI:	http://repository.corp.at/id/eprint/1382

Actions (login required)

View Item