Regenerative SMARTERu-Urban Cities

Unlocking existing over-burdened cities for a rapidly urbanising Africa

Anticipation of ongoing urbanisation

AFRICA123’s approach is to align with those who recognise the opportunity that Africa’s rapid urbanisation offers. Africa-wide Regenerative SMARTERu-Urban city-making will help in stemming the flow into overcrowded cities who are currently in disarray in anticipation of a rapidly urbanising Africa. This rapid urbanisation and extraordinary deficit of housing will be channelled into opportunities for growth through a regenerative SMARTER development approach, and access to digital technologies provides connectivity to the best local and global knowledge systems to support balanced growth and development. In addition, a lifelong approach to education and healthcare are critical element of this process. 

Developing at Scale
Contexts
Principles

A new Regenerative SMARTERu-Urban city is essentially a fast track city build in which the community and local economy develops in parallel. This includes the physical built-environment, its productive systems and its SMART technical capabilities. While the procedural framework required to initiate the project is consistent with a typical construction project roll-out, the making of a new Regenerative SMARTERu-Urban city includes layers upon layers of economic imperatives necessary to expedite a thriving, regenerative, sustainable urban settlement that offers:

  • Inclusive integrated housing typologies
  • Industrial and socio-economic infrastructure development
  • Economies of scale in supply, demand, procurement and service delivery
  • Sustained construction with job creation over long term
  • Light Industrial assembly for construction components and manufacturing to kickstart local economy
  • Multiplier impact across sectors to create cascading work opportunities over the long term
  • New construction technologies for rapid build-time efficiency
  • Cost efficiency of decentralized green utilities and infrastructure
  • Establishment of a Residential Mortgage Bond Fund associated with new each Regenerative SMARTERu-Urban city to provide homeowner finance to Buyers for completed residential housing units

New Regenerative SMARTERu-Urban cities offers increasing potential in 4 typical contexts:

  1. Food security and support optimisation of rural productivity as service and support centres.
  2. As convergence points in the emerging infrastructure, energy and water investments and as optimisation of urban and rural productivity as service and support centres.
  3. Connected to existing large primary cities or city regions optimisation of rural productivity as service and support centres.
  4. Connected to secondary cities and optimisation of rural productivity as service and support centres.

Regenerative Circular-Economy approach

Each of these contexts have particular regenerative economy potential based on their locations, climate zones and infrastructure capacity and intra city – hinterland- markets, regional, continental and global connectivity. AFRICA123 has developed a regenerative design and economic approach that brings together processes at a city, country and continental level.

The 6 key aspects to AFRICA123’s integrated Regenerative SMARTERu-Urban city making process, which underpin this continental urban development framework in aligning with all 7 Aspirations of the African Union Agenda 2063 and all 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

AFRICA123’s Regenerative SMARTERu-Urban city-making principles are:

  1. Integrated Regenerative Ru-Urban development at scale.
  2. Building strategic relationships of trust and value with key stakeholders to unlock city making opportunities.
  3. The stimulation of a diverse economy at the local city hinterland level that can progressively connect it to a wider economic context: intracity, national, regional and global. A financial modelling tool developed by AFRICA123, supports the regenerative land use development approach.
  4. A 6-Pillar model to ensure that the balanced 5P’s can be prioritised and achieved – Planet, People, Planet, Prosperity, Partnerships.
  5. The implementation of Situational Innovation Teams (SITs) where the business for doing good, making a balanced profit and regenerating the planet are key objectives.
  6. An AFRICA123 Innovation Collab Platform (AIC): a business-based process that reorientates existing businesses with opportunities to innovate and to target regenerative solutions and unlock new upstream and downstream business opportunities. This will all benefit local businesses, develop new skills and job creation through the principles of circular economy and industrial symbiosis processes.