I seek to accomplish two aims in this essay.  First, I offer a critical reading of two recent books on the African Copperbelt: Miles Larmer’s Living for the City and Patience Mususa’s There Used to be Order.  Second, I make an argument on behalf of cross-regional comparative approaches to the study of contemporary cities.  To do so, I emplace the Copperbelt in conversation with Detroit.  I suggest that although there are significant differences between the two settings, an examination of similarities – a) the importance of individuated responses to urban insecurity and uncertainty and b) narratives of decline and resurgence – contribute to a better understanding of localized tactics and strategies in reaction to global processes of capitalism, inequality, and scarcity.  Such an effort advocates for the need to widen the scope of urban theory-making and demonstrates what can be learned from the shared experiences of post-industrial and post-colonial decline.

Protracted economic crises, accelerating inequalities, and increased resource scarcity present significant challenges for the majority of Africa's urban population. Limited state capacity and widespread infrastructure deficiencies common in cities across the continent often require residents to draw on their own resources, knowledge, and expertise to resolve these life and livelihood dilemmas.

DIY Urbanism in Africa investigates these practices. It develops a theoretical framework through which to analyze them, and it presents a series of case studies to demonstrate how residents invent new DIY tactics and strategies in response to security, place-making, or economic problems.

This book offers a timely critical intervention into literatures on urban development and politics in Africa. It is valuable to students, policymakers, and urban practitioners keen to understand the mechanisms and political implications of widespread dynamics now shaping Africa's expanding urban environments.

Residents of African municipalities exhibit a lengthy and varied history of coping with conditions of pervasive precarity and uncertainty in the context of an unevenly present state. The climate crisis compounds these challenges. Based on case studies from across the continent, this introduction to the Special Issue on the Politics of Climate Action in Africa's Cities presents research oriented around questions of "do-it-yourself" urbanism, sustainable development, and climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts undertaken by socio-economically vulnerable citizens. It offers insight into how the urban poor respond to ongoing urban climate crises, the variable roles of an absent, ineffectual, or inattentive state, and the unequal power relations undergirding sustainability discourse and practice. It draws on a cross-regional comparative perspective that centres conversations about urban theory and development in a (urban) world succumbing to mounting pressures from climate change, environmental precarity, and pervasive inequities.