Building Accra: Stories of development from a West African City

The main trending narratives about Africa tend to focus either on its emergencies or its economic promises for the future, failing to paint a broader picture of the complexity of the issues that are at hand today in the African continent. In this already unbalanced scenario, cities in Africa suffer from an even more acute form of misrepresentation, with most publications grouping many of them under the “African cities” label, failing to represent the reality of their forms and practices, and ultimately, their own specific identity. This research attempts to change approach towards the analysis of an African city, by eliminating any pre-conceptualizations and hierarchies between global and developing cities, situating itself within the ordinary cities framework, as proposed by Jennifer Robinson, and focuses its analysis on one specific city: Accra, capital of Ghana, and its latest business district, Airport City. Through the analysis of the narratives of those who have worked on its construction and the forms that resulted from it, the research summarizes some of the specificities of Accra highlighting the real potentials and challenges that lie behind the narratives when it comes to its urban development.