The role of the urban grid in Luanda and Maputo's current transformation: between the idealised city and the pre-existing self-produced spaces

Abstract

The article focuses on the current urban and housing transformation of the Angolan and Mozambican capitals with regards to the misleading role of the urban grid, as pursued by both administrations in the dominant neoliberal context. Following the theoretical conception of ‘Production of Space’, as discussed by Lefebvre ([1974] 2000), our purpose is twofold: to reflect on the urban and housing strategies, policies and practices adopted by these governments in order to counteract the progressively more increasing self-production of space; and to present the resulting imageries of the cities, including its paradoxes and tensions. By relating the political-economic and socio-spatial contexts of Luanda and Maputo, in view of the recent massive production of legal instruments and plans and their corresponding urban paradigms, practices and consequences, we conclude that current transformations, exclusively based on gridiron street layouts and supportive of international architectural typologies, tend to promote spatial fragmentation and social exclusion.