African towns have been developing quite rapidly in the course of the last decades, especially since individual countries became independent states. The capital city of Togo, Lomé, is no exception. Its somewhat chaotic growth, however, with extensive suburbs spreading ever further from the city proper, renders communication between them problematic. The economic and social advantages of the city centre increasingly fail to offset losses incurred on account of the need to commute between the centre and the peripheries. Hence many city districts are being transformed, to a large degree, into self-sufficient “islands” in the city archipelago. The case study of the present article, the town of Agoènyivé, lies in the close vicinity of Lomé. Research on the demographic, political and social factors accompanying the development of Lomé indicates that they do not create particularly favourable conditions for a potential transformation of the city into an urban archipelago. In fact, the case study indicates the opposite: since the city centre expands, Agoènyivé becomes less peripheral
Download files
Citation rules
Język Polski
English