The Burning Issues of Urbanization and Shanty Towns in the Yaounde Metropolis, Cameroon

Abstract

The Yaounde metropolis is a vivid example of the rapidly expanding cities in sub-Saharan Africa. Such an expansion has however not been glamorous the way it is perceived.  The city has faced an array of challenges. The objective of this research was to view one of the emerging challenges and a gamut of rippling effects in a third world urban setting. This had been indispensable since the challenges need to be scientifically studied for a holistic enabling urban environment.

With a designed methodology that entailed empirical and classical approaches with field observations, analyses of questionnaires, aerial photographs, as well as topographic sheets of the study zone, it was realized that, there exists an array of problems that are intricately tied to poverty in the metropolis. The problems of the prevalence of shanty towns has been used to depict the ills of poorly planned and managed urban expansion in the Less Developed Countries. This problem thus epitomizes the poor/unbearable social conditions that are plaguing the Yaounde city today.

These issues identified, necessitate reactive and proactive measures. The way forward entails measures to control the anarchical nature of settlement and recommendation regarding the amelioration of these shanty towns in the metropolis.