23/10/2025
The School of Architecture and Design at AUB invites you to a lecture by Liza Rose Cirolia
Wednesday October 29th, 2025, 6:00 PM
Location: Architecture Lecture Hall, AUB Campus
African New Cities: Speculation and World-Making from Urban Peripheries:
The contemporary wave of master planned “new cities” across the world has attracted the celebration and critique of urban studies scholars, activists, and decision-makers. In Africa, the drivers and aesthetics of new towns have transformed; while earlier waves tended to act in service of the political or business interests of these nations, current projects are inspired by experiments in the Middle East. These projects have often seemed garish and “out of touch with reality” against the backdrop of under-resourced planning departments, rampant informality, and high levels of inequality. In this lecture, the theme of African new cities will be explored, taking an intentionally "ambivalent" view of new cities in Africa, with the hopes that such a perspective has wider applicability. The lecture will begin by considering the value that African experiences – seemingly distinct and peripheral to global debates – have for other urban geographies. The talk will then turn to the case of a particular new city in the capital city of Somalia, built by a trans-local telecommunication company with the aims of attracting the diaspora returnee and investor. This case, it will be argued, presents a more ambivalent view of African new cities, showing them not only to be sites of finance speculation, but also of experimental world-making.
Liza Rose Cirolia is an Associate Professor at the African Centre for Cities, University of Cape Town. Her research and teaching focuses on technological transitions, specifically in the context of Africa's urbanization. Her most recent scholarship engages with themes of urban statecraft, speculation, world-making, with a keen focus on finance, planning, and infrastructure. In addition to publishing widely, Liza is a corresponding editor for Urban Studies Journal, Platforms & Society and Finance and Space. She currently teaches two of the core modules for ACC’s Master in Sustainable Urban Practice, an executive program aimed at mid-career urban professionals (Sustainable Urban Infrastructure and City Finance). She is also the co-founder of the UTA-Do African Cities workshop, an annual “summer school” which brings together scholars, artist and activities to advance southern thinking and practice.
