This book offers a range of scholarly interpretations of the new forms of urbanity in contemporary African cities, engaging with issues including colonial legacies, postcolonial intersections, cosmopolitan spaces, urban reconfigurations, and migration. It covers cities as diverse as Dar Es Salaam, Dakar, Johannesburg, Lagos and Kinshasa. Imperial legacies and postcolonial predicaments: an introduction 1(10) Fassil Demissie Metropolitanism, capital and patrimony: theorizing the postcolonial West African city 11(14) Alfred Ndi Casting a long shadow: colonial categories, cultural identities, and cosmopolitan spaces in globalizing Africa 25(18) William Cunningham Bissell Viewing postcolonial Dar es Salaam, Tanzania through civic spaces: a question of class 43(16) Anne S. Lewinson Transforming urban landscapes: soccer fields as sites of urban sociability in the agglomeration of Dakar 59(14) Susann Baller Narrating the African city from the diaspora: Lagos as a trope in Ben Okri and Chika Unigwe's short stories 73(16) Ayo Kehinde The city beyond the border: the urban worlds of Duiker, Mpe and Vera 89(14) Meg Samuelson Governing the city? South Africa's struggle to deal with urban immigrants after apartheid 103(18) Caroline Kihato Cinema and the edgy city: Johannesburg, carjacking, and the postmetropolis 121(10) Albert Fu Martin J. Murray Visual fragments of Kinshasa 131(12) Fassil Demissie Index 143