Learning Cities

Abstract

This chapter opens up with the suggestion that the “leaning cities” concept may well apply to ancient cities since learning has characterized life in all cities of the world since time immemorial. However, it is acknowledged that the “learning cities” construct was specifically originated during the 20th century for the purpose of assisting city dwellers cope with the challenges of modern city life. Dwelling on the situation in Sub-Saharan Africa, the chapter reveals that learning cities projects are not currently popular in the sub-continent. This lack of interest has been attributed to the fact that Africans were never and are still not taken along during the process of transformation of both ancient and modern spaces into cities. Consequently, it is here recommended that a transformative learning process that uses both indigenous knowledges and endogenous city clusters as learning pads should be adopted for the revitalization of the implementation of learning cities projects in Sub-Saharan Africa.