Garden city settlements : the littering effects of urban design policy in Lusaka

Abstract

The history and resulting contemporary form of the Zambian capital of Lusaka presents a condition particularly relevant to urban designers and policy-makers. One of the few cities in the subregion to have grown almost entirely from a single urban design gesture, the lasting effects of these early planning decisions have left myriad imprints upon the city. Proposed as a garden city upon its selection as the Northern Rhodesian capital in the 1930s, the layout of Lusaka went largely unimplemented but the remains residually strong: much of the intended physical form of the city actually take shape. Planned as a leisurely, picturesque administration town, it has developed into a systematic blighted metropolis.