October 18, 2020

AMA: African Planned Cities, COVID, My Books in Academia

23 minutes

I answer various questions from Yida, a Patron.

He wrote the following to me:

I'm looking through your Nigeria chapter and I like what you included on the planned African cities! I learned something new as I didn't know about the two new cities multibillion dollar cites by Abuja before. Urban planning seems to be such a difficult challenge in places like Lagos so I'm interested in your perspective.

Is planning and designing Nigeria cities a futile exercise because the plans get outdated by the time it is implemented, due to the rising population and traffic congestion? Were there any particular cities or neighborhoods in Africa that you felt safe in and were impressed by? Or perhaps there were cities where you could tell the planners had good intentions and put a lot of effort in but it still didn't work as planned in reality.

As you wrote such a detailed section on malaria in West Africa, I'm wondering if you plan to follow up discussion on Covid-19 in Africa and some major responses and developments?

Another point I want to raise is who is your intended audience? Do you see children and educators reading your books?

Perhaps some geography, social studies teachers/ professors have already read your books and reached out to you! There are lots of good discussion questions and essay topics that could come out of every chapter. Your book is very educational and filled with facts, geography, history, culture, told in your engaging narrative voice.

However, the funny adult stories and frank discussions on sex, polygamy means it would be rated M for Mature. Chances are, kids working on projects would be unlikely find this book in their school libraries. I can see teenagers enjoying this and the book is very readable. I'm curious whether this book would be selected by teachers, school librarians, as part of their educational resources.

I first found the Hidden Europe at a local public library but not at local bookstores or university libraries. I can see the Unseen Africa being used as an introduction to Africa and students can then consult your bibliography for more academic reading.