Stories from a city on the move - Part I

6/8/2017

We spent our first week in Accra walking around the city observing how it has changed since our last visit in 2015. The streets are crowed with trotro, new buses, cars of all sizes and models and bicycles. Although traffic has always been there, several people told us that now more residents own and drive private cars. The city is growing horizontally towards the peri-urban areas and vertically in the inner city. Construction works are undergoing in many areas of the city and new buildings are sprawling up nearby old ones. Smaller houses constructed with basic recycled materials find place in between large colorfully painted houses surrounded by a wall and an electric fence. Gated communities seem now more present and several gated satellited towns are under construction. Security, control, cleanness, services are some of the adjectives that a real estate agent used to define the lifestyle that this sites offer. In the coming weeks we will further explore the city, interview residents and policy makers to further understand the ongoing transformations.