Urban Governance and Contested Market Redevelopment in Ghana

By Ilse Helbrecht and Lewis Abedi Asante

Urban Governance and Contested Market Redevelopment in Ghana explores how urban governance, urban regeneration and urban politics intersect during market redevelopment in cities in Ghana, and Africa more broadly. Utilising market redevelopment case studies in Kumasi, Cape Coast, Ho and Sekondi-Takoradi, Lewis Abedi Asante and Ilse Helbrecht reveal how market traders resist displacement, shape urban governance and challenge modernist urban development.

Introducing new frameworks, such as African market characteristics, urban governance as DEDA (decentralisation, entrepreneurialism, democratisation and activism), hybrid entrepreneurial urban governance and politically induced displacement, the book critiques mainstream urban economics and offers a counter-narrative grounded in urban social economics and political economy.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1399531735
• ISBN13: 9781399531733
• Release Date: June 2026
• Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
• Length: 192 Pages