Feeding African cities: Hinterland suitability and urban growth in twentieth-century sub-Saharan Africa

Historically, Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)’s cities largely relied on their immediate hinterlands for food provisioning. However, rapid urban growth in the past century has posed unique challenges for how food is provisioned. This paper explores the relationship between the food production suitability of urban hinterlands, and their population growth over the twentieth century. Using a newly constructed urban population dataset, I empirically identify that hinterland suitability was important for urban growth until the 1960s. However, since then, the suitability–growth relationship has weakened. I explore this weakening relationship to understand whether it was a regional phenomenon, and whether it was driven by newly formed cities or a change in urbanization incentives. The suitability–growth relationship weakens even after controlling for various employment-, income- and mortality-related drivers of twentieth-century urban growth in SSA. My results indicate that the means of urban food provisioning in SSA changed. Since the 1960s, hinterland food provisioning in cities was increasingly replaced by a growing reliance on intercontinental food imports. Low global food prices, reduced shipping costs, rural unemployment, and a shift from pro-rural to pro-urban policies incentivized cities to rely on intercontinental food imports and grow past their historical constraints.