The rapid rate of urbanisation in Africa accompanied by a myriad of socio-economic, physical and environmental challenges and the persistence of these challenges have called into question the effectiveness of urban planning in managing this phenomenon to achieve an improved quality of life. This chapter, through an extensive review of the literature, examines the magnitude of Africa’s urbanisation challenges, the planning response to those challenges and the effects of planning on the quality of life. The chapter notes a peculiar urbanisation with rapid human agglomeration but without commensurate urban facilities and services. Urban planning is characterised by heavy reliance on western planning models that has made it less responsive to the socio-economic, cultural and spatial requirements of the people, thus making cities less liveable. The chapter calls for a re-examination of urban planning practice and suggests measures that could be explored to reposition urban planning for effective urban management in Africa.

We close with some linkages between prehistory and the modern world. We survey an empirical literature in economics arguing that regions where agriculture began early, or state formation occurred early, have higher per capita incomes or more rapid economic growth in the present. Another literature in economics involves the use of growth theory to explain the full trajectory from Neolithic agriculture to the Industrial Revolution, the recent demographic transition to slower population growth, and rising per capita incomes in advanced economies. We also discuss hypotheses about the transition from elite-dominated states in prehistory to widespread democracy today. Against this backdrop we consider the evolution of human welfare, as measured by nutrition, health, and life expectancy, from mobile foraging bands to modern societies. Theory and evidence suggest that welfare diminished in the transitions to sedentism and agriculture, and then remained low for commoners due to stratification and Malthusian population dynamics. But during the last 100–150 years the Industrial Revolution, the Demographic Transition, and political democratization have made billions of people better off. We conclude by discussing the role of climate change in prehistory, along with some lessons about the likely effects of global warming in the future.