The research, published in Nature, demonstrates how fine-scale mapping reveals gaps in street access, which directly affects sanitation, waste collection, schooling, and emergency response. The authors suggest that these insights can guide practical, neighborhood-scale actions to support global development goals.
"When you look at developed cities you see something universal: Every building has street access, no matter if your city is a grid like Chicago or curvy like Rome," said Luis Bettencourt, PhD, Professor of Ecology and Evolution at UChicago, who led the study. "These connections give people access to water, sanitation, and garbage disposal, and an address to register for school or where the fire department can find them in an emergency."
In many rapidly expanding cities, particularly informal settlements, infrastructure growth lags behind population increases. "These disconnections lead to a range of problems for residents, holding back their development and that of their cities," Bettencourt explained. "This paper shows how we can measure and then begin to address those deficits for each household in every building, anywhere in the world."
Researchers built the Million Neighborhoods Africa map by combining Ecopia's building-by-building census with OpenStreetMap road data and demographic records. This interactive platform shows infrastructure access block by block, allowing comparisons of building density, population, and accessibility throughout the continent.
One core measure, block complexity, tracks how many buildings one must pass to reach a street from the least connected point. Planned neighborhoods show values of one or two, while the sub-Saharan average stands at eight.
"This research provides the first comprehensive dataset of population and development indicators for all street blocks in sub-Saharan Africa, alongside open-source tools to extend the data globally in a standardized and comparable manner," said Nicholas Marchio, co-author and Research Data Scientist at UChicago's Urban Science Lab.
The study uncovered a strong link between block complexity and human development metrics such as health, education, housing, and crowding. More isolated blocks consistently correlated with poorer outcomes. Beyond large informal peripheries, the analysis also revealed hidden high-complexity pockets inside otherwise well-connected cities.
The findings illustrate how neighborhoods often evolve with uneven infrastructure access. Bettencourt noted, "Developing cities have a lot of challenges to face, especially striving for greater prosperity and quality of life in the face of climate change. What is different now is that we can use advances in urban science and amazing new data to accelerate sustainable development."
The research was supported by the Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation and the Susan and Richard Kiphart Center for Global Health and Social Development at UChicago.
Research Report:Infrastructure deficits and informal settlements in sub-Saharan Africa
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