November 2015 | Annansi.com

#Business Insider writes:

China’s Pearl River Delta is swallowing up nearby cities. As the largest urban area in the world, the region features a population of roughly 42 million housed inside a 2,700-square-mile perimeter. The Pearl River Delta is made up of nine cities, each boasting populations above 1 million. And China is combining them all into one giant megacity. It’s bigger than Canada (pop: 35 million), Australia (pop: 23 million), and Argentina (pop: 41 million). The PRD began as a rural region with an agriculture-based economy. Urbanization didn’t take off until the early 1990s, when factories and big business flocked to the region and brought with them millions of new residents.

Journalism Professor Suzanne Franks writes:

In more recent years it looks as if the single story has shifted gear. Instead of the relentless negative image of suffering and impoverished victims there is a new narrative, ‘Africa Rising’. Suddenly the continent is brimming with mobile phones and energetic businesses. In May 2000 there was a famous Economist front cover portraying Africa as the hopeless continent. This was replaced in 2011 with a cover full of bright skies and with the ‘Africa Rising’ headline. Time magazine followed suit with a cover using the same slogan…The trouble is that all reductionist stereotypes are incomplete and inaccurate. And in particular this latest characterisation of Africa as a place teeming with entrepreneurs, complete with its own ‘silicon Savannah’ has other problems. In a part of the world still facing staggering levels of inequality it brings the danger of tying Africa too close to a neo-liberal agenda and objectives.

Month: November 2015

Is Africa “impoverished” or “rising”? The competing media perspectives