45 Pikine, Senegal: A Reading of a Contemporary

African City

Fatou Sow

Reading a contemporary African city is a which the cultural values and symbols can because of the colonizer's wants. They are
difficult and ambiguous undertaking. What easily be taken into consideration. created from nothing. They have over-
significance can we attach to it? Each The city is also an arena of conflicts of whelmed, or even destroyed physically,
individual, depending on his sensitivity and power, the terms of which can be defined historically, politically, economically and
his competence, has a different conception by the sociologists or the political scien- culturally, the ancient capitals and the
of this reading. tists. Social groupings and ethnic groups, important sites of Sudanese-Sahelian
First of all, one can read a city the way one political forces and ideological currents, history, to speak only of our own histori-
multiple interests oppose one another cal-cultural area.
holds a book. One does it with an exterior
look full of indifference, often full of there. It is the scene of the exercise of the In three centuries, we have gone from the
sympathy or even love, since one loves this power by the State and by the government, trading post to the colonial city, while
open book. One can also cast an interior the power of capital, of money and of real physically wiping out or reducing to a
look at this book, since the reader is a page estate speCUlation, the power of the inter- symbolic role those landmark cities in our
of it himself. When one has spread out his national division of labor, ethnic and reli- national histories. The urban spaces con-
past, his present and probably his future gious power, and so on. The city is the stituted before the emergence of Atlantic
there, each street, each neighborhood, reflection, the expression of these struggles trade were mOdified, displaced, or even
each building is charged with meaning, of interests and of these power relation- diverted. What happened to the tradi- ,
with emotion. ships. It is the object of pressures that tionally renowned political cities of Sene-
Reading the city means casting a look that make it difficult to solve its problems in a gambia, such as SiIla, Gede, Ngoy, Ndeer,
varies according to abilities. The observa- Senegal whose whole population is less Mbul, Lambaay or laxaaw? Yet they were
tions of the architect and the city planner than that of Bogota, Bombay or New the seats of national power. They served as
are not those of the specialists in the York. residences for the sovereigns holding
political or social sciences. These readings, Recalling the colonial period of urban political power. They housed religious or
development here is not an indication of intellectual centers. The internal and
despite their differing content, converge in
order to understand and explain. Describ- touchy vindictiveness. It is a matter of trans-Sahara trade relationships had struc-
ing, interpreting, explaining the city scientifically demonstrating past and pre- tured an urban network of which Aouda-
sent traces; it is a reminder of the origin of ghost, Djenne, Timbuctu and Gao are the
means reading it aloud to understand it
oneself, and to have it understood by the what is still an issue, namely, the ways of most prestigious examples in our collective
others. distributing and controlling space. The memory of stop-over points.

The architects, the city planners have an power of the independent State has not At that time, the urban phenomenon
essential role that they tend to turn into a always challenged those ways, but for 20 developed under the control of the region's
monopoly. They consider themselves the years the State has been making ever political and economic powers. The driving
only builders of the city. To be sure, it greater efforts to master space - not just force in structuring space was basically
happens that they design a city, that they urban space, but also national space. internal. It met economic criteria, to be
suggest the creation and the arrangement Pikine is a symbol of this issue. sure But a whole art of dwelling and of
of the spaces. They decide on the use of living was based on references that were
ideological and symbolic, ontological and
the materials They attempt to re-create or
religious, esthetic and social On his own
to imagine the symbols and values of the
The Urban Question in Senegal terms, the Sahelian built his neighbor-
local cultures Nevertheless, over and
above their own contradictions, they hoods in accordance with his cultural and
participate in only part of the building and Urbanization: the Stakes Involved ethnic traditions. He constructed his
the execution of the city. habitat and put up his mosques and other
If we say that Black Africa's large modern religious buildings. He developed his
Many of them have a tendency to forget public areas and his markets for cereal
cities are of colonial origin are essentially
that the city represents a field of conten- grains, cattle and artisan's goods
colonial, we are repeating a well-known
tion. What is at stake limits Professor
historical fact. The statement is obvious, The ever closer contacts with Europe
Arkoun's freedom of imagination, Prince
yet it is imperative that we recall this. The through Atlantic trade, the slave trade, the
Aga Khan's freedom of dreaming, a
colonial cities still bear the marked imprint gradual integration of Senegambia into the
dreaming that the architect Pierre
of a recent past. They are the conse- world capitalistic system and colonization
Goudiaby translates into color, brightness
quences of a process and a specific logic of caused considerable changes. They con-
and noise. The city is not a neutral realm in
development and extension. Dakar, vulsed the region'S social and urban
which one can simply think of construction
Bamako and Banjul sprang into being history. Reflecting its needs, the European
in terms of concrete and stabilized earth, in
 Pikine, Senegal. A Redding of a Contemporary ~frican City 46

economy modeled a new living environ- intended to control the economic space, creation of an international port and an
ment that was to disturb a certain balance and above all the political system - that international airport gave it definitive
in these societies. was what was at stake. "Malaw gisul raay access to the outside world. It benefited
What would the urban face of Senegal hi - My horse Malaw has not seen the from administrative infrastructures and
have been like without the colonial railroad" (and, by implication, will never from prestigeous school and university
influence, without the growth of the see it), Lat Joor used to say He was quite structures, such as the Medical School and
ground-nut (peanut) industry? The Atlan- aware of the fact that the advance of the the School of Higher Studies, which
tic coast or the ground-nut basin would rails would irremediably divert the activity became the University of Dakar in 1957
certainly have had a different appearance centers, while destroying the States The hospitals attracted patients from the
They might not have developed unilate- Thies, Mekke, Kaolack and Tamba- region and from all of French West Africa.
rally to the detriment of the older socio- counda were important centers of the Due to the fact that colonial France placed
economic spaces in the Senegal River railroad and ground-nut economy The such importance on it, Dakar, and hence
basin, which, at the center of trans-Sahara great river communication routes such as Senegal, still have a special strategic place
trade, played a historical and political role the Senegal, the Sine, the Saloum and in regional, African, French and world
of unquestioned importance. A whole the Casamance saw the construction of geopolitics.
process of urbanization, which would trading towns and administration centers The prestige and influence of Dakar
probably have been quite original, fell by of the colonial power such as Dagana, siphoned - for its own benefit - the
the wayside to make way for a different Podor, Matam, Foundiougne and Ziguin- roles, the fruits of the activities and the
scheme re-creating a living space in accor- chor populations of the rural areas and of the
dance with criteria, symbols and models other Senegalese cities, such as Saint-
that were firmly anchored in the relation- Louis, the colony'S former capital, Rufis-
ships of political, economic and cultural que, the ground-nut port, and Goree,
Dakar
domination which has now become a "resort" For a
The colonial power chose the sites, laid out long time, it eclipsed the other cities of the
Dakar, the largest city of the French West Federation of French West Africa, of
the habitat, established the hierarchies of African Empire and the bridgehead for
the urban system and even delimited the which it was the capital. Only Abidjan-
colonial penetration, is exemplary, and and that only during these last ten years
relationships. In the pre-colonial period, offers a good illustration of the history of
when societies, powers and economies following independence - has been able
dominated urbanization. It was created ex to compete with it, and even to surpass it
were developing autonomously, the Sene- nihilo in 1857, on land that was virtually
gambian States turned inward. This was thanks to a prodigious economic and
usurped from the Lebou community that financial boom
the case of Tekrour, of Jolof, ofWaalo, of occupied Cape Verde. This creation was
Fuuta, of Kayoor, of Sine, of Guidimakha based on the colonizer's political force. He The rapidity of Dakar's urban growth is a
and of Gabou They all kept their backs was intent on making it, in the very characteristic shared by all of the cities of
turned to the sea until the 16th century It language of the commandant of Goree, the African continent whose economies
is no accident that the Lebous and Guet- Mauleon, "the great commercial city and were dominated and extroverted. Theil
ndarian fishermen still build their homes the general government headquartel s of all growth rate was the highest in the world.
facing away from sea. Yet they are bold in of our establishments on the west coast of We have noted, in this article, the Atlantic
making use of its waters and get the bulk of Africa, including Senegal itself Dakar trade and the colonial power structure
their resources from it. has easy communications with France, the installed to manage the economies that
It was necessary to await Atlantic trade to coast of Africa and the whole world, and were created, and they promoted depen-
see the flowering, with the trading posts, of all of these advantages together must dent UI banization The colonial system
international commercial spaces and the naturally make it our main establishment, installed States that produced their
first urban centers along the coast Thus our center of militm y and maritime opera- bureaucracies It required the economies
Goree, Saint-Louis and Rufisque wound tions, and in a nutshell, the capital of all of and their populations to specialize in crops
up draining activities and populations. our African possessions'" and export products. Some labor power
Colonization made the ground-nut was released and emigrated to the city.
This striking destiny was strengthened by
industry the essential vector of urban the creation of substantial infrastructures, There is no need to give a detailed treat-
growth. The French power structure set up such as the rail lines to Saint-Louis and ment of the reasons for and cycles of the
a railroad network that connected some Niger. The military bases and the "hydro- migrations that launched the process of
stopover points linking up with ports base" made Dakar the launching platform Dakar's growth they are well known. Let
exporting raw materials The French for the French armies in Africa. The us recall briefly that between 1940 and
47 Pikine, Senegal. A Reading of a Contemporary African City

1950, Dakar, in its role as administrative Dakar's Suburbs Pikine, one of the oldest suburbs, the long
and industrial capital of French West history of which can serve as testimony.
Africa, depended for its take-off on a Generally speaking, suburbs succeed the Some fundamental questions must be
substantial amount of manpower supplied city in time and in space. They serve as an asked. What is Pikine's position in the
by inland areas of Senegal and other outlet for the rich or the poor city dwellers, Dakar urban system? Does it tend to be
countries, both neighl?ors and more distant depending on the case and the context autonomous because of its role? Is Pikine a
ones: Mauritania, Guinea, Sudan, but also The city, plagued by congestion, must city within the city? What are its relations
Dahomey, Togo, Ivory Coast, Gabon, etc. re-organize its space. It can flee from itself, with the capital? What relationships do its
In this growth, the French community, far from the jammed conditions, noises population groups have with their space?
reigning on Ie 'Pleateau' as the master, and hovels of the center. This is the case of How do they organize it? How do they
played a leading role through its political the rich suburbs of North America- experience it?
and economic activities. It was assisted by Washington with Bethesda or Silver
a Lebanese - Syrian community that the Spring, or Los Angeles with Pasadena or
colonial power imported to make inroads Malibu are examples The city, rather than
on this Senegalese business world. It had fleeing, can also chase the hovels out to the The Creation and the Peopling of
been combatting the latter since the mid- outskirts. Hence a large number of Third Pikine
19th century, at the time of the coalition of World capitals have suburbs that are some-
Faidherbe/Maurel and Prom. times rich, and other times basically poor. Pikine: A Separate Entity
The independence of the 1960s increased, Dakar does not escape this model. Fann or
and even accelerated the migrations Point E were created at the urging of The creation of Pikine stemmed from
because of the structural changes that had French governors as residential areas, then well-established colonial logic
intervened. An experience with socializa- reserved first of all for the French mino- Between 1857, the date of the official birth ,
tion, or to be more exact with government rity. Later, Grand-Medine, Pikine and of Dakar, and 1915, the Senegalese and
control, was launched at the very begin- Guediawaye were to absorb the overflow French communities co-existed around the
ning. It took charge of the whole rural of the indigenous over-population port and on the Plateau The one lived in
economy and instituted development wood and straw, the other in concrete and
As we ourselves stress in a study of urban
policies there. It imposed a combersome cement. The plague epidemic of 1915 was
migration, "The whole history of Dakar's
network of cooperatives, supervisory an excellent pretext for creating la
growth is intermingled with that of the
structures and State agencies. These Medina, outside the boundaries of the
successive episodes of pushing back and
various programs conditioned the activities Plateau. It was then a district reserved for
evicting people that left a mark on it"3.
of production and consumption and the the indigenous alone. It was de facto racial
With or without a pre-established develop-
movements of the rural populations. The segregation, taking shape behind sanitary
ment plan, Dakar secreted its own exten-
1960s marked the end of certain industria- reasons People talked about subjection to
sions, whether regular or anarchic Thus
lization activities established in Cape the sanitary rules applicable to the Euro-
the Grande Medina, Grand-Dakar and
Verde. The immigrants of Senegalese and peans. Other social reasons were put forth.
Pikine appeared in 1952, Grand-Yoff in
African origin found fewer jobs and were The toubab occupied the upper part of the
1954, and all of the slums inside the city,
faced with rising unemployment. The cities Plateau until after the declarations of
large pockets of which still survive despite
and the villages were affected sociologi- independence. He reserved the center for
a systematic evacuation policy. More
cally by the improvement of schooling A the administrative and commercial insti-
recently, the Patte d'Oie, Guediawaye
whole generation of young people fed on tutions. The natives clustered at the base of
and the Improved Parcels of land (Par-
dreams of progress at school could not the Plateau, after the Lebanese fringe at
celles assainies) have developed Pikine
satisfy them in its rural environment, so it the edges.
now adjoins Thiaroye and Yembel, and
projected them onto the city.
one is safe in saying that Rufisque will be Beginning in 1915, the restructuring of the
Marc Verniere gives a good description of at the gates of the city at the end of this Dakar urban tissue was carried out in a
how, from its creation to our own time, decade. way even more detrimental to the poorest
"Dakar, a beacon city, modern city, rich social classes They were pushed back;
The over-population of the Dakar agglo-
city, paid the price of the astonishing they were evicted. La Medina had only
meration and the extension of these sub-
attraction that it exerciset had to endure, been the first district intended for them-
urbs are creating problems that are diffi-
within its limited space, the extreme con- and incidentally, it rapidly became over-
cult to solve, and problems that the cities
centrations of people for whom it consti- populated and slumified because of the
of the Third World encounter, as a whole
tuted the mirage'" lack of infrastructures.
To talk about them, we have selected
 Pikine, Senegal: A Reading of a Contemporm y African City 48

The first Master Plan for city planning of

the city of Dakar, of 1946, called for
residential areas for the wealthy, middle
and lower classes. Thus the Plateau and
the Corniche Quet were to get some
high-class buildings and living facilities,
actually assigned to the expatriate colonial
community. Greater Dakar was equipped
with some middle-class and lower-class
buildings (SICAP and HLM). These
buildings were for the use of a group of
Africans whose purchasing power justified
such property (civil servants, executives,
etc.). Then those at the low end of the
social spectrum, long-time city dwellers or
recent immigrants, shunted aside by the
urbanization process, slipped into all of the
temporarily vacant pockets. This explains
the proliferation of poor districts and
slums, amplified by the population growth
of Cape Verde
The urbanization policy of independent
Senegal during the last twenty years has Pikine
hardly changed with respect to renovation. Photo F Sow
Quite on the contrary, it has perpetuated
the positions and the official activities
practiced during the colonization period.
Urban over-population and the resulting
impoverishment remained insoluble
phenomena for some, annoying pheno-
mena for others. It was necessary to
improve the city, at whatever cost, by
doing away with its hovels and with what
was later called, as a euphemism, human
congestion Subsequently some thought
was given to creation of new districts,
necessarily on the outskirts and hence
distant from the job market - though the
purpose, it is true, was to provide the
evicted people with better living condi-
tions.
Pi kine is the first district of the general
suburban area. It was deliberately installed
13 kilometers from Dakar by the public
authorities in order to reduce the conges-
tion in la Medina to a very great extent
and to make it a healthier place to live At
the time, it was an area with an urban
potential, but was separated from the
capital geographically, economically and
Pikine, multi-storv building with the capital's status symbols plasteled walls, lVlought iron
socially. It took some time for it to trans-
form itself into a real city Photo F Sow
49 Pikine, Senegal. A Reading of a Contemporary African City

we ourselves participated in a study of

Pikine.
Extension, under the aegis of the BCEOM
(France) and of the World Bank, who were
setting up the project for Improved Parcels
of land. In 1974, a joint research program
of the Leiden State University (Nether-
lands) and of Dakar University, called
Senegal Ru112, took a close look at the
socia-technical studies involved in a pro-
gram on the living requirements of the
economically weak population of Cape
Verde, and they included Pikine in it.
Between 1975 and 1980, some one-shot
studies were carried out that did not
produce an over-all view. All of these
research efforts certainly need updating in
order to have a better assessment of the
evolution of the population, the habitat
and the problems of all kinds facing the
inhabitants of this suburb, which has a
constantly rising population and is on its
way to becoming the second-largest city of
Senegal. Hence we regret that we can offer
only some relatively outdated data as
material for reflection.
During thirty years of existence, Pikine has
grown constantly, despite beginnings that
were not very promising The fact is that
the isolation there and the precarious
nature of living conditions were so marked
at the time that forcing population groups
Gllediawaye, hOllse made of wood lecDI'oedfrom clates
to settle there seemed to be a bold gamble.
Photo F SOlV That was no longer the case beginning with
the 1960s, and especially in the 1970s,
when the transfer was carried out with
extreme brutality and by military force.
Installation and Evolution of Pikine Originally, Pi kine was merely a vast area
of the public domain. It was cleared and
A series of demographic and socio- equipped in very summary fashion to
economic studies on Pikine were made receive the first groups leaving the Medina.
between 1960 and 1971. They were done At the time, there was no road, no electri-
by various research institutions, such as the city, no market, no dispensary, no school.
IFAN, the ENEA, the ISEA and the From 1952 to 1971, Pikine was enlarged to
ORSTOM (cf. Bibliography) One of the such an extent that Thiaroye was already
most thoroughgoing of these studies was surrounded and Yembel reached. The
the one done by Marc Verniere, a geogra- construction sites for HLM public housing
pher of the ORSTOM who died acciden-
and Improved Parcels of land to the West
tally, and to whom we pay homage here.
and the East got under way at that time.
Guediillvaye We will borrow a large number of results
and statistical data from him In 1971-72, One can reconstitute the leading develop-
Photo F Sow
 Pikine, Senegal: A Reading of a Contemporary African City 50

ments in the growth of Pikine in the

following way':
1952. Improvement projects got under
way in Pi kine ancien (old Pikine) The land
was bare and contained only the ICOTAF
factory, which housed a number of its
workers there. In this whole area, the only
villages were those that still had rural living
conditions, such as Camberene, Thia-
roye and yembel.
1978: In six years, a few permits for
occupation were granted and, while slow,
the inflow of population groups was sub-
stantial enough to occupy all of Pikine
ancien as far as the Niayes road. The
ICOT AF 1 and Pepiniere settlements
were put up in accordance with the style of
the SICAPs of Greater Dakar, and were
completed in 1961.
1960-61: As the subdivision projects con-
tinued (beginning of recently subdivided
Pikine), irregular neighborhoods deve- Toward Malika
Toward Dakm-
loped in parallel fashion They were Rllfisqlle load
occupied by people evicted from the
,capital The latter rebaptized them with The weas of Pikine
the names of their original neighborhoods.
Source City Planning and Architectllle Agency
In this way Waxinaan and the outskirts of
Thiaroye were populated If these settle-
ments were called "irregular" by the public
authorities, who have not, in fact, granted
land-use permits, they are not considered
irregular by the residents. They have paid
the price to the Lebou communities. A
"customary" kind of law is in effect that
will be in perpetual contradiction, or even
conflict, with the State's land legislation, of
which the Law on the National Domains
(1964) is a pivot.
1963-64: While recently subdivided Pikine
is being completed, under the impetus of
the city-dwellers and rural immigrants, the
irregular districts of Djedda, Mouzdalifa
are developed to the south of Wax ina an.
1966-67: The irregular installations con-
tinued to develop toward the Northeast.
Darou Rahmane and Medina Gounass
were born as part of this movement. The
extension of Pikine absorbed Thiaroye.
The Pikine-Extension area was equipped.
Typical street in Guediawaye
1968-69. The projects for laying out areas
reserved for the HLMs and for the Photo F Sow
51 Pikine, Senegal. A Reading of a Contemporary African City

Improved Parcels are organized. and the rural areas. The latter come capital. Some 67 percent of the people in
1970-73: The irregular areas became more directly. Sometimes they have also come our sample had lived there before moving
dense towards the East. The "spontaneous by way of the inland cities Luc Thore out into the suburbs·.
fringes," to use an expression of Marc discovered this on the basis of inquiries
An examination of the internal evolution
Verniere, began to cover Yembel made in 1960 in Pikine (the old nucleus).
of Pikine from the demographic and real
Guediawaye emerged from the sand as it The fact is that Thore questioned heads of estate viewpoints helps give a better know-
welcomed people expelled from the indus- households about their places of origin and ledge of the population groups living there
trial zone. their dates of arrival in Pikine. Excluding What characterizes this evolution is the
1982: In ten years, Pikine has filled up the populations of settlements, all volun- opposition between two essential forms of
tary residents and generally the owners of using space. Verniere explains this
Many spaces that had been left vacant for
their houses (buying them on time), he opposition by calling on the will of the State
the installation of public infrastructures
notes that 45 percent of the family heads of aDd popular spontaneity. These two pheno-
have been incorporated into the whole
the other areas had been expelled from mena have always marked the structuring
Prefecture, police, stadium, technical high
Dakar, and that 46 percent had left it of the urban space in Cape Verde. But the
school, youth center, nursery school,
voluntarily For our purpose, this means contrast has never been as striking as it is
movie theater come into being. One notes
that 91 per cent of the households were here, since it makes it possible to draw up a
a very dense urban continuum, permanent
composed of former Dakar city dwellers typology of the areas of Pikine: regular!
constructions for the most part, which also
Thore also emphasizes that 8.2 per cent of irregular, legal/illegal, subdivided/non-
covers Thiaroye, Yembel, Diacksao,
them had arrived directly from a previous subdivided. Whatever the terms may be,
Diamaguene, etc. Its inhabitants often
residence other than Dakar" the opposition expresses a true reality.
sport outside signs perceived as symbols of
This same urban mobility (Dakar towards But, at the same time, almost all Pikine
success. People copy the decorative style
residents are or feel like the owners of their
of the prestigeous villas of the capital: Pikine) is noted in the results of the inquiry
plots, whatever the occupation status may
rough-coat walls, natural sand painting, bearing on the social situation of Dagou-
be The fact is that those chased out by the
wrought-iron window motifs, etc Roads dane-Pikine carried out by the ISEA in
State receive a use permit, and the inhabi-
were laid out. Private companies invested 1966-1967 and taken over by the
tants of the settlements get a real estate
in group real estate development: Hamo ORSTOM'. The individuals whose last
settlement, Lobat Fall settlement. domicile is located in Cape Verde are also title. The others, when they settled in, paid
the most numerous there a use duty, either to the district chief or to
the Lebou owner.
Finally, Verniere, who between 1970 and
1972 investigated a Pikine in full expan- The city - regular, legal or subdivided-
The People of Pikine houses the people who have been expelled
sion, confirms the marked experience
It includes Pikine Ancien, recently sub-
previously acquired in Dakar. But h€ also
From 1952 to 1960, Pikine welcomed about discovers something new. If Pikine, like all divided Pikine, and Pikine-Extension.
30,000 people. Ten years later, this figure of the African suburbs, still welcomes rural Road systems exist and give them a com-
amounted to 123,000, and the population immigrants, its essential function is a fortable appearance. Land plots have been
already accounted for one out of five different one: "(Some) young rural people distributed by the State, subject to the
residents of Cape Verde. The 1976 census coming from the countryside to the big city condition of developing them. This does
put the population of the whole of Pi kine planned to settle there definitively. After not confer a property right in the long run.
agglomeration at 210,113 people, while finding a job, they founded a family. It is The fact is that "the use permit excludes
that of Cape Verde was estimated at only after a long stay that they are forced any property right and cannot, in any case,
940,920.' to leave certain Dakar districts that are even after execution of the improvement,
being renovated or are irregular Their be transformed by the granting of a real
The Pikine population has a double origin.
children are city dwellers in the full sense estate title" (Journal Office/May 1952,
The majority is composed of Dakar city-
and constitute a new generation without concerning Pikine).
dwellers who have a long urban tradition.
They consist of various waves forced out of real links with the original rural area The initial land plots of Pikine Ancien were
the capital and of some groups who came Pikine, a Dakar suburb, has welcomed relatively spacious They measured about
with the intention of settling in Pikine, entire families constituted in Dakar'" 200 square meters, and, at the time this
attracted by the prospect of finally acqui- Within the framework of our own research district gained population, there was even
ring property Then one finds immigrants on YembeI and Hann, other Dakar some actual real estate speculation on the
from the other cities (Thies, Diourbel, suburbs, we had noted this same type of part of the initial occupants. In oral tran-
Saint-Louis, Kaolack, Ziguinchor, etc.) population formation, coming from the sactions and in exchange for payment, they
 Pikine, Senegal' A Reading of a Contemporary African City 52

transferred half of their land to the new

arrivals. The latter, even though the con-
tract was only oral, considered themselves
the legitimate owners. We see here a
continuation of the tradition holding that
one's word is immutable, with the same
value as a written contract. We find the
same idea in African business.
Thus, whatever may be the type of occupa-
tion, the aspiration to own real estate was
satisfied This is all the more important in
that the majority of these people, expelled
from the slums, were without a job and
without resources in the emptiness of
Pikine, to which they had to bring their
decrepit wooden shanty.
Actually, the only true real estate owners
were the inhabitants of the settlements,
whose buildings were bought on time The
major part of the literature devoted to
Pikine considered them well off, it being
hardly worthwhile to devote much atten- Mosque ill Pikille
tion to their problems. Thus in speaking Photo F Sow
about them, Verniere comments: "The
settlements constitute above all a separate
entity socially characterized by the unifor-
mity of good-quality houses of permanent
construction; it is almost entirely popu-
lated by wage-earning occupants, enjoying
a good standard of living (more than
30,000 CFA francs per month and per
worker on the average) and consisting of
city-dwellers by birth, and it displays a very
high density of occupation of the parcels of
land (money calls to families) " III.
These remarks deserve a few comments,
especially since a large fraction of wage-
earners from Dakar reside in Pikine
To be sure, the social distance may appear
great between inhabitants of the districts
and those of the settlements due to their
regular incomes (whence a better standard
of living). The distance is certainly much
greater between these suburbanites and the
colonial or expatriate renters of the Pla-
teau or of Fann-Residence, who, in their
status and behavior patterns, symbolize
the ultimate model of the progress of
urbanization. The notion of well off is
very relative. Here, there is no common lnegulm mea ill Pikine
denominator between these two situations Photo F SOIV
53 Pikine, Senegal' A Reading of a Contemporary African City

Moreover, as Verniere notes, money calls

to families The excessive occupation rate
of the housing units finally ends up in a
drop in the standard of living and in a
certain deterioration of living conditions.
Some call this phenomenon family parasi-
tism, whereas in fact the social and family
relationships function in this system, which
is still lively. In 1960, 30,000 CFA francs
(600 French francs) represented the
income of a middle-level labor supervisor
or a low-ranking civil servant, or much less
than the French minimum wage of the
time. These same remarks, which must be
qualified, can be applied to the residents of
the SICAPs or of the HLMs, and 150,000
CFA francs (3,000 French francs) repre-
sents the salary of a judge, a doctor, or a
university assistant after ten years of
service. In addition, high family costs are
paid out of this income. Between the
"Sicapois" executive and his expatriate
colleague, the social distance, if not
material distance, is still very great.
The irregular, illegal city, non-subdivided
or spontaneous, evolves outside the reach
[QUIP SCOLAIAE COMMERCIAL
of any government intervention. It is
parallel to the official city, even though it
attempts to copy the criteria of the official
o o
city: a certain pattern of the streets, the • cSI,nce

format of land plots, the size of which is

already limited in recently subdivided
Pi kine and in Pikine-Extension, is more
limited here, the multiplication of perma-
nent-type construction despite threats of • mqrch;.
expulsion, etc. One sometimes re-dis-
MEDICAL AUTRES EQUIPEMEHTS
covers signs of a better standard of living
than in the regular districts: purchase of
lands, quality of the habitat, density of
o
occupation of the housing units. .& dilp'n~~"t
ma.\.rrnlu
.mc.iri,
(r,il nUl' • mH1u;, "lise
Here, again, the striking thing is that
. . ph.rm.,i.
becoming an owner of private property is • poli«
felt as an irreversible acquisition
A serv;" tl'hn,inc
• 81AO
• di.p,n.';".
• p.. te
tlinifiUC ,,.iw;,
.& plJ/r;culturr •
•
EEOA
tc'!trc ~tC ior
""lmQ1l.n
Pikine: City Within the City? • tr;uric
• stad ..
In establishing Pikine, the authorities had
not taken any risks. Still, it is a relative Public facilities in Pikine
success, at least as far as the official
objectives are concerned. The majority of SouTce Dup/lis Vernieles, 1973
 Pikine, Senegal. A Reading of a Contemporary African City 54

the shanty-towns have been liquidated, settlement. Leaving the heart of the city future, had been able to survive thanks to
and the approaches to the capital are more meant losing the slim chances for survival the crumbs from the city's resources. At
attractive. Nimzat and Angle-Mousse, now that had been acquired at great cost. It worst, their position was no worse than
lined with housing estates, look much meant going without the paid jobs, the that of the inhabitants of the other districts
better. This rediscovered beauty leads small tasks called 'informal' by those who (Gueule-Tapee, Rebeuss, Medina,
hurried or uninformed tourists to say, like were not concerned. The shanty-towns Greater Dakar ... ). Cleaning up Dakar
one woman reporter of the Washington offered an inexpensive habitat to a whole forced their departure.
Post encountered at the Teranga Hotel: population that administrative or scientific
"Dakar is not an African city." As if an jargon called "floating" toward 1960, and
African city is necessarily synonymous "marginal" more recently. Rural immi-
with the word hovel! As if an ordinary grants looking for employment and Living in Pikine
skyscraper did not have its place in the unemployed workers of all kinds, wage-
Third World! earners at the low and middle levels of the The process of re-installation in Pikine
government and of the private sector initially worsened the positions of a num-
(trade and industry), and artisans were ber of the new arrivals. The chances for
able to find a place to land that would have survival had lessened. Geographical segre-
Leaving Dakar been unlikely elsewhere. The old workers, gation or marginalization was matched by
who had spent their working years there, an economic segregation or marginaliza-
Nobody can doubt that the material living had invested in huts and enjoyed rents as a tion that was even stronger: few jobs on
conditions are better in Pikine than in the form of retirement pay. Long before the spot, low income, difficult transporta-
vanished shanty-towns. The press had Pikine, the shanty-towns were pools of tion.
reported widely on "this horrible misery." labor power and commuter towns. Let us recall that the Pi kine population
Various research programs carried out in Our inquiry had estimated that 59 percent results from a mixture of low and middle-
the field bear witness to thisll. of the heads of households had a perma- class social categories. One finds clerks
In 1971-72, I myself carried out a series of nent activity or job. Among them, 35 from the government and the private
inquiries in Baye Gainde, Waxinaan- percent said they had had it for ten years, a sector, artisans, businessmen, workmen,
Kipp Coco and Fass Paillotte on behalf of fact that represents a certain level of tradesmen, service personnel, and a great
the World Bank and of the Central Office stability. Sixteen percent of the people in mass of unemployed or inactive workers.
for Overseas Equipment". The residents of the sample considered themselves seasonal In 1960, the total popUlation was estimated
the latter district just escaped expulsion day workers or occasional workers, 6 at 28,780, with 13,680 men and 15,100
after the government's decision to inaugu- percent were unemployed, and 19 percent women. The working male population was
rate a new policy of making on-the-spot called themselves inactive or retired. estimated at 5,530.
improvements. Naturally, there were perceptible differen-
ces depending on the person's sex. Some In studying the socio-professional structure
Everything it has been possible to write of this male population 13, Luc Thore
about the shanty-towns appears to fall 54 percent of the women queried had no
paid activity. The conditions of urban noted that workmen were the most
short of the reality. One could not, without numerous: 44.9 percent. He used a very
running a risk of imitating the tremolos of employment are such that women are
generally the least favored. broad definition of "workmen," since for
the national press, depict this way of life him the term included manual laborers,
worthy of a Dickens novel set in the The types of activity most often mentioned messengers, drivers, "in a nutshell, every-
tropics. The levels of unhealthiness, of during the inquiry are proper to the pro- body who does not have professional
malnutrition, the risks of illness, epidemics letariat and the sub-proletariat of the big skills." Then came the artisan and trades-
and death were higher there than any- African cities. It is a matter of artisan's men: 25.3 percent. We must point out that
where else. There was no basic infrastruc- goods and,small-scale commercial produc- shops and stores were, for the most part, in
ture: water, electricity, drainage, medical tion, trade, services, and semi-industrial the hands of the Moors The other and
and school facilities, etc. It was a case of jobs created by the city. An analysis of more profitable activities were seized on
being totally under-equipped, or to be these activities reveals that the body of by the Dakar tradesman (particularly the
more accurate, one should say non- wage-earners is not very developed, pre- food sector) Some 15.1 percent of those
equipped. carious and intermittent. The level of skills queried were civil servants (policemen,
And yet, the inhabitants of the shanty- is very low, and productivity is slight. The employees of the government and of the
towns that Verniere and I had questioned incomes are so questionable that it is very municipality). 8.7 percent of the subjects
had never, as a whole, wanted to leave the difficult to assess them correctly And yet, were at the level of executives or super-
these people, to be chased out in the visors: foremen, office clerks, accountants
55 Pikine, Senegal' A Reading of a Contemporary African City

Table 1 Trades in per cent according to have greater acceptance of those modest percent really active workers, 16.5 percent
residence jobs (26.7 percent). retirees with pensions, 16.5 percent
unemployed without any income, and 30
More than two-thirds of the female popu-
Place of residence Districts Settlement percent handymen, a confused mixture of
lation (15,100) concerned itself with house-
those exercising any kind of local
hold chores. The remunerated activities
No trade 4.7 0 activity"l'.
had to do with the rural world (craftsmen,
Farmers 19 0 small-scale trade, etc.). As Thore The relationships between Dakar and
Artisans tradesmen 276 24 correctly emphasizes, "the acculturation to Pikine are a good illustration of the basic
Workmen 48 1 11.9 the urban milieu through modern work aspects or dependent urbanization. This
Foremen level 7.5 21.4
seems to have left the feminine world by urbanization was based on two production
Civil servants 10.2 643
the wayside for the time being." systems, one dominant and the other one
The ISEO/ORSTOM inquiry carried out dominated
Total 100 100
in 1966-67 noted few differences in the The contemporary African city is a
socio-professional structures. Let us recall creation offoreign capital, the dominant
or typists in private companies. Farmers that the ISEA estimated the total popula- universe, which shapes it in accordance
represented only 1.7 percent of the sam- tion at 76,830. The inquiry showed a with its needs and its hierarchies. When
ple, despite the proximity of the Niayes continuation of the instability of men's this foreign source loses interest in it and
and the importance of truck farming in the jobs. moves its activities elsewhere, it is con-
sector. This activity was still largely in the Some 20 percent of the Pikinois had a demned to asphyxia, to inertia, or even to
hands of the villagers of Keur Massar, cerfain job stability. They were clerks, civil death This domination of capital is ex-
Thiaroye on the sea, and Camberene. servants, tradesmen, drivers Another 20 pressed in the existence of an economy, a
Persons without a trade accounted for 4.7 percent of them had jobs that were pre- society and a habitat of the Center, located
percent of the work force. carious and demanded very few skills: at Ie Plateau, at Dakar, Abidjan or Lagos
small trades, market sellers, etc. 15 per- (Marina). There one finds the formal and
It is interesting to stress the fact that this legal activities (shopping centers, head
socio-professional distribution varied cent were manual laborers, and 55 percent
of the workers were artisans working for offices of the industries), political and
according to the place of residence, which administrative power, the fine districts.
is quite understandable for obvious themselves. The latter category seemed to
economic reasons. have grown because of the extension of The poor and peripheral districts are the
Pikine The salaried jobs for women, on home ofthe dominated sector, which
While the inquiry did not bear directly on the other hand, increased slightly: office capital uses entirely for its own purposes
unemployment, Thore was able, all the workers, medical personnel, and services. Rebeuss, la Medina or Pikine bear wit-
same, to deduce from the results that ness to a process of domination that some
Still going by the ORSTOM inquiry, job
joblessness affected 29.3 percent of the wrongly characterize as marginality We
offers in Pi kine had changed little A third
male work force, or 1 Pikinois out of 3. are in the presence of a peripheral sub-
of the actual workers were in the Pikine
This shows the breadth of the pheno- system that reveals the duality of the urban
factories or at home. The others continued
menon. This rate was naturally lower phenomenon in Africa. It is not a question
to go to Dakar
among the literate (16 percent) than here of that unfounded duality that gene-
among the illiterate (29 2 percent). In 1970-1972, the economic isolation of rally brings the rural into opposition with
Pikine was still serious. Jobs did not keep the urban, traditional with modern, non-
Dakar still supplied the great majority of
up with the rate of its growth, as the capital Western with Western This duality
the jobs (70.4 percent), while Pikine
was decentralized 70 percent of the organizes, in space, the relationships of a
offered only 23.7 percent, or fewer than a
salaried workers still worked in Dakar. dominant production system with a
quarter of them (ICOTAF employees,
The others were stuck on the spot, having dominated production system in precise
tradesmen and artisans). The rest of Cape
only a choice between unemployment and sectors
Verde recruited 53 percent of the man-
casual trades. In this city at the top of its
power. The occupants of the settlements Pikine, like Abobo-gare (Ivory Coast),
growth pattern, the building trades and
were almost all Dakar wage-earners (95 2 Surulere (Nigeria) or Poto-Poto (Congo),
engineering were the leading sectors, since
percent), while only 66.4 percent of those organizes a dominated production mode,
construction sites were to be found every-
of the districts were in this category with its activities of production of goods
where
Similarly, the first group found few and services, its logic, its social structures,
salaried jobs in Pikine (4.8 percent), while Taking all of the heads of household who its specific forms of solidarity that make
the occupants of the districts appeared to did not work in Dakar, one counted: "37 possible and explain the existence and the
 Pikine, Senegal: A Reading of a Contemporary African City 56

longevity of the dominant system itself In

this sense, it does not belong to an infor-
mal or margina milieu. It is indispensable
to the functioning of the underdeveloped
Senegalese economy, dominated by
French and international capitalism. Its
essential role is to house part of the urban
wage-earning class and of the urban sub-
proletariat. The exploitation of their labor
force is accompanied by instability and
under-integration. To boost its profits,
foreign capital gives low wages and pays
few social charges (such as social security,
housing, unemployment allowance, etc.).
Hence the urban wage-earners must lean
on masses that are still poorer to ensure
their survival and their reproduction. As
Alqin Morice shows effectively, "the
activities known as informal or marginal
are, above all, the activities of reproduc-
tion: services, food, unkeep of used goods
and housing"15. The majority of their needs
are satisfied by these informal sources
GuedialVaye, HLM (lolV cost rental units)
represented by the shanty-towns and the
artisan-unemployed class of Pikine. Photo F SOIV

Pikine in Transition

Has the situation changed in 1982? Only a

thorough inquiry on the spot can tell us
with certainty. One can, however, offer a
few reflections
In chasing people out of Dakar towards
Pikine for a period of twenty years, a
promise of a better life for them was made.
Has it been kept?
The real improvement of the physical and
material conditions of existence has not
been enough. Geographical isolation has
prevented urban quality, in the full
meaning of the term The districts are
juxtaposed without real links, without an
active economic life. As happens in the
shanty-towns, people turned to Dakar in a
quest for employment, for income, for
equipment, in short for all of the factors of
urban integration But Dakar was still
farther, and transportation was difficult
Niayes road linking GliedialVaye to Pikine
and expensive There was total economic,
administrative and cultural dependence on Photo F SOIV
57 Pikine, Senegal A Reading of a Contemporary African City

the capital. vehicles that leave and return to Pikine at moving toward the Sandaga market and
Today, a major effort has been made with rush hour. Industries and large businesses that of the HLMs, at the Ben Talli Factory.
respect to community infrastructures. are still lacking. But from being a simple People buy more fabrics, shoes, watches
commuter town, Pikine is tending to reach and electronic equipment there, and at
From the educational viewpoint, we count a new status. A type of economic life is lower prices than in the elegant shops of
a score of primary schools, 7 CEGs and organizing itself on a small scale, as in all Roume Avenue or in the stores of the
CESs (secondary schools), and a technical of the suburbs. Dakar still monopolizes the Lebanese-Syrians in Lamine Gueye or
high school. From the administrative view- large activities. It is still the seat of capital. Galandou Diouf Streets. People go to la
point, there are now a prefecture, a Civil But the local micro-capitalism and its Medina or to Greater-Dakar to order
Status center, a court of initial jurisdiction derivatives are extending themselves ever furniture or have their cars repaired at
and a justice of the peace, two police farther toward the peripheral districts and agencies of what is called the 'informal'
stations, a post office, and a Treasury the suburbs. Already in the capital, a large sector.
office. The medical equipment has been number of commercial activities are
improved Five dispensaries, 2 maternity
units, 4 private clinics, and 4 private offices
for general medicine and dental surgery
thus provide primary health care. To be
sure, the people lack a large suburban
hospital that could serve the whole area.
But the essential things are present, even if
the 'l.uality of this equipment remains open
to discussion. The leisure-time centers
have not been forgotten: 3 movie theaters,
a stadium, and a youth center.
The relationships of the Pikinois with their
city seem to have evolved. In 1952, certain
city dwellers forcibly rehoused in Pikine,
rejected being cut off and isolated. They
installed grandparents, wives and children
there, but they themselves remained in
Dakar to support the family. In 1970-72,
few of them had the choice of this alter-
native. They came in to swell the ranks of
the isolated and the unemployed. Despite
the acquisition of property that wound up
attaching them there, few of them really
considered themselves Pikinois. Pi kine was
not yet a city. It was a Dakar district
transferred to the suburbs without the
advantages of the capital. But 30 years
have gone by. The agglomeration is
becoming urbanized, is taking shape, is
developing roots. A new generation has
been born there. And when the local team
of the Niayes plays, it has its fans: the
youth of Pikine. A city without tradition,
without a past, without culture, Pikine,
with time, is forging its personality.
In certain aspects, Pikine may still seem to
be a commuter city, insofar as a number of
its inhabitants still go to Dakar to work. Musente mmket (stleet market)
This is shown by the jostling to get on the Photo F Sow
 Pikine, Senegal' A Reading of a Contemporary African City 58

The provision of food supplies for Pi kine in the surrounding industries. Bethesda is a Relationships of teranga ensure the opera-
had accentuated the dependence on strictly residential suburb, a commuter tion of the social game over and beyond
Dakar. The basic foods (rice, oil, sugar, suburb, and in this sense it fulfills the same the contradictions and the new orienta-
tomatoes), fish, meat or vegetables - functions as Pikine. All in all, the Sarcelles tions imposed by urban life. In a society in
which were grown, all the same, in the of the 1960s and 1970s would remind us which the essential values are social ones
surrounding areas (Niayes) - came from more, with all due allowances, of the and are based on a feeling for the commu-
or passed through Dakar, to a great extent. isolation and the marginalization of Pikine, nity, the women weave a remarkable
Families had to pay high prices because of with the social problems that the latter interior order. The importance of the
this trans-shipment. Hence a large number phenomena engender (delinquency, a women, here, is no longer a question of
of them went to the city to make their certain criminality, etc.). demographic and economic statistics, nor
purchases. Today, these distribution But the important thing in Pikine, which even of political participation. It stems
channels seem to have changed percepti- probably does not exist in any of the from an experienced reality, from charac-
bly. The shops ofNar (Moors) and the above-mentioned suburbs of the industrial teristics of a civilization and from its values
SONADIS have multiplied. Nine large societies, is the ascendancy of the social that are difficult to grasp for Westerners,
markets, the most important of which is networks over the urban fabric. The sub- who define pure social relationships in
the Zinc Market, provide food supplies, urban universe, whether it is in the luxury terms of production relationships (men!
not to mention the small neighborhood class or is mediocre, offers all of the women; older!younger, etc)
markets (musente market). If the fish aspects of a ghetto. As to the Pikinois, they These types of relationships are no longer
comes every day from the Gueule-Tapee are creating, to an ever greater extent, necessarily synonymous with traditionality
(Dakar), the meat supplies come from the their own social framework for their lives. or ruralness. These terms have often been
nearby municipal slaughterhouses used to define the basic values of the
(SERAS) andd the vegetables from the Often turned out with the families of their
original neighborhood, the splintered com- African societies, as if they were frozen. In
Ndiobentaye market at Thiaroye. the face of the cultural domination of the
munities weld themselves back together,
A certain autonomy for Pikine - which or weave new links. Ethnic, religious or West through language, education, tech-
the authorities had not been able to create cultural associations, or simply neighbor- nology, the institutions and the forms of
because of a lack of means - is slowly hood groupings contribute to this process the power structure, the rural or tradi-
taking shape. But as is the case in all of the to a very great extent. They provide moral tional culture is necessarily diminished in
world's suburbs, and especially in Africa, as well as financial support. People go value. Ifruralness today means walking
Pikine, a city of the outskirts, maintains together to parties, baptisms, weddings or along sandy streets, breeding chickens or a
organic relationships with the center - or funerals, even lacking family ties fetishistic sheep that protects the line,
to be more exact, the centers - of Dakar (Dekkale bu yaag, mbok la: people consulting a healer to overcome sterility,
to satisfy many of its needs. These needs, become related from having lived sexual impotence (xala) , anxiety or in-
incidentally, will be satisfied at various together) People also quarrel, but they sanity, or to get a promotion, then the
points, depending on whether they are are not strangers to each other. "Social Pikinois are still rural people. But this
medical (hospitals of the Plateau or of relationships are found at various levels same ruralness is reflected in the fine
Fann), commercial (Sandaga, Tilene, But the links are conceptualized in the residences of the top of the Plateau and of
Greater-Dakar, HLM market), etc. The same manner, by analogy with the parental Fann, which house a certain bureaucratic
fact is that the centers of economic life or the family order. Using a vocabulary and political elite of Senegal. Here, despite
itself have splintered in the heart of the proper to the system of family relation- the barriers of money, the social splits and
capital. ships (mbokk) , the community establishes the possible alienation, the rites and the
Sarcelles, a workers' suburb north of Paris, links in descent (men, neek, gelio) , the values are often identical. People welcome
or Bethesda, a middle-class suburb of constituted family (njaboot) , the ethnic any guest around the rice bowl placed on
Washington D. c., maintain - to a lesser group (waaso) , the race (xeet) , the family the mat. One consults the marabout of
extent, obviously -the same type of relation- name (sant) , through neighborhood rela- Fass or of Guediawaye to protect the
ship with the city You need only check on tionships (dekkaie, dekkendo). Society family against evil. People's feeling for the
the crowd in the suburban stations in Paris chooses for you, or even imposes on you, teranga and the potlatch develops in pro-
at rush hour. Unlike Pikine, Bethesda has relatives (mbokk) of all kinds, on the basis portion to their financial means. At this
enough medical, educational, commercial of links that are more or less fictitious, level, when it comes to Westernness,
(shopping centers) and leisure-time facili- more or less privileged One owes the wrongfully synonymous with urbanity,
ties and quality transportation. However same respect to a blood relative as to a people say "never heard of it."
the majority of its inhabitants, like the person who has been one's neighbor for a The social network of the Pikinois is not
Pikinois, have jobs in the federal capital or long time"l' confined to their area. It still extends as far
59 Pikine, Senegal' A Reading of a Contemporary African City

Table 2 Population of Cape Verde Table 3 Population of some suburbs in 1976

Year Number Suburbs Number

1976 940,920 Men Women Total

1980 1,197,635
1981 1,257,517
Camberene 2,595 2,884 5,479
Ngor 7,709 7,719 15,428
Ouakam 6,409 6,662 13,071
family, social mobility is so great that its Yoff 1,695 1,526 3,221
members are scattered, depending on their Keur Massar ou Bankhas 937 957 1,894
standard of living, over various districts Pikine 46,838 47,453 94,291
This is rarely the case between the 16th Pikine-Guediawaye 56,209 59,613 115,822
and the 20th arrondissements of Paris. ThialOye Gare 15,145 16,211 31,356
And because the family links are funda- Thiaroye Kao 4,350 4,596 8,946
mental for survival, especially in the city, Thiaroye siMer 4,556 4,841 9,397
Yeumbel 4,756 5,156 9,912
they are maintained continuously and
respectfully They can be transformed into
client relationships, but retard all the more
chies and its order. The spotial economy of More and more, Pikine is tending to
the arrival of a class struggle.
the industrial civilization necessarily had to become a city within the city, in so far as it
The city gives birth to an urban culture that destroy or subordinate the previous gradually secrets its own social tradition,
the suburbs remodel in their own way. The economy of the rural and artisanal civiliza- its own history
debate is no longer about the intrusion of tions.
Greater autonomy for Pikine, as for the
the countryside into the city, or of the city
Thus the contemporary capitals monopo- other suburbs, will never be possible as
into the countryside The form is a more
lize the bulk of the political, economic and long as economic life remains basically
original one, since the societies are not
cultural activities The rural world is col- linked with central Dakar. An improve-
frozen, nor even in transition. A transition
lapsing, to adopt an expression used by ment of the transportation networks can
between what and what?, one might
Chinna Achebe, a Nigerian writer. This help lead all of these areas out of their
wonder There is an urban model that
collapse is the corollary of a devaluation of isolation. In fact, the whole of Cape Verde
invents itself, works itself out, and symbo-
peasant life and culture, and shows up in a must become an urban metropolis inte-
lizes the dynamics of cultures.
massive rural exodus toward the cities, the glated as a whole, with its sub-sectors
deceptive symbols of prosperity. functionally specialized and linked by net-
Dakar has not escaped this logic in struc- works of industries, of commercial activi-
Conclusion turing its space. In the face of the Euro- ties, of communications, etc
pean and modern city, districts have deve- Senegal is a Sahelian country, with
The urbanization of contemporary Africa loped to act as dumps for the low-level obviously Islamic culture and character,
is the result of the links of dependence manpower and the proletariat dominated now turned toward the industrial era. This
maintained with the West since the 15th by the capital. Theil excess population led fact entails a number of requirements that,
century. It does not control the forces to turning people out and to the successive logically, should lead to reflection on its
pushing it, whence its dependent and explusions toward peripheral areas ever urban space, its habitats and its architec-
extroverted nature. We are witnessing a farther away. Pikine was used to absorb tures with respect to a modern industrial
bleak in, and disappearance of, the old the rejected part of the indigenous over- society, in order to maintain a social
urban network and the progress of the population. fabrics and modes of life adapted to its
coastal cities to the detriment of the cities Originally a poor district, created ex nihilo, material and spiritual visions
and the populations located inland. The without infrastructure or tradition, Pikine,
control of the economic space and of the more than the other suburbs, was a city
political system is one of the things at without a soul, dependent on Dakar. For a
stake. In the interest of locating its activi- long time, it played the single role of
ties, its industries and its social categories, commuter town. However, with the
capital is always led to structure the urban improvement of the community infrastruc-
space in accordance with its own hierar- ture, life there is being slowly organized.
 Pikine, Senegal." A Reading of a Contemporary African City 60

Reference Notes Vernieres, Marc, Etapes et modaUtes de la croissance

de Dagoudane Pikine, banUeue de Dakm (ORSTOM)
Volontarisme d'Etat et spontaneisme populaire dans
1 Seck 1970, p 286
l'wbanisation du Tiers monde (Paris, Ecole pratique
des hautes etudes et CNRS, 1973)
2 Verniere 1977, P 16
A propos de la marginalite: reflexion ilIustree par
3 Sow 1980, P 159 quelques enquetes en milieu urbain et sub urbain
aflicain, Cahiers d'etudes aflicaines, n° 51,1975
4 Vernieres 1971 L'expulsion des bidonvilles dakarois: bouleversement
d'une societe urbaine de transition Le~on
5 Here, the National Census makes a distinction d'enquetes realisees a Fass Paillote et Guedj
between Pi kine (94,291 inhabitants) and Pikine- Awaye, Psycho-pathologie africaine, vol X, N° 3
Guediawaye (115,822 inhabitants), or a total of
210,113 inhabitants Dakm et son double, Dagoudane-Pikine (BN, 1977),
278p
" Thore 1962, p 166 Les oublies de l'haussmanisation dakaroise, L'espace
geographique, vol 6, n° 1, pp 5-23
7 ORSTOM 1970
Thore, Luc, Dagoudane-Pikine, etude demogra-
R Vernieres 1977, p 104 phique et sociologique, Bull IFANt XXIV, ser B
1-2, pp 155-198
9 Sow 1980, P 176
Dieng, Mbaye Isidore, Relogement des bidonvilles d fa
10 Vernieres 1977, P 104 pe,iphe,ie Ulbaine (Dakar, ENDA, 1977), doc
polyg ,41 P
11 Dieng 1977
Cahiers d'etudes aflicaines, Villes africaines au
12 BCEOM microscope, Special issue XXI (1-3),1981-83

13 ThOle 1962, p 173-179 Mercier, P ,Masse, L ,Hauser A , L'agglombation

dakalOise, quelques aspects sociologiques et
14 Verniercs 1977, P 215 demogJaphiques (Dakar, IFAN, 1954), doc n° 5, 83
P
15 Morice 1979, p 96
Morice, A , La theorie de la maJginalite: les limites
16 Sow 1976, P 17 d'un concept de bon sens, Travail, Capital, Societe,
vol 12, N° 2, Monheal, pp 87-107

Sow, Fatou, Migrations et urbanisation au Senegal,

Bull IFAN, t 42, ser B, N' 1, pp 147-197
Bibliography Femmes, socialite et valeurs africaines, Notes
aflicaines (in pless)

Bijil, Joop, Vhabitat du grand nomb,e Etude socio- ORSTOM, Results of the polling inquiry for 1120 of the
logique d'un plOgJamme d' exigences pow l'habitat de la Pikine land plots (Greater Dakar), Senegal, 1966-67
population economiquement faible de la region du (1970)
Cap-Veil au Senegal (Dakar, IFAN, 1974)
BCEOM, Development of improved plots and of
L J Lebret CuitUl al Center, Ecumenical SCI vice of reception structures in Dakar 1st PaJ t - General
Mutual Aid, StJategies Ulbaines en Afrique noire Quel studies - Annex A: report on polling socio-economic
avenil pour la ville de Dakm?, (Dakar, 1976) inquiry in the shanty-towns of Dakar and the distl icts
of Pikine- Extension
Gerry, Chris , Petty PlOducers and the V, ban
Economy A Case Study of Dakm (Geneva, Inter-
national Labour Office, 1974)

LaUlent,O , Une banlieue ouvricre: I'agglomeration

suburbaine de Grand-Yoff, Bull IFAN, t XXXII, sel
B 2, pp 518-557

Dakar et ses banlieues (communicatiDn pour Ie

colloque de Talence) in La clOissance UI baine en
Afrique noile et d Madagascm (Palis, CNRS, 1970)

Senegal Project Rul-12 (1975), L'habitat du grand

nombre (VI), Sam et Diamagueune, Yeumbeul

Seck, Assane, Dakar, meflopole ouest-aflimine

(Dakar, IFAN, 1970), Mem N° 85, 517 P 57 figs, 56
tables