Maputo, the divided city: fragmentation and (re)qualification

Abstract

Maputo - the Mozambican capital - has expanded itself vertiginously in the midst of the late independence process (1975). Its population has been multiplied about twelve times during the decades from 1950 to 2020, reaching more than 1.1 million inhabitants. The political, commercial, and financial center of the country, the urban fabric of the capital is the stage for complex processes of economic growth and spatial segregation triggered in recent decades. The central region, known locally as the "cement city", concentrates on modern and widely diversified infrastructures. Squares and parks, luxury condos surrounded by modern offices, international standard hotels, shopping, and a set of pharaonic constructions - built at a cost of billions - set the landscape tone of progress induced and concentrated in favor of a small elite. However, beyond this "stronghold", around 92% of the population lives in the peripheral part of Maputo, popularly known as the "reed city". These, however, are located in very precarious housing, produced informally by the residents themselves, and subjected to the complete absence of infrastructure and public services. These issues contribute directly to the fact that Mozambique has the ninth-worst Human Development Index (HDI) on the planet. In this way, the present article - elaborated from fieldwork, interdisciplinary discussions and dialogues undertaken within the scope of an international scientific project between universities in Brazil and Mozambique - seeks to present and interpret the set of urban connections that make Maputo a fragmented and complex city, full of continuous socio-territorial transformations in which multiple clashes emerge linked to segregation, gentrification, real estate speculation, among others.