Abstract
This article responds to the significant amount of urban growth in sub-Saharan Africa that is occurring in historically rural areas. As towns become reclassified as ‘urban’, many will be declared local government units and statutory planning areas. Yet, knowledge of urbanisation, and the current and potential role of urban planning, has been overwhelmingly biased towards existing urban centres, especially the largest. This article seeks to decentre urban planning debates from larger agglomerations by contributing to the re-invigorating scholarship on small town growth in sub-Saharan Africa. Key questions include: how do rural villages become towns, how does rural governance transform, and what are the implications for establishing urban planning systems? These questions are approached through a comparative analysis of towns in Tanzania, Malawi and Ghana. The article concludes with a set of questions aimed at guiding further case studies in this increasingly important, though largely overlooked, terrain of planning research, theory and practice.