The Reasons For The Rapid Urban Renewal In Cameroon

Over the years, Cameroon has experienced a lot of infrastructural changes as a result of urban renewal processes which has been going on with the aim of improving urban cities due to rapid urbanization as a result of increase in population, natural disasters such as flood and landslide and also political reasons. This paper focuses on reasons for the rapid urban renewal process which have and are still taking place over the years in Cameroon particularly in six (6) major towns; Limbe, Buea, Bamenda, Douala, Yaoundé and Kumba, a contextual review of the areas under observation and consequences of the entire Urban Renewal process. Shortcomings to the success of these renewal process as well as possible recommendations which could be used in

This rapid urbanization has been characterized with increase in crime wave/insecurity problems, road congestion, inadequate housing, witchcraft, sorcery (Simone A, 2001), chaos and total confusion, health and other sanitation facilities. To better improve the conditions of these over populated cities, implementation of urban renewal process is been set in place. Urban renewal implies change, development, the reconstruction of social housing areas, the improvement of rundown neighborhoods or upgrading of slums it is the improvement of neighborhood like demolishing old buildings, constructing new ones leading to improvement in basic facilities such as social infrastructure in basic urban communities and also to reduce the system of segregation being practiced today even after the period of

Due to its increase in population size the availability of space and housing becomes a problem. Inhabitants of Limbe have no respect for master plans so they put up anything in the form of a building be it a store to sell, or shed for callbox center (informal settlements) or a place to leave in due to failure of consistent checks by authorities in charge, that is; Urban Development planning and housing and Land tenure offices. Three main reasons amount to renewal process in Limbe which are;

Political

The first major changes happening in Limbe have a political reason attached to it. Most of the changes focused on road maintenance, building of shops among others which led to positive and negative effects. The first was the renovation of roads linking small neighborhoods like cassava farms and lump sum. The 50th Anniversary in Cameroon in 2014 saw lot of changes in the South West Limbe and Buea especially.

The town improved drastically over a short period of time. For houses which were old and found along the road, the landlords and proprietors were given a deadline to re-paint all the houses and for stores or shops along the roads which were old, the owners were asked to paint the buildings in white. Call centers as well as small business places along the