This Place Called Home: What Happens When Cities Price Out Their Own

The story struck a nerve. Young Africans felt seen and recognized in a struggle they thought was uniquely theirs. However, our readers and followers revealed something bigger: this wasn't just a West African trend or even an African one. The crisis was everywhere.

The responses poured in, painting a picture of a global housing emergency.

"It's no different from anywhere in the world. It's happening in the US, UK, Germany — everywhere. The old neighborhoods that people grew up in are being redesigned by property developers for large profits, removing the locals who can no longer afford to live where they grew up."

"As a 2nd generation San Franciscan being priced out of my city of birth, I don't wish this on anyone. This drains the real culture from a city as its people move away. SF has been boring for some time now because no San Franciscans live here anymore."

Perhaps most revealing was this comment about Senegal, "I visited many apartments in Dakar and always asked one question when given the price: who on earth are the clients who can pay for this? The realtors always told me it's rich locals for the most part, and very few people from the diaspora. All the apartments I visited in Dakar were more expensive than my apartment in Paris. How is that even possible?"

From these conversations, we can tell that the culprit is not returning diaspora communities (although they play a part) as often assumed, but rather systemic failures. It's weak governance, unchecked capitalism, and corruption.

What began as a story about young West Africans struggling to afford rent revealed itself to be something more complex: a web of urbanization, property speculation, and inequality affecting cities across the continent.

A series born out of necessity

The stories our community shared highlight painful paradoxes. African cities are becoming unaffordable for Africans, cultural capitals are losing their culture and the people who created it, and young people are forced to choose between proximity to opportunity and financial survival.

Recognizing the importance and urgency of these issues, we have decided to dig deeper with a series of stories. One that explores one of humanity's most basic needs, shelter, and why the fight for affordable housing has become one of the most pressing challenges of our time.

Over the coming weeks, we'll look at:

• The fight for equality through housing occupations in Cape Town
• How war and displacement have made Port Sudan increasingly expensive to live in
• How urbanization and a housing crisis are destroying tradition and communal bonds in Ethiopia
• The human cost of Lagos's luxury waterfront development
• How shared living is solving Lagos's housing crisis
• How soaring property prices have created a marriage bottleneck in Egypt
• How diaspora Africans are building dream homes and communities on the continent at a huge cost to locals, and
• A growing trend of reverse urbanization in South Africa

Why this matters now

Housing is more than just buildings. It's about dignity, community, cultural continuity, and the right to remain rooted in the places that shaped us. Losing this means we lose the essence of our cities.

This series documents an ongoing crisis to help us understand the forces transforming African cities and communities and to ask the hard questions about what kind of future we're building.