Accra politicos vow demolition & eviction

The political class of Accra, Ghana, have vowed to evict 80,000 people from the squatter community called Sodom and Gomorrah. "Whether or not the people have their homes there does not matter, the final decision is that it has to go.” the municipality's Public Relations Officer, Numo Blafo, told My Joy Online.

It seems as if the municipality doesn't understand why people come to the city. As stalwart anti-demolition advocate Farouk Braimah, from Peoples Dialogue on Human Settlement, explained, "it is income that brings people to the city and not shelter."

In other words, demolishing a community doesn't stop people from coming to Accra and certainly doesn't make the housing crisis go away. It just pushes poor and working people further out of town. That's urban removal not urban renewal.