Edgar Pieterse

Professor Edgar Pieterse is founding director of the African Centre for Cities (ACC) at the University of Cape Town. He publishes different kinds of text, curate exhibitions, as well as difficult conversations about pressing urban problems. He is co-curator of Cityscapes and his latest publication is a co-authored book: Cities Rethought. A New Urban Disposition (Polity 2025), as well as an advocacy platform: Urban2063. Edgar co-chairs the African Mayoral Leadership Initiative (AMALI) and serves on numerous international urban research advisory boards. He is Provost of the Norman Foster Institute and is a non-executive director of the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA). Current research is focused on: i) developing a fit for purpose institutional model to mainstream city-level innovation ecosystems in African cities, linked to his role as academic lead of the UCT Innovation District initiative; and ii) co-editing an academic Handbook on Urban Futures in the Global South.