Land ownership is given little attention in scholarly accounts of how and why new city visions are mobilised and implemented in Africa. In this paper we examine the evolution of Accra City Extension Project (ACEP) — an urban strategy to modernise and respond to urbanisation pressures in the Greater Accra Region, Ghana. We trace the origins and rationale of the ACEP, the actors involved, resources, institutional capacities and their relations. Drawing on the concept of relational complexity and urban policy mobilities literature, we argue that the emergence of ACEP can be explained in two ways: as a consequence of the desire to improve the qualities of an urban area at the local level and as a product of multiple interactions and relations, which produce knowledge, specific interests, resources and constraints. The findings suggest that contemporary urban policymaking in specific places is a complex and emergent socio-political process that draws on both local and learned ideas from ‘elsewhere’. Therefore, we submit that it is more helpful to transcend the focus on what is circulating (a policy and the networks through which it is set in motion) and instead, examine how policymakers in specific contexts ‘arrive at’ their ideas through multiple influences. The project brings together diverse actors such as local and central governments, international planning consultants, UN Habitat and traditional authorities, with varying degrees of expertise, power and agendas. We find that issues around land ownership significantly structured and limited the range of visions that could be implemented.

在关于如何以及为何在非洲动员和实施新城市愿景的学术研究中，土地所有权很少受到关注。在本文中，我们研究了阿克拉城市扩展项目（ACEP）的演变，该项目是现代化的城市战略，旨在应对加纳大阿克拉地区的城市化压力。我们追踪了ACEP的起源和基本原理，相关参与者，资源，机构能力及其关系。利用关系复杂性和城市政策动向性文献的概念，我们认为ACEP的出现可以用两种方式来解释：作为在地方一级提高城市质量的愿望的结果，以及作为一种产物。多种相互作用和关系，产生知识，特定兴趣，资源和约束。研究结果表明，特定地区的当代城市决策是一个复杂且新兴的社会政治过程，它吸收了来自“其他地方”的本地和学到的思想。因此，我们认为，将重点放在正在传播的内容上（政策及其通过其运行的网络），而研究特定环境中的政策制定者如何通过多种影响来“实现”他们的想法会更有帮助。该项目将地方和中央政府，国际规划顾问，联合国人居署和传统机构等各种行动者聚集在一起，具有不同程度的专门知识，权力和议程。我们发现，围绕土地所有权的问题明显地构成了结构，并限制了可以实施的视野范围。