Ricky Burdett and Philipp Rode speak today at the second Urban Africa: beyond development as usual hosted by LSE Cities Urban Age partner Alfred Herrhausen Gesellschaft.

The event aims to unpack the urban dimension of German policies on Africa and to reflect more broadly on development practice. Based on the experiences of a first workshop in March 2018 and the Urban Age conference in Addis Ababa in November 2018, the roundtable seeks to deepen the understanding of urban dynamics in sub-Sahara Africa and to reflect on existing frameworks of engagement.

The event will bring together leading international researchers and advisors from the fields of urban and economic development, foreign policy, and development cooperation, as well as regional and urban experts from sub-Sahara Africa.

Can you identify 10 world cities from their density maps alone? Test your urban knowledge with the new Guardian Cities Quiz using LSE Cities data visualisations. Developed as part of the Urban Age research programme density diagrams show the number of people living in each square kilometre of a 100km by 100km urban region.

Residential density measures how closely people live together. More compact cities have higher densities, while cities that sprawl and have wide open spaces between buildings have lower densities. The pattern of streets, squares and urban blocks – as well as how many people live in residential units – determines the density of a city alongside the height of individual buildings.