When the European colonial powers departed their territories in Asia, Africa and Latin America, they left behind transformed cities. And the echo of colonialism continues in those cities today.
As Europe shifted from feudalism to capitalism and from a farming-based economy to an industrial one (and with it the shift of power from the aristocracy to an emerging middle class), the cities in the colonised nations were put in service of the trade, shipping and other mercantile needs of the colonisers. The term “postcolonial cities” is seen by some social scientists as problematic, however, broadly the term refers to cities with a colonial past.
It changed existing cities and dictated the form of newer ones. Mining towns, port cities, and railway towns that developed to service trade, and cantonment towns for the armed forces.
