African cities are sites of intense contrast and contradiction. For urban residents, they are defined by opportunity and desperation, mobility and immobility, poverty and wealth, history and innovation, organization and disorder. For those who navigate these complexities on a daily basis the contradiction is often the rule. It doesn’t necessarily exclude or separate; it often enables in ways that defy the planning logics, development models, and academic theories of Western observers, international organizations, or bilateral donors. For those who live at the extremes, it seems like these contradictions represent “two worlds”—a physical manifestation of the extreme income inequality in which residents at different ends of the socioeconomic spectrum operate in spheres completely distinct from one another. If the poorest urban residents cannot afford to or don’t feel comfortable in elite spaces, the wealthiest can easily find themselves insulated from the realities of the streets, separated by a pane of glass, the comfort of air conditioning, and the sound of a radio or TV.