Professor Ato Quayson, the cultural historian and professor of English at Stanford University in the United States, is warning that businesses risk having to abandon Osu Oxford Street if the challenges of congestion and navigation of the area are not addressed urgently.
The premier business centre, located close to the coast in the Accra metropolis, derived the name by which it is now best known from the famous shopping street in London, England, because of its own bustling commerce and busy nightlife, similar to those of the original Oxford Street.
Talking to Kwaku Nhyira-Addo on the Asaase Breakfast Show on Tuesday (15 March 2022), Quayson – the author of Oxford Street, Accra – called for an immediate solution to the poor planning and difficulties of navigation in the enclave.
“If the issue of parking and navigation [along Oxford Street] is not addressed, then it will force businesses to move elsewhere.
“Oxford Street is just a façade of businesses at its front, which most people see … but the actual owners live within.
“The problem with Oxford Street is that there is no parking, and on a busy day it’s very difficult to navigate.
“On the west side of Oxford Street is the old money and on the east side are the businesses that have leased land there,” Quayson said.
Watch the full interview below:
About Oxford Street
Oxford Street, Accra analyses the dynamics of Ghana’s capital city through a focus on the main road cutting through Accra’s most vibrant and globalised commercial district. Professor Quayson races the city’s evolution from its settlement in the mid-17th century to the present day.
He combines his impressions of the sights, sounds, interactions and distribution of space with broader dynamics, including the histories of colonial and post-colonial town planning and the marks of transnationalism which are evident in Accra’s salsa scene, gym culture and commercial billboards.
Quayson finds that the various planning systems which have shaped the city – and had their stratifying effects intensified by the IMF-mandated structural adjustment programmes of the late 1980s – prepared the way for the early-1990s transformation of a largely residential neighbourhood into a shopping district that does business 24 hours a day.
With an intense commercialism overlaying its stark economic inequalities, or coexisting with them, Oxford Street is a microcosm of the historical and urban processes that have made Accra the variegated and contradictory mega-city it is today.
Fred Dzakpata
Ato Quayson’s “Oxford Street, Accra: City Life and the Itineraries of Transnationalism” is out in a new paperback edition by Ayebia Clarke Publishing Ltd. The Accra launch will take place at the Advanced Information Technology Institute/Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence, Haile Selassie Street, Accra on Friday 18 March (6pm)
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