Invisible Crisis in Ghana’s Cities: The Role of Urban Planning in Strengthening Family Bonding
Ghana is rapidly urbanising, transforming not only skylines but also the social fabric that binds communities together. As cities expand, the stability of urban households become increasingly important in supporting safe, inclusive, and productive communities. Of late, a growing concern among urban family practitioners is the decline of parental involvement especially among fathers which threatens the social cohesion of cities if left unaddressed. In many Ghanaian communities, parental responsibilities fall disproportionately on women, not solely due to cultural norms, but because urban spaces are rarely designed with parenting and family support in mind. This is not just a private household matter; it represents a spatial and governance shortfall. Urban planning systems that overlook care infrastructure and separate work, home, and community life create conditions that normalise paternal disengagement.
Paternal absence or negligence can be viewed as a human rights concern primarily because it often fails to uphold children’s fundamental rights to care, protection, and development, as enshrined in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. This is not an issue to be taken lightly within a transitioning moment like this. The rising number of children living or working on the streets especially in Accra, Kumasi, and Takoradi signals a breakdown in paternal responsibility. Many of these children in such environments come to see fatherly absence as normal, perpetuating a cycle of neglect across generations.
Former U.S. President George W. Bush highlighted the broader societal impact stating that “Over the past four decades, fatherlessness has emerged as one of our greatest social problems. We know that children who grow up with absent fathers can suffer lasting damage. They are more likely to end up in poverty or drop out of school, become addicted to drugs, have a child out of wedlock, or end up in prison. This issue as petty as it looks seem to be a societal canker that needs prompt actions to curb the widespread of this fire”. The Ghana Statistical Service (2018) reported that there are about 90,000 children living on the street with their mothers through begging on the roadside. The common question arises:“Where are their fathers?
How did this canker creep quietly into our society and systems without a warning? Who is to be blamed and held responsible for this canker? We can point to certain factors such as migration and urbanization, economic instability and poverty, cultural and patriarchal norms, teenage or unprepared fatherhood, negative peer and community influence, parental conflict, and others but an often overlooked dimension is the role of urban planning in alleviating these issues.
Urban planning has a direct stake in family stability. Social reproduction theory draws attention to the systems of care and family life that sustain societies across generations. These include child-rearing, emotional bonding, daily supervision, moral guidance, and the unpaid domestic labour that allows households and by extension cities and economies to function. While urban planning traditionally focuses on physical infrastructure and economic productivity, social reproduction theory argues that cities must also be designed to support family cohesion and caregiving, without which social stability erodes. Ghana’s planning system largely ignores these dimensions, treating households as passive occupants of space rather than active sites of social reproduction.
With its root engraved in structure plans and local plans, it focuses heavily on road hierarchies and transport corridors, residential zoning standards, drainage, utilities, and setbacks but economic issues are assumed rather than deliberately planned for. Planners often presume that once land is zoned and infrastructure is provided, economic activity will naturally follow but these very plans rarely include mechanisms for sustaining or expanding household incomes, particularly for low-skilled urban residents. As a result, economic survival is not treated as a planning variable, even though it is central to household stability.
In Ghana’s real estate market these days also, focus on creating a serene environment and aesthetics without considering job clusters nearby, affordable commercial spaces, skills or market access for residentscontributing to time poverty. This leaves people travelling far and wide to make ends meet which in the long run promote father absenteeism, abandonment or negligence. When urban planning does not support stable livelihoods, economic stress becomes a key driver of parental withdrawal and irresponsibility.
Another framework, the “Home, Work, Play” principle inspired by thinkers like Jan Gehl, calls for balancing domestic care (home), economic sustenance (work), recreation and social interaction (play). Ghanaian urban planning has prioritised how the city looks like over how people survive within it neglecting local employment and critically recreational spaces. Play is often seen as a luxury rather than essential for family bonding, child development, and parental involvement. Without accessible parks, playgrounds, or safe communal areas, fathers miss spontaneous opportunities for engagement, supervision, and emotional connection with children. This amplifies disengagement and weakens family ties, creating an invisible urban crisis that undermines social reproduction.
Is there hope for the future for the family systems in Ghana’s urbanisation? Definitely all hope is not lost. There is the need to regularly revise our mixed-use zoning from time to time. This revision of the urban zoning policies will engage developments that combine residential, commercial, and light industrial spaces, shortening commutes and allowing fathers more time for home responsibilities. This can begin with an update of Ghana’s National Urban Policy to include livelihood impact assessments in structure plans, ensuring job opportunities are planned alongside development piloted in peri-urban areas like Madina. Also, there is a need to launch national and local policies for child rights-focused urban infrastructure. This will be achieved by developing infrastructure policies that embed child rights (e.g., care and protection per UNCRC) into urban designs, such as walkable paths to schools and clinics, reducing risks of street involvement. This includes creating “child-safe zones” with traffic calming and lighting to enable safe family outings. Evidence from global cities shows such designs improve health outcomes and parental involvement in low-income settings.
We can start by building on the 2024-2028 Strategic Plan for Street-Connected Children by the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, which emphasizes rehabilitation through better urban environments expansion to include father-inclusive community hubs. There is also the need to provide communities with children’s outdoor play spaces in Urban neighborhoods. This prioritizes the integration of safe, accessible playgrounds and green spaces in high-density areas to facilitate spontaneous father-child interactions, reducing absenteeism by making bonding convenient. Mandating new developments to include at least 10% play areas, with features like benches and shaded zones to encourage paternal supervision. This aligns with recommendations for policy changes in Ghana’s built environments to boost child play and family cohesion.
Ghana’s urban crisis cannot be adequately understood through the conventional lenses of congestion, flooding, or housing deficits alone. Rather, it also encompasses a less visible but equally consequential challenge: the systematic weakening of family structures and caregiving relations. The persistent failure to integrate livelihoods, spatial proximity, and care responsibilities into urban planning decisions has contributed to conditions that enable parental absenteeism, neglect, and diminished family bonding. These outcomes should not be interpreted as isolated behavioral failures, but as structural by-products of an urban development model that marginalizes social reproduction and undervalues care. Addressing this invisible crisis requires a fundamental reconceptualization of urban planning in Ghana as a tool not only for organizing physical space but also for sustaining social life. Planning institutions must recognize households as dynamic sites of economic production, caregiving, and intergenerational support. Integrating considerations of family cohesion, responsible parenthood, and caregiving into spatial policy frameworks is therefore essential to achieving socially sustainable urban development. Without such a shift, urban growth risks reproducing spatial efficiency at the expense of social stability, ultimately undermining the long-term resilience and wellbeing of Ghanaian cities.
