The city: Gaborone

African cities can be discouraging. Many are surrounded by skirts of shantytowns or informal suburbs, as they are charitably described.

A visitor to Cape Town in South Africa, for example, must drive through miles of lean-to dwellings before reaching Table Mountain's lower slopes. Farther north, things get worse. Some African cities can be downright intimidating, with their impossible traffic, frightening crime, and unplanned sprawl. Some African cities carry a health warning: "Do not visit unless you really have to".