Sub-Saharan Africa is changing rapidly. A growing population, substantial economic growth in some parts, stagnation in others and a growing mobility are sustaining these changes. The differences between the urban and the rural are becoming increasingly blurred. One reason for a growing hybridity of “urban” and “rural” living is a highly mobile population that combines opportunities of many localities and evades risks through diversification. However, the diversity and multiplicity in urban and rural developments in and within the different countries of sub-Saharan Africa is to such an extent, that each case requires an individual analysis when it comes to policy formulation. In order to satisfy the diversity and change processes we will consider examples from three very different countries, wherever possible. Benin, a small, early urbanised coastal country in West Africa, Ethiopia, a late urbanised very large land-locked country in the Horn of Africa, and Zambia, a natural-resource based country with a very specific urban landscape, landlocked in Southern Africa have been chosen to resemble as many different and diverse developments in migration patterns, urban developments and rural-urban interactions.