Urban Land Markets Housing Development And Spatial Planning In Sub Saharan Africa

Urban development in sub-Saharan Africa has posed more challenges in recent decades, shifting the focus from rural poverty to urbanised poverty. Because of a rapidly urbanising sub-Saharan Africa coupled with failures in urban management, urban economies have grown slower than correspondent population increase, slum growth has increased and poverty has urbanised. Of all urban challenges, housing has posed serious challenges in sub-Saharan Africa, yet the prime basis of urban housing is land. Land management is key to urban development due to its influences on the social, economic development and urban environmental management. Land and housing are important sectors as urbanisation and urban development accelerate. This book examines the relationship between operations of informal land markets and housing development for planning policies that are responsive to the land market conditions.

Breaking with tradition, this volume identifies the causes of underdevelopment in sub–Saharan Africa by linking historical experience of colonial development policies with their current development problems. This book analyzes the impact of urban and regional planning schemes with (European) colonial roots, for contemporary socio-economic development efforts in sub-Saharan Africa.

Sub-Saharan Africa faces many development challenges, such as its size and diversity, rapid urban population growth, history of colonial exploitation, fragile states and conflicts over land and natural resources. This collection, contributed from different academic disciplines and professions, seeks to support the UN Habitat New Urban Agenda passed at Habitat III in Quito, Ecuador, in 2016. It will attract readers from urban specialisms in law, geography and other social sciences, and from professionals and policy-makers concerned with land use planning, surveying and governance. Among the topics addressed by the book are challenges to governance institutions: how international development is delivered, building land management capacity, funding for urban infrastructure, land-based finance, ineffective planning regulation, and the role of alternatives to courts in resolving boundary and other land disputes. Issues of rights and land titling are explored from perspectives of human rights law (the right to development, and women's rights of access to land), and land tenure regularization. Particular challenges of housing, planning and informality are addressed through contributions on international real estate investment, community participation in urban settlement upgrading, housing delivery as a partly failing project to remedy apartheid's legacy, and complex interactions between political power, money and land. Infrastructure challenges are approached in studies of food security and food systems, urban resilience against natural and man-made disasters, and informal public transport.

As urbanization progresses at a remarkable pace, policy makers and analysts come to understand and agree on key features that will make this process more efficient and inclusive, leading to gains in the welfare of citizens. Drawing on insights from economic geography and two centuries of experience in developed countries, the World Bank’s World Development Report 2009: Reshaping Economic Geography emphasizes key aspects that are fundamental to ensuring an efficient rural-urban transformation. Critical among these are land, as the most important resource, and well-functioning land markets. Regardless of the stage of urbanization, flexible and forward-looking institu- ons that help the efficient functioning of land markets are the bedrock of succe- ful urbanization strategies. In particular, institutional arrangements for allocating land rights and for managing and regulating land use have significant implica- ons for how cities deliver agglomeration economies and improve the welfare of their residents. Property rights, well-functioning land markets, and the management and servicing of land required to accommodate urban expansion and provide trunk infrastructure are all topics that arise as regions progress from incipient urbani- tion to medium and high density.

This book explores incentives capable of enhancing the effectiveness of urban planning systems in Sub-Saharan Africa using economic theory as a framework. It argues that urban planning is fundamental to the achievement of sustainable and resilient cities, but against the backdrop of rising levels of urbanisation and growth, poverty, informal development, and climate change, such systems are failing to be promoted and successfully maintained in the region. Across ten chapters, it analyses the connection between urban planning and socio-economic development, indicators of effective urban planning systems, and the role and influence of incentives with real-world evidence. It develops quantitative models to estimate the costs and benefits of urban planning systems, focussing on the developing world where organised data is less accessible. Using Ghana as a case study, it demonstrates a step-by-step approach on how to implement the quantitative models discussed. Economic Incentives in Sub-Saharan African Urban Planning will be useful reading for researchers, policy-makers, development agencies, and students in urban planning, sustainable development, and economics.

This paper addresses the problems of governance in municipalities in Africa. The concern has been to adapt traditional systems of governance to the needs of modern urban management. This paper investigates the need for a new analysis of the twin problems of urban land and urban management in sub-Saharan Africa. This need is based on the apparent paradox between the dynamic, city-creating activities of civil societies in all of these countries, and the weak capabilities of states to guide and direct these activities. This paper focuses on governance at the community level, where empowerment and accountability begin. It argues that a prerequisite for dealing with these problems is an institutional environment with which the target populace is familiar and to which it is likely to relate in participating in managing the city. The importance of the particularly dynamic systems of traditional governance at the lowest level in managing urban growth is only recently being recognized.