Submitted by Gemma Todd — Fri, 03/28/2014 – 11:18
Transport and infrastructure remain key components when designing urban space. Urban planners are required to evaluate transport routes, modes, and costs, to ensure the city functions efficiently. Across Tanzania key means of public transportation in, and around, the city includes boda-boda’s, or piki-piki’s, (motorcycles) and daladala’s (small buses). Such means are cheap, frequent, and although carrying capacity is limited, space can be made to squeeze another passenger on. However, with rising concerns over road safety, the costs of congestion, and the need for improved supply, the future of such transportation remains debatable. As the agenda shifts to designing ‘sustainable cities’, whereby urban environments can meet contemporary needs without jeopardizing that of future generations, we need to question what it means in the developing world. The concept of environmental justice is key. Discussions on environmental justice integrate calls for sustainability and recognition of the social, spatial, and economic, inequalities individuals face in relation to the environment . Environmental justice recognises the urban environment as political. Access, externalities, and use-value, of the environment are political. Read more.
Submitted by Gemma Todd — Wed, 03/19/2014 – 13:04
When discussing cities in Africa, and ‘African urbanism’, the focus quickly turns to the state of informality. Such raises the question of how developmental is informality? Who benefits from informality and for how long? Furthermore how can a system whereby the formal-informal are intertwined work? The issue has been a burning topic in Mwanza over the past week. Mwanza is a small city located on the southern coast of Lake Victoria, inhabited by around 635,730 people (Mwanza City Council, 2014). With development continuing, land markets remain a crucial asset. Over the past few weeks the focus has been on land – measuring plots of land, providing individuals with land titles, and bringing all dwellers under the formal land system. Nationally, the Tanzanian government claimed all citizens who do not have a land title should be granted it within 21 days of having their land assessed, measured, and the boundaries drawn. The proposed deadline suggests the end of an invisible population, putting people on the formal map and recognising formal dwellers. However, the achievement requires understanding how the system of informal-formal works. At a local level informal actors are key in determining the right to formality and future of urban planning. Read more.
Submitted by Gemma Todd — Thu, 02/27/2014 – 12:24
One of the key debates that have emerged within development studies is to whom does the responsibility lie? The structuralists among us focus on the ‘state’. It is defined as the state’s duty, and responsibility, to meet people’s needs. Alternatively, perspectives emerge identifying the state as an enabler – the key actors are civil society. The focus on grass-roots action has, however, raised considerable debate. Critics have argued firstly, civil-society is not necessarily positive. The broad category of ‘civil-society’ – whether communities, NGOs, or FBOs – rely on ‘social-capital, defined as the linkages amongst members of society. However, such capital assets by which people are argued to be able to rely, and draw, upon have been shown to have negative components and remain structured within a system of power inequalities. For example not all women joining a micro-finance programme are strategically empowered as the burden of time-poverty remains and not all can have their voice heard. Secondly, the social-capital resources are not indefinite but rather constrained and limited over time through a ‘poverty of resources’ (Gonzalez de la Rocha, 2001). Thirdly, should we be relying on social-capital to meet needs? However, traditionally, within many cultures in Africa, the community has played a major role in creating self-sufficient communities. Therefore do we need to revitalise the focus on social-capital? Read more.
Submitted by Gemma Todd — Fri, 02/07/2014 – 10:42
Data has emerged showcasing the latest trends of our demographic shift – the global population now articulates a ‘youth bulge’. The UN-Population Demographic Profile (2010) show children, and ‘youths’, comprise 1.6bn, and 1.0bn, of the population in less-developed regions. The population is younger; and Sub-Saharan Africa is no exception. Attention is now turning to youths: what young people do, what opportunities they initiate for their families and nations, and what it means to be ‘young’ in the developing world. However, an important caveat requires recognition: the focus has been particularly male-focused. Our understanding of girls, within both public and private spaces, remains limited. Such is the debate in this blog post – if we are now looking at ‘kids’ in the city and development, what are the experiences of girls? What can we learn about the city through an engendered perspective? Fundamentally, who is responsible to grant equal rights? Two models of intervention are discussed be, each using alternative methods to provide rights for girls. However, each acts to reinforce the need to improve our understandings on ‘being’ a girl. Read more.
Submitted by Gemma Todd — Mon, 01/20/2014 – 10:08
Within development studies a shift has been identified. An increasing sense of consciousness has emerged on whose ideas are being used to theorise development practice, whether they are applicable, and offer effective solutions. The post-development school of thought is centred on deconstructing ‘universal’ ideas of development. Novel viewpoints have emerged which are transforming how the ‘developing’ world is understood and what role citizens of the Global South can play. With post-development thought, urban researchers, and planners, are advancing new thinking to plan inclusive cities in the Global South. In a succeeding event on urbanisation at the African Research Institute, the subject matter was how urban planning in Africa is adapting for the future. Read more.
Submitted by Editor — Thu, 12/19/2013 – 15:32
Upon exploring how just and inclusive cities can emerge a key component of analysis is social life — how people act in cities, the complex character of sociability, and the factors designing urban life. Multiple concepts have been raised to define what a city is — and has become, and further, what kind of life materialises within urban spaces. Over time cities have been conceptualised as ‘misanthropic’, expressing disorganisation, violence, and a dense concentration of people whom adopt different mentalities and motives. Such urban personas are expressed through space. Read more.
Submitted by Editor — Mon, 12/02/2013 – 14:18
With urbanisation becoming a rising topic on the research agenda it is interesting to see how new models for urban planning, and laws, are being constructed. Recently, an event by the African Research Institute raised such ideas. The speakers introduced how the contextual diversity across Africa required exploration, and consultants need to focus on adapting a checklist of rule making, rather than make the rules, in planning Africa’s emerging cities. Current African cities were presented as ‘un-planned’, or in need of a re-visioned approach to become inclusive and equitable. Urban planning was the solution — a means of enabling tax reform, effective management, and equal rights to the city. However, urban planning law needed to be re-written to work for ‘African cities’. Read more.
Submitted by Editor — Thu, 11/21/2013 – 11:58 