Deficits of formal urban land management and informal responses under rapid urban growth, an international perspective

The objectives of public urban land management, namely the provision of affordable buildable urban land in sufficient quantities and guidance of the growth of cities and ensuring their efficient functioning are, on the whole, not being achieved in Sub-Saharan Africa. The main reasons for this are outdated and restrictive land-use control and regulatory standards and unreformed tenure arrangements. The informal sector, unacknowledged and illegal, at best tolerated, has been making up for the inefficiencies of public land management. The informal sector has proven adaptive and responsive and has been providing the bulk of the urban population with buildable urban land. Public housing programs, sites and services and upgrading have all been attempted as ways of meeting the housing needs of the population with limited success. Yet over time, informal settlements do improve in quality, providing satisfactory living conditions for a large proportion of the urban population. A number of examples of this are examined in the paper. There are lessons to be learned from these cases which have implication for urban development policy. This paper examines these implications. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.