Presentation: Urban planning law reform in Africa

Transcription

1 Cities Alliance Project Output Presentation: Urban planning law reform in Africa Urban Planning Education and Applied Research in Sub-Saharan Africa P This project output was created with Cities Alliance grant funding.

2 Changing planning law in Africa: the context Vanessa Watson, ACC Day one Introduction

3 Aim of input To emphasize the urgency of planning law reform in Africa. To outline the main aspects of the contemporary urban context to which planning and its laws need to respond: patterns of urbanization, climate change and environment, inequality and informality, and profit-driven development. Open the debate on why planning law finds it so difficult to change.

4 The urgency of planning law reform The large and growing gap between the nature and intentions of planning law in many African countries (largely a product of their colonial past) and the 21 st century realities of African cities. Hence the proposition that in many countries these laws are at best weak and ineffective, and at worst are contributing to poverty, inequality, socio-spatial exclusion and environmental risk.

5 What are these realities? Urbanization but what are the facts? An excuse to retain rigid planning controls? Unjustified arguments about the need to control urban growth. Africa Urban: 391m in 2010; 750m in 2030 & 1.2bn by 2050

6 Current processes and patterns of urbanization: far more complex Deborah Potts (2012): urbanization rates generally over-estimated. Projections based on 1960s and 1970s censuses, a period of very high urbanization. Zambia fell from 40% in the 1980 census to 36% in the 2000 census. Rather: Slowed rural-urban migration due to urban economic crisis; Much urban growth from natural increase; Household splitting pressure on land and housing; Ongoing circulatory migration between urban and rural highly mobile urban populations. Continental and global migrations. Hence patterns are highly uneven and complex. Urban growth is an issue for planning but it cannot be stopped by planning laws or other measures.

7 Continuing poverty and inequality Poverty declining slowly but 300 million will continue to live on less than $1.25/day (African Futures 2050). 60% of all urban jobs and 90% of new urban jobs are in informal sector (Skinner 2008). 75% of urban basic needs provided by informal sector (Simone 2004). 75% of urban population in informal settlements; 80% have no formal land title (Cain 2007). Hence informality is the norm (not the exception) and not likely to disappear.

8 Informality and planning laws Traditional planning and informality are in opposition. Planning aims at formalizing, regularizing, ordering. Planning s attack on informality destroys jobs and livelihoods.

9 Profit-driven land development Urbanization puts upward pressure on the availability and value of urban land. Lower income residents, especially tenants, are evicted and displaced or bought out by gentrification. Global and local property finance capital (sometimes aligned) is now shaping informal settlements and slums as much as it is shaping the formal parts of the city. Slum real estate is the new term for these processes. How does traditional planning respond to this?

10 Ethnic, religious, xenophobic, land-related conflicts Increasing competition for scarce urban land and resources fuels societal conflict. World Development Report claims that while civil and interstate wars have declined globally, new forms of everyday violence are seriously hindering development. The Report sees an important role for urban planning in addressing these issues but this also requires new planning approaches and new planning laws.

11 But also the growing strength of social movements such as Slum Dwellers International, StreetNet, Right to the City initiatives, pro-democracy groups etc appropriating the roles of community survey, mapping and planning.

12 New socio-spatial urban processes New urbanization patterns and economic forces come together to create urban spatial patterns and processes very different from the past. Global North cities

13 Extensive peri-urban settlement

14 Socio spatial processes contd. Growing spatial fragmentation and divides between elite residential and commercial areas (falling within the planning framework) and extensive slum settlements in inner city and spreading urban peripheries. For example, the shanty-town corridor from Abidjan to Ibadan, containing 70 million people and making up the urban agglomeration of Lagos (Davis 2004). Hence most urban development in much of Africa is now occurring outside of the formal planning system.

15 The new imperative of climate change and resource depletion General agreement about the important role of cities in climate change, and the potential role of planning: cities as contributors to green house gases, but also as areas most centrally affected by it. African cities particularly vulnerable coastal cities, extent of slum housing, building in risk areas, weak governments and relief services. Planning has a key adaptation role to play: land-use planning and management, building codes and disaster resistant construction, protecting critical infrastructure and services AND key mitigation roles: transport modes, energy consumption, water use etc. Resources food security, fuel depletion etc

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17 New demands on planning but the political difficulty of change Patterns and processes in urban areas are now fundamentally different to what they were even 20 years ago. Yet in most countries planning law remains stuck in its colonial past. Change is largely blocked by political and vested interests (not technical) reasons. Perhaps change from below is the only possibility? Failure to change will greatly increase inequalities and socio-spatial exclusion, will significantly hamper the development effort and will place millions at risk from natural disaster.