Formation Growth Of Unplanned Urban Settlements In Developing Countries

Originally published in 1980, this book was written by consultants in urban development with wide experience in the developing world and is a source book aimed at advisers (often from developed countries) who assist with urban planning matters on behalf of multi-lateral agencies such as the World Bank. It presents a style of consultancy which accepts that not all the problems of settlement planning in developing countries can be solved by the transfer of Western methods. Although the book concentrates on the techniques and methods which have been found to be effective in the field, it also argues for a new philosophy of consultancy, in which consultants work with local staff and using the ingenuity and spirit of enterprise among the communities themselves.

Societies were formed in order to give man an opportunity to maximize and enjoy the fruits of individual successes and fulfillment of individual self-goals, where man started to live in families, neighborhoods, and communities, which then transformed into social setups. Scientific advancements and invention of currencies made this possible for man to produce and exchange goods and other commodities in huge quantities to fulfill the human desires and accomplish goals. This gave rise to large numbers of production and commercial centers to produce and trade commodities and other products. Nationalism and globalization added new dimensions to human settlements and related issues and problems At this point in history, human dwellings became vast, and societies grew into huge urban areas, losing their meaning of being societies and their very essential and basic components got mixed up in disorderly manners, thus causing tremendous amount of energies wasted, as well as the fabric of human-to-human and human-to-nature relations torn apart, causing human beings denied happiness and various types of psychological and mental pains and stresses Socio-Cultural Harmonic Human Settlements and Urban Planning can solve this issue, because this type of urban planning is based on social and cultural aspects and elements of human living. As urban domain is the action ground of societies, therefore, urban areas must be created based on the basic principles on which societies have evolved. All a man does in a society is the social activity; each and every social activity has a specific type or related required social energy level; hence, all social activities must be classified based on the above mentioned principle. These classified social activities must be assigned to specific social activity hubs. These hubs must be placed spatially in a harmonic fashion. This is the only way human settlements may have the much lost happiness returned back and also optimal social energy consumption without any negative social impacts.

To find out why African countries' experience with urbanization and sustained growth appeared to differ from that of other countries, the authors investigated the determinants of urbanization across countries over 40 years. Rather than studying individuals' decisions to migrate, they relied on macroeconomic data and cross-country comparisons. A central hypothesis of their study: that individuals move (with varying degrees of ease) in response to economic incentives and opportunities. If location incentives are distorted, so is growth. The authors find that urbanization levels are closely correlated with levels of income. But urbanization continues even during periods of negative growth, carried by its own momentum, largely a function of the level of urbanization. From that viewpoint, Africa's urbanization without growth is not a puzzle. Factors other than income that help predict differences in levels of urbanization across countries include: a) income structure; b) education; c) rural-urban wage differentials; d) ethnic tensions; and e) civil disturbances. In addition, the relationship between economic incentives and urbanization is weaker in countries with fewer civil or political liberties. Factors other than initial urbanization level that help explain the speed of urbanization include: 1) The sector from which income growth is derived; 2) ethnic tensions; 3) civil disturbances and democracy (these two slow the pace of urbanization if all else is constant); 4) rural-urban wage differentials, whether they represent an urban bias or simply lower productivity in agriculture relative to other sectors. The weak relationship that this study shows between urbanization and traditionally accepted migration factors suggests that in Africa economists are overlooking part of the urbanization story. The fact that the informal sector appears to provide a significant source of income for urban migrants, coupled with the overlap between rural and urban activities, may shed light on the nature of urbanization in Africa.

"The goal of the Citywide Action Plan is to upgrade 50 per cent of the existing unplanned and unserviced areas by 2020 while simultaneously preventing the formation of new unplanned settlements in Dar es Salaam. The thematic action plans on land, basic services, housing and capacity building are divided into short-term (2010), medium-term (2011-2015) and long-term (2015-2020) periods and include cost estimates for all actions. The Action Plan is the result of a consultative process involving all city stakeholders and partners, driven since 2005 by the Government of Tanzania and the Dar es Salaam Local Authorities, with technical assistance from UN-HABITAT and funding from Cities Alliance. It is intended that the implementation of this Action Plan, in close collaboration with other ongoing programmes, will be managed by a citywide slum upgrading and prevention programme unit, to be established at the Dar es Salaam local authority level. The Action Plan is expected to contribute to achieving the goals of MKUKUTA (National Strategy for Growth and Poverty Reduction, National Vision 2025, National Housing Policy, and the MDG targets related to water, sanitation, and slums."--Page 4 of cover.

"This book describes how more than 50 million people in the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) region have come to live in informal settlements and examines the main characteristics of the phenomenon."--Publisher's description.

As the global population continues to boom, particularly in the developing countries, it has become necessary to find ways to handle this increase through various policy tools that address population growth and urbanization problems. The urbanization process has both potentials issues as well as opportunities to move societies forward that need to be exploited. Population Growth and Rapid Urbanization in the Developing World examines trends, challenges, issues and strategies adopted by developing countries in the face of population growth and rapid urbanization and its impact on urban environments. The book explores patterns of population growth and urbanization, use of different governance approaches in addressing challenges, as well as different tools and systems of appropriate allocation to address issues. The book is a comprehensive reference for academicians, students, practitioners, professionals, managers, urban planners and government officials.