Coping with Informality and illegality in human settlements in developing cities

Paul Jenkins

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Urban and Rural Development Challenges Land Rights and Reforms African studies and sociopolitical issues

Abstract

Land has been nationalised in Mozambique since Independence in 1975, despite the new 1990 Constitution which specified a market economy. Recent national land reform in 1997 maintained state custodianship of land, with usufruct titles, however land is becoming increasingly commodified – especially in the capital city, Maputo. This paper draws on research undertaken by the author in 1998/99 which identified the emerging urban land markets, and more recent research in late 2000, which has investigated the nature of “informal” land access and the impact of the emerging residential land markets on the urban poor 1 . The weak nature of the state and the market in Mozambique and resulting unregulated speculative market activity in urban land is tending to lead to exclusive benefit of the political, administrative and economic elites and undermine any benefit of public land ownership for the urban poor majority. In this situation informal land management has more legitimacy than the formal system, as is reflected in central government’s promotion of urban land reform in Mozambique, where the stated objective is to “turn the legitimate into legal”. This approach assumes simplistic concepts of legality, which are based on the binary and negative concepts of “informal” as opposed to “formal”, and not on cultural attitudes to land. In addition, given the weakness of the state and the limited interests of the formal market, this approach runs the risk of further exacerbating the situation of the poor unless it draws on the resources of civil society. This paper reviews the conceptual and practical bases for alternative urban land management in Mozambique, with broader relevance for urban land access for the poor in the developing world.

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References

1985DISCOVERING THE VERNACULAR LANDSCAPE 2000Deficits of formal urban land management and informal responses under rapid urban growth, an international perspective 1991The Process of Urbanization in Africa (From the Origins to the Beginning of Independence)1995Managing Fast Growing Cities: New Approaches to Urban Planning and Management in the Developing World 2000Reconciling informal and formal land management:2000Urban management, urban poverty and urban governance: planning and land management in Maputo 2000Understanding land markets in African urban areas:2000Regularizing housing land development during the transition to market-led supply in Tanzania

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2009Unpackaging residential segregation: the importance of scale and informal market processes 2000The Rehabilitation of Consolidated Irregular Settlements in Latin American Cities: Towards a Third Generation of Public Policy Housing Analysis and Development 2024Entangled Rationalities: Planning Responses to Informal Housing Practices Within Middle-Income Neighbourhoods in Nairobi City, Kenya

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