Volker Kreibich

Reconciling informal and formal land management:: an agenda for improving tenure security and urban governance in poor countries

Abstract This paper is concerned with the agenda for reconciling informal and formal institutions and procedures of urban land management in developing countries. It argues that progress can be made in overcoming the deficits of the formal system by gradual integration of the informal sector into decision-making concerned with housing land supply, security of tenure rights, lay-out regulation and land servicing. Studies of informal housing land development in Tanzania offer ample evidence about the close linkages between the two sectors. Success in this area would require the recognition of existing informal institutions, the decentralisation of land management responsibilities and the extension of current urban planning legislation to cover such situations. The paper concludes that if the potential of the informal sector is tapped in land regularisation, then the legal framework for property and land management must provide a clear separation of ownership rights and land-use prescriptions. The public sector should retain the right to define the principles and concepts for the distribution and assignment of land use, while the individual entitlement to private property ownership should be guaranteed and protected.

Dar es Salaam, Megacity of Tomorrow: Informal Urban Expansion and the Provision of Technical Infrastructure

In the emerging megacity of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, rapid urban growth is progressing informally without statutory planning. Suppliers of technical infrastructure are operating without reliable information about the distribution of future demand, while settlements are starting to grow without basic services.

Informal Urbanization—Historical and Geographical Perspectives

(2011). Informal Urbanization—Historical and Geographical Perspectives. disP - The Planning Review: Vol. 47, No. 187, pp. 12-23.

Self-help planning of migrants in Rome and Madrid

Abstract Implementing plans for urban expansion is a privilege reserved to the Northern World. In developing countries, but also in most post-socialist societies, urban growth is taking place with very limited public guidance and intervention. In Southern Europe, the rapid depopulation of rural areas during the post-war economic transformation has triggered off migration streams to the urban centers that have exceeded the planning capacity of the local political-administrative systems. Rome and Madrid provide striking examples for two highly different solutions to the outstanding task of settling many migrants with limited resources. In Rome, almost one million migrants from central and Southern Italy arrrived during the 1950s and 1960s. They could find jobs in the booming construction sector, but were not admitted to the urban housing market. Therefore, they were forced to settle in the urban periphery. In the `General Regulatory Plan’ (Master Plan) of Rome almost no land had been assigned for moderate private housing. The settlers could, however, acquire rather large building plots that had been zoned for agriculture from large land owners at moderate prices on an illegal market. There, the settlers built small houses without a building permit. Following the boom of the Italian economy, these self-help cottages could be improved and extended with rising family incomes. In Madrid, where the rural exodus arrived a decade later, the migrants, who came in hundreds of thousands, had to settle also on land which had not been zoned for housing. There, the large landowners managed to optimise their rents by selling or leasing only small plots for cottages. These chabolas had very high occupancy rates and no access to modern amenities. The two cities are providing two alternative models for the integration of poor migrants into the modern urban fabric. In Rome, the absence of the state left room for self-help which the migrants used to build their settlements and houses according to their needs and abilities; in Madrid, the migrants used the opportunity of the political transformation in order to oblige the state to consider their housing needs. The two cases have been studied extensively by a research group at the Institut fur Raumplanung (IRPUD) of the Universitat Dortmund with funding from the German Research Foundation and the Volkswagen Foundation.

Urban Development and Public Health in Dhaka, Bangladesh

The history of urban development and the advance of planning as a tool for guiding urban growth have always been closely linked with public health issues. Recognising the links between a city’s urban layout and its public health status has in the past often been the beginning of the establishment of planning principles, whether in Mesopotamia to improve air circulation, in medieval times to protect cities from fire hazards, or in the industrial age to fight epidemics such as cholera by adhering to sanitary guidelines. The interdependencies between socio-spatial development and the public health status of urban settlements are especially important nowadays in the fast growing cities of developing and transforming regions, where city authorities often have problems accommodating rapidly growing populations and an expanding economy in such a way that public health risks are minimised. In light of the severity of public health risks, especially in growing cities, the WHO (http://www.who.int) in 2010 launched the campaign ‘Urban planning as a critical link to building a healthy 21st century’. The campaign emphasises promotion of urban planning, improvement of urban living conditions, and participatory governance so as to enhance the resilience of cities to disaster and provide a better urban living environment (ibid.). The megacity Dhaka, the subject of our research, is a striking case showing the deterioration of the urban environment under uncontrolled and rapid urbanisation with detrimental effects on public health.

Levelling the Gradients—Planning for Equivalent Standards of Living, The German Experience

Germany enjoys relatively even standards of living throughout most of its territory; yet levelling the existing gradients between the federal states and between urban and rural areas is a key issue in national development and regional planning even codified in the German Basic Law. In the post-war period, the postulate was primarily applied to the development of rural areas. With the intensification of the German division the focus was extended to the area adjacent to the Soviet Zone, which suffered from de-industrialisation and out-migration. After re-unification regional inequalities between the western and eastern states and within Eastern Germany became a key issue of national concern. Today demographic change, especially ageing, and outmigration from rural regions of Eastern Germany and gradually also from the more remote parts in the West, is increasingly considered a very serious challenge to the principle of safeguarding regional equality and providing equivalent standards in the provision of public services. Three national financial policy schemes are in place to reduce regional inequalities between the federal states. The Federal Financial Equalisation Scheme was designed as a constituent part of the federal system to provide each state with adequate financial resources. The Solidarity Surcharge has been levied since 1991 in order to reduce inequalities between the western and eastern federal states. The Solidarity Pact was instituted in 1993 and re-launched in 2005 to fund reconstruction in the eastern states directly. In Germany spatial planning for equivalent standards of living is backed by a well-developed system of central places which is supported by all state planning acts. Especially in rural areas it is being complemented by non-statutory planning approaches which support private participation (e.g. neighbourhood or communal shops), inter-municipal regional cooperation (e.g. based on target agreements), and flexibilisation (e.g. multiple use of service facilities). The federal government is supporting these non-statutory planning approaches for the provision of essential public services within its urban development promotion programme with the aim of mobilising regional potentials.

Veränderungen des Wohnungsbestandes

Veranderungen des Wohnungsbestandes im Prognosezeitraum bestimmen die Zusammensetzung und Starke der Wanderungsstrome in entscheidender Weise. Einer begrundeten Prognose der Bevolkerungsverteilung muste daher eine Prognose der kleinraumigen Bautatigkeit vorausgehen. Fur diese Aufgabe gibt es aber noch keine anerkannte Methode. Umfangreiche Sondererhebungen waren erforderlich (1), die im Rahmen dieses Projektes nicht geleistet werden konnten, da sie den Arbeitsschwerpunkt verschoben hatten. Zur Erfassung von Veranderungen des Wohnungsbestandes werden deshalb nur grundsatzliche Uberlegungen angestellt und beispielhafte Eingabedaten angenommen. Dieses Vorgehen entspricht der Modellkonzeption, die dem Planer die Moglichkeit bieten soll, die Auswirkungen alternativer Planungskonzepte auf die demographische Entwicklung durchzuspielen.

Anwendung des Modells

Der Modellteil V.BELEG bietet die Moglichkeit, von ausen in den Ablauf des Modells einzugreifen. Er stellt die Masnahmenbezogenheit des Gesamtmodells her, indem er dem Planer die Option anbietet, die Wirkungen alternativer Planungsstrategien auf die Bevolkerungsentwicklung in verhaltnismasig kleinen Teilgebieten darzustellen. Dadurch wird die Informationsgrundlage fur politische Entscheidungsprozesse zu bestimmten Planungskonzepten verbessert.

Abschliessende Bewertung und Ausblick

Das vorgestellte Konzept zur Analyse und Prognose der kleinraumigen Bevolkerungs-entwicklung ist geeignet, die grundlegenden Forderungen, die am Beginn der Projektarbeit aufgestellt wurden (Kap. 1), einzulosen. Die Bestimmung und Analyse der Wohnungsbelegungsmuster zeigte, das der Zusammenhang zwischen Wohnungsbestand und demographischer Wohnungsbelegung tatsachlich eine tragfahige Grundlage fur die Erklarung und Prognose der Bevolkerungsentwicklung in kleinen Gebietseinheiten abgibt. Damit wird auch ein doppelter Bezug zur Planungspraxis hergestellt, da sich Veranderungen der Einwohnerzahl und des Altersaufbaus auf die Nachfrage nach Infrastruktureinrichtungen auswirken und meist auf wohnungsbezogene Planungsmasnahmen zuruckgefuhrt werden konnen.

Das Modell zur Bevölkerungsverteilung

Das Modell zur kleinraumigen Berechnung der Bevolkerungsverteilung (DISPRO) ist kein in sich geschlossenes, deterministisch-algorithmisches Modell, das nach Eingabe von Basisdaten, Entwicklungsannahmen, Steuer- und Planungsoptionen die auf dieser Grundlage zu erwartenden Bevolkerungspotentiale, ihre Struktur und kleinraumige Verteilung generiert. Es ist vielmehr ein Arbeitsraster, zusammengesetzt aus vielen Einzelbausteinen, wie z.B. dem Bevolkerungsfortschreibungs-modell PROGNO 1 und diversen Modellen zur Parameterberechnung, die durch gezielte Modifikation (1) und Verknupfung eine neue Qualitat gewinnen.