Inner-City Dwellers and Their Places in the Context of Addis Ababa's Urban Renewal (original) (raw)
2018, The Transformotion of Addis Ababa: A Multiform African City
With the growth of the urban population in Ethiopia, poverty is increasingly becoming an urban phenomenon. Roughly 28% of Addis Ababa’s residents are living below the poverty line of 0.7 USD per day, and the majority of them reside in the inner-city. This chapter explores the relationship between the lives of inner-city dwellers and the places in which they live, within the context of ongoing urban renewal. For this purpose, the case study site of this chapter is Dejach Wube, an old inner-city neighbourhood. We investigate the factors that gave rise to and perpetuated the city's urban renewal programme within the context of government policies and strategies. Our findings show that Addis Ababa’s inner-city is characterized by a high degree of socio-economic interdependence among its inhabitants which is facilitated by affordable shared spaces at the levels of household, compound and settlement. The livelihoods of many residents are dependent on informal economic activities located within their neighbourhood and its vicinity. There is a strong connection between housing location, use of home and communal spaces, and people’s livelihoods, especially among the urban poor. In contrast to the standard spatial model of the new government-sponsored condominium housing, the domestic and public places of the inner-city have multifunctional uses as living, social and economic spaces. At the same time, the physical conditions of inner-city areas of Addis Ababa are in need of significant improvement, which is one rationale for the government-led integrated urban redevelopment. Although the majority of respondents in the study area agreed on the need for such interventions, they claimed that their actual implementation thus far have not been conducive to accommodating their needs and meaningful participation. The promised onsite or nearby resettlement has not occurred: those evicted from the inner-city are now being relocated to expansion areas, which has threatened especially the poorest of the poor whose livelihoods are significantly attached to the inner-city. Key words: Inner-city, urban place, Addis Ababa, urban transformation, urban redevelopment, urban renewal, participation