Housing Practice and Urban Production at the formal-informal interface: the case of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania (original) (raw)

This paper challenges policy discourse prioritizing formalization and regularization of housing and urban settlements and proposes that policy-driven transformation grounded on actually existing local systems and practices is more likely to facilitate inclusive urban production processes and cities. We frame urban production as occurring within locally established formal-informal interfaces in order to investigate on the ground practices associated to provision, permanence and adaptation to fast change. Focus is in the Makumbusho-Tandale wards of the Kinondoni district, in the city of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, East Africa’s largest and most populous country, and where informality is a defining feature. In Dar es Salaam, about seventy percent of urban production occurs in unplanned areas. We present the initial elements of a typology of housing and urban production and practice in the area that draws from grounded analysis, and put forward an agenda for future research. ANALYZING HOUS...