A socio-spatial methodology for evaluating urban land governance: the case of informal settlements

Abstract

Urban land has social and spatial dimensions. Governance of urban land should consider these dimensions. Existing methods of evaluating land governance tend to focus on the social dimensions: the spatial dimensions are considered less. A socio-spatial approach developed here is argued to fill this gap. This research supposes that informal settlements can be used to understand urban land governance. A conceptual framework that links urban land governance, socio-spatial dimensions and informal settlements is developed and tested through a case study. The results show that the socio-spatial methodology improved understanding of equity, efficiency and transparency as compared with the existing approaches which are solely based on poor-quality and unreliable data. This methodology can be used beyond informal settlements such as understanding infrastructural delivery and quality, mapping potential conflict areas and urban land uses where governance plays a great role. Overall, the socio-spatial methodology enabled an all-encompassing evaluation of urban land governance.

Keywords::

• informal settlements
• socio-spatial approach
• spatial analysis
• urban land governance

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge that an abstracted version of this paper was presented at the 2014 World Bank Conference of Land and Poverty, Washington DC, USA, 24–28 March.

Notes

^1. Actors refer to representatives of organisations and interest groups in urban land.

^2. Though these areas have direct or indirect linkage with urban land governance.

^3.Kebele is the lowest government administrative unit in Ethiopia.

^4. Current expansions are also taking place outside the pocket areas in Wuramit Kebele.

^5. The black broken rectangle shows formal buildings.

Additional information

Funding

The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support from the joint fund between SIDA-Sweden through KTH Institute of Technology, Sweden and the University of Twente, the Netherlands.