Habitat International

PIP The population of Nigeria is one of the fastest growing rates in the world at 2.5-3.5%/ year. The estimated population was 101.11 million in 1987 and by 2015 is projected to be 280 million. Nigeria was the 10th most populous country in 1985 and by 2025 it would be 4th. The average number of children for each woman is 6-7 and the death rate is 16/1000. A recent government policy has restricted women to 4 children. 47% of the population is under 15 years of age. Goals of the government include reducing the growth rate, improving the standard of living, and balancing the population distribution between urban and rural areas. To do this they will need to promote awareness of their population situation to all citizens, educate young people on family planning, and to enhance development in rural and urban areas by slowing the migration to the cities. Most Nigerians view this policy as discriminatory against women, and ineffective in curbing present growth in population. Religions including Catholicism, Islam and some Christian groups do not promote birth control. Although many groups oppose this policy, most realize that the country is over populated and that with the present economic situation, a reduction in growth is needed. A more acceptable policy would restrict Christians, who marry only 1 wife, to 4 children and Moslems, who can have up to 4 wives, could have only 1 child/wife or 4 children for the man, in each family. A better method would be to encourage 3 children/family because of the young age structure in the population. Even if the fertility would decline to 2 children/family there would be substantial growth for many years to come.

PIP The intricate interrelationships between population and development in sub-Saharan Africa are examined and the prospects are considered for converting the abundant human resources into an effective development asset. The demographic trends that characterize the sub-Saharan region at this time differ markedly from what is happening in other parts of the developing world. In Africa, death rates have come down slightly (17/1000 in 1980-85 in contrast to 20/1000 in 1970-75); there has been practically no change in the birthrate. Consequently, population growth rates are on the rise throughout Africa although there are differences within the regions. The various factors responsible for high fertility in African societies and the consequences of the continuing high fertility often are mutually reinforcing. For example, low health and educational standards are likely to lead women to have large numbers of children, but these conditions are themselves the result of the population growth, which requires an expansion of health care and educational facilities that hard-pressed national budgets cannot provide. In Africa, the growth rate of the youth population is increasing even faster than that of the population as a whole -- from 3.1% in 1980-85 to an estimated 3.4% in 1990-95. The most critical problem posed by such growth rates is an increased demand for food. Countries which cannot adequately feed their growing populations are unlikely to be significantly more successful in satisfying their other basic needs. Whether educated or healthy or not, Africa's growing numbers of children represent major economic problems for countries with a low level of economic growth. There is little hope of effectively absorbing all the new entrants who swell the labor market each year, and the indirect consequences for the economy of rapid demographic growth are no less serious. Presently, Africa is the scene of major and particularly distressing movements of population as the drought has forced people to move long distances in search of food relief. It is too soon to tell whether or how much of the lands left behind can be rehabilitated and again become productive. The question arises as to whether appropriate policies, supported by adequate funds and technical know-how, can convert Africa's millions of young people from being a brake on development into a resource for the future. Policies and strategies that may be most appropriate to this end are: to take sufficient cognizance of the interrelationship between population and development and hence to be prepared to take the necessary steps to ensure that the two remain in balance; to realize that family planning programs mean more than a reduction in fertility but also the possibility of reducing infant and maternal mortality and morbidity; to back whatever family planning programs governments introduce; to plan comprehensively; and to effectively carry out the development strategies.

PIP The author posits that female labor force integration in Jamaica accomplishes little in alleviating poverty and making maximum use of human resources. Women are forced into employment in a labor market that limits their productivity. Women have greater needs to increase their economic activity due to price inflation and cuts in government spending. During the 1980s and early 1990s the country experienced stabilization and structural adjustment resulting in raised interest rates, reduced public sector employment, and deflated public expenditures. Urban population is particularly sensitive to monetary shifts due to dependency on social welfare benefits and lack of assets. Current strategies favor low wage creation in a supply-side export-oriented economy. These strategies were a by-product of import-substitution industrialization policies during the post-war period and greater control by multilateral financial institutions in Washington, D.C. The World Bank and US President Reagan's Caribbean Basin Initiative stressed export-oriented development. During the 1980s, Jamaican government failed to control fiscal policy, built up a huge external debt, and limited the ability of private businessmen to obtain money for investment in export-based production. Over the decade, uncompetitive production declined and light manufacturing increased. Although under 10% of new investment was in textile and apparel manufacturing, almost 50% of job creation occurred in this sector and 80% of all apparel workers were low-paid women. Devaluation occurred both in the exchange rate and in workers' job security, fringe benefits, union representation, and returns on skills. During 1977-89 women increased employment in the informal sector, which could not remain competitive under devaluation. Women's stratification in the labor market, high dependency burdens, and declining urban infrastructure create conditions of vulnerability for women in Jamaica.

The discourse on habitat and human settlements is increasingly dominated by that of the global, mega-city. If the aim of those of us in the human settlements field are to improve our understanding of and action on habitat and human settlements, this, often exclusive, focus is a mistake. Our habitat is better understood and acted upon as a network of interwoven settlements and surrounding countryside, large and small, themselves interwoven within our larger ecosystem. In this network the habitat of our smaller settlements (smaller cities, towns, villages) and rural areas and our global village also plays a critical role. The assumption can be challenged that urbanization and the mega-city are the critical issues of habitat and human settlements. Evidence suggests that with some rurbanization there is also counter urbanization, the ruralization of cities, and, perhaps most important, a growing urbanization as city-country interactions intensify. Habitat for all and habitat for a healthy, sustainable planet demands our openness to these new concepts and realities. It demands an integrated, balanced, approach which helps a wide range of living settlement nodes, large and small, to nurture each other. Global City and Global Village must go hand in hand. Our planetary and human health depends on it.

PIP Data concerning 624 randomly selected mothers in Ekpoma Region, Nigeria, are used to analyze socioeconomic and cultural determinants of fertility. Factors considered include education, occupation, income, religion, age at first marriage, breast-feeding, and contraceptive practice. The author concludes that the conditions for fertility decline are now in place and that this decline could be accelerated by discouraging early marriage, increasing female education, and promoting contraception.

PIP A general review of the literature on urbanization in developing countries is presented. The review covers works written between the 1950s and the present day. Particular attention is given to the various opinions regarding squatter settlements in and around urban areas.

Concentration of population in a few metropolitan areas is considered as a serious problem in developing as well as developed countries. Japan is no exception. During the 30 years since the World War II the population distribution in Japan has been shifting toward greater concentration in large metropolitan areas. One of the most striking characteristics of the Japanese experience is the rapidity of the change: during the period of fast economic growth nearly half of the prefectures were losing population in absolute terms due to out-migration to large metropolitan areas. There appears to have been a change in this situation recently however. The population registration record has revealed that none of the prefectures lost population in absolute terms during 1974. This is a phenomenal departure from the past trend which lasted for 18 years. This change has been preceded by a gradual decline in the number of prefectures losing population since 1970. Indeed Japans economy or society as a whole appears to have been undergoing substantial changes since around 1970. In terms of population distribution some observers state that there has been a U-turn phenomenon implying that more people started to migrate from large urban centers back to small urban centers and rural areas than vice versa. In terms of the economic growth of the economy as a whole there has been an apparent slowing down of growth rates. This change has coincided with rapidly intensified public concern with the quality of the environment and pollution. In addition there have been a number of other significant social changes such as an increase in concern over distribution of income and international political and monetary disturbances during recent years. The purpose of this paper is first to examine the nature of the recent change in the pattern of population distribution in Japan and then to identify the factors which are responsible for the change. (excerpt)

The Chinese Government has formulated a national urban policy aimed at controlling the growth of large cities. However, this paper reveals that Chinese large cities still grow rapidly and that the control policy has not been well implemented. Economic reforms and rapid growth have been the major forces driving large city expansion. It suggests that the Government should recognize the limitations of government policies and should put more efforts into harmonizing the relationship between urban policy and economic policy, to improving urban facilities, and planning and management of large cities.

PIP Most east and south Asian countries will likely experience ongoing urbanization. Approximately 93 million people will be added to the populations of Asian cities over the next 15 years and more than 40% of all Asians are expected to be living in urban centers by the year 2000. Much of the population growth will occur in the largest metropolitan areas. The UN estimates that the number of cities in Asia with more than 1 million inhabitants will grow from 40 in 1960 to more than 175 by the year 2000. Many metropolitan areas in Asia are projected to grow to unprecedented size and will be among the 30 largest cities in the world by the end of the century. This paper looks at the strengths and weaknesses of Asian metropolises, alternatives to metropolitan growth, the adversities of overconcentration in primate cities, potential benefits of a system of secondary cities, the role of secondary cities and towns in national and regional development, and policies for secondary and small city development.

PIP The Chittagong Healthy City Project was carried out in late 1994 in Chittagong, Bangladesh. This paper presents findings of an evaluation of the project based upon internationally generated process indicators related to the institutional aspects of the project. The following issues are discussed with regard to project implementation: the institutional organization of local authorities, institutions' conceptual understanding of the project, formal insertion of the project into public authorities' activities, institutional leadership of the project, central-local relations, the lack of interministerial coordination, the project's office, international projects, and community organization. Giving consideration to these issues may help program planners detect problems in forthcoming projects prior to their implementation.

PIP During 1965-79, urban growth rates accelerated and continued after Zimbabwe's independence in 1980. For 1960-80, the estimated urban growth rate was 5.6% as compared with the natural growth rate of 3.5% and urban growth rate of 5.0% to 8.1% for the period 1982-92. Gweru, Zimbabwe, had a population of 110,000 in 1990, and as the provincial capital it is an important destination for rural and interurban migrants. Between 1982 and 1990 there was a 4.9% growth rate, resulting in the municipal waiting list for housing to exceed 14,000 in mid-1990. In a large study on migration and rental shelter, 188 tenants were interviewed in high, low-medium density, and periurban areas of the city with the intent of tracing respondents and the nature of migration streams. Regarding origins and connections, only one-fifth of the migrants were born in Gweru, more than half were born in rural areas, and the rest in other urban areas. More than 90% still had rural homes. Two-thirds made rural home visits six times or less a year and one-fourth visited seven times a year to once a month. 40% of the migrants to Gweru originated in larger cities, 24% in smaller urban areas, and 36% in rural areas. 58% moved to high density areas, 34% to low-medium, and 8% to peri-urban areas. The dominant motive was the search for employment and direct transfers, thus economic factors dominated over social factors. Three groups were distinguished according to length of stay: 1) 5 years or less who lived mainly in high and low-medium density housing; 2) 6-15 years; and 3) more than 15 years who lived in low density and high density areas. Regarding the previous two migrations, two-thirds stayed at the previous place for 5 years of less. The reasons for migration were overcrowding, family, and employment. Within Gweru high mobility was typical: one-third initiated one step, 43% initiated two steps, and 27% initiated three steps. Lodgers were the most mobile since one-third were moving three times.

PIP This paper describes the situation in Ciudad Guayana, a new heavy industry center in southeast Venezuela, where fertility has fallen in the last 2 decades, from the perspective of the "modernization of fertility" theory. Evaluation of each component of the theory--industrialization, urbanization, education, better health and nutrition and control of epidemic diseases, increased communication and spread of media, erosion of traditional customs and emergence of secular values and belief--shows the people of Ciudad Guayana pointed firmly in the direction of fertility decline. Examination of data from a sample interview survey of 972 households indicates that the theory can account for the considerable variety of factors that are at work in the community; the search for a single necessary or sufficient cause for fertility decline is seen as fruitless. The need to look at a research problem such as fertility in its whole context, as anthropologists do, is emphasized. In this instance, differences in family values of Latin American society from those of other developing areas must be taken into account. After examining a community study of the area, it is concluded that integration of the social survey method with concurrent urban anthropology is a logical next step. The importance of social stratification as a modifying factor on fertility must be taken into account in refining the modernization framework.

"The object of this study was to identify the factors that may explain, and help to predict, the direction and intensity of migration flows from rural to urban and from urban to urban areas in Colombia. For this purpose, statistical models were used with a view to obtaining a better insight into the push-and-pull causes of the migration patterns and a better understanding of their consequences."

PIP Trends in urbanization in developing countries are analyzed, with a focus on the causes of rapid urbanization and particularly on the role of the division of labor. The impact of urbanization on the process of economic development is described. The role of government and of urban planning policies is also considered.

This paper has a narrower title than was originally proposed since it seemed important to seek to establish the link between the urban concern and general priorities of economic development. Too often, the "urban" has been identified as solely an issue of welfare or order, and cities have, therefore, in policy terms, been subject to criteria which are different to those applicable in other sectors of the economy. The paper presents a discussion of the economic justification for taking cities seriously, a section outlining the scale of urbanisation and some of the issues raised, a section that discusses the policy approaches, one that looks at the local agencies for the formulation and execution of policy, and a short final part on some of the implications for aid policy.

PIP The relationship between activities in the service sector of the economy and urban growth is examined, with emphasis on how service activities are related to the pattern and speed of urban growth. The study is based on an analysis of 1970 Japanese census data for cities in the Chubu region that have more than 50,000 inhabitants.

PIP An analysis of the transmigration program in Indonesia and the Federal Land Development Authority scheme in Malaysia is presented. The analysis shows that the motivations of participants in such programs are primarily economic and are similar to the motives influencing rural-urban migration. The importance of developing infrastructure and providing promised services to settlers to ensure the success of such programs is stressed. The role of settlement projects in encouraging additional spontaneous migration is also considered.

The author reviews the Indonesian transmigration program. He notes that over four million people moved in the period from the program's 1904 inception through mid-1986. "Despite considerable success the programme has been plagued by numerous problems. These include inadequate income levels, improper site selection, poor matching of settlement models to the specific sites, environmental deterioration, migrant adjustment, land conflicts and financing." Current efforts to improve existing settlements, encourage spontaneous migraton, and involve the private sector are also described.

Provides a detailed analysis of the data concerning urbanization and urban growth in the Third World. The authors begin by discussing the accuracy of urban statistics and show that there is a lack of reliable, contemporary or comparable data on which to make accurate forecasts to the end of the century. They then identify some general trends in Latin America, Asia, and Africa which suggest that the growth of metropolitan centres is actually decreasing in many cases relative to some secondary cities. The central message of this chapter is that future cities in the Third World are unlikely to resemble those currently forecast and that new approaches will be needed to assess trends and develop more appropriate forms of urban management. -from Authors

The move toward defining “best practice” in urban development, a search which is central to the preparations for the Habitat II conference, is encouraging and represents a new paradigm in the quest for improvement. This paper examines a number of propositions, hypotheses if you will, related to that change. These propositions focus particularly on the implications of the shift on the meaning of community, the need for transferable tools, the limitation of state-based and market-based housing solutions within this context, the essential nature of networks, particularly the overlapping networks of neighbours, relatives and friends with networks of locally-based production and trading, labour and service providers, and the implications of all of these elements on sustainability.

The official recommendations standards and legislation which have been related to the provision of houses in England have made explicit references to the spatial form and use of domestic facilities. For example, the serial of health and housing legislation during the last two centuries has had an influence upon the designs of houses built during that time, and particularly since the publication of the Tudor Walters Report in 1918. This paper studies the intentions of the series of recommendations and legislation from 1918 until the publication of the Parker Morris Report in 1961. The paper shows how the designs of houses in these official documents express specific ideas upheld by members of the architectural profession and civil servants which can be contrasted with public values about the meaning and use of domestic space.

Researchers have identified three phases in the evolution of international housing policy since 1945: public housing (1945–1960s), sites-and-services (1972–1980s), and market enabling (1980s–present). They often fail to distinguish between the policies that international agencies recommended and the policies that national governments pursued. Their preferred chronology does not accurately describe the recommendations of the main agencies, among whom the UN, the World Bank and, in the early years, the British Colonial Office were the most important. An extensive survey of published and archival sources shows that these agencies never endorsed public housing. Although their purposes differed, they consistently endorsed a mixed strategy of self-help and market supports. Self-help was given priority from the mid-1960s to the 1980s, when the balance shifted to market ‘enabling’. We need to know more about what influence their recommendations had upon national governments in the developing world.

Much has been written about housing policy in the developing world. With a few notable exceptions, little is known about policy trends in most developing nations before the 1970s. Even less is known about the influence on national policies of the recommendations of international agencies, including the UN and the World Bank. Published and archival sources show that since 1945, the Thai Government has rarely implemented the programmes advocated by international agencies. It built public housing from the 1950s to the 1970s although it was advised to do otherwise. In the 1960s and most of the 1970s it resisted aided self-help, though this approach promised to be cost effective. When officials conceded the merits of this approach they were held back by politicians. Only when the international emphasis switched to a market-oriented approach in the 1980s did Thai policy apparently fall into step. Future research on policy trends should pay attention not only to issues of housing need, which most writers have emphasized, but also to the varied political contexts in which policy is made.

This paper examines the relationship between construction activity and economic development at the provincial level in the Peoples’ Republic of China. It also examines variations in the mix of construction outputs among the provinces as they achieve increasing levels of development. It is argued that the analysis of provincial construction outputs and levels of economic development provides additional insights into the debate on the wider relationship between construction activity and economic development as posited by Turin in his seminal studies during the 1960s and 1970s.Since these seminal works many researchers have also sought to explain the relationship between construction activity and economic development. Turin's model is of this relationship and although some studies only provide qualified support for this hypothesis, it is generally agreed that there is a causal link between construction activity and economic development within countries as they develop their economies. Most of these studies have been based on the use of international cross-sectional data from countries at different stages of development to infer an assumed relationship within an individual country over time.In this study, similar data are analyzed to examine these relationships at the provincial level within a large country, each of these provinces being at significantly differing levels of development. Since it adopted policies of economic reform in the late 1970s, China has realized considerable economic progress. However, this has varied significantly among the provinces and regions. Consequently, data demonstrating developments in China's wider economy and its construction activity at the provincial level can be used to test the applicability of the Turin hypothesis within a country that has undergone significant developments over such a short period of time.

This article discusses the recent urban development in Indonesia and the extent to which the current economic crisis and uncertain sociopolitical situation have affected urban development. Until the mid-1990s, urban development fuelled by high economic growth has been characterized by restructuring of physical and economic activities. However, the recent economic crisis has caused economic activities in cities to shrink greatly. Meanwhile, the new legislation of regional autonomy and fiscal decentralization and current socioeconomic and political situation could have significant impacts on urban development in Indonesia in the near future.

This paper seeks to explore the extent to which local building traditions have been retained within modern urban housing development in primarily Igbo-speaking areas of South-eastern Nigeria in the 1990s. Its premise is that there are vestiges of tradition which remain part of the urban fabric in most southern Nigerian towns. It is thought that these traditions can, and should, be developed further to ensure that there is a positive integration of the old with the new, in the physical form, aesthetics and theoretical interpretation of urban design. Also as a development model, this integration approach has considerable relevance to other aspects of Nigerian urban life where there is the need for the accommodation of various cultures and social backgrounds.

Temporary housing is a crucial but controversial part of disaster recovery; disaster-affected families who have lost their homes need a private and secure place to restart their daily activities as soon as possible after the disaster, yet temporary housing programmes tend to be overly expensive, too late and responsible for undesirable impacts on the urban environment. The purpose of this research is to recognize exactly what problems exist with temporary housing in the long term (that is after 5 years) and to identify, using the systems approach, the origin of these problems within the project process for temporary housing. Using the Logical Framework Approach to highlight the projects’ outcomes, the investigation focuses on the case study of the temporary housing programme for the 1999 earthquakes in Turkey and on four temporary housing projects in Düzce, one disaster-affected town. It is found that unwanted effects can be reduced through proper facilities management, reuse of the units, and by the initial application of unit designs that are easy to dismantle. Incorporating plans upfront, thus dealing with these problems by anticipation, can minimize negative impacts.

The Peruvian Forum of Cities for Life has promoted and worked for the implementation of Local Agenda 21 since 1997. The technical assistance and capacity building support for Local Agenda 21 in Peru's cities has produced many project initiatives and investments plans, has contributed to modifications in local planning norms and boosted the work of environmental NGOs. Over the coming years when the environmental infrastructure projects get implemented all this is expected to show visible impacts for the quality of life and will be seen as the foundation for a continuous participatory and sustainable process of city development and environmental improvements. The weakness of the Peruvian Agenda 21 process has been and continues to be, however, the constrained funding situation for municipal investments.The relevance of the Peruvian Agenda 21 experience can be seen in the fact that it has filled a void in urban planning, has assumed the role of a stimulator of participatory processes and concerted action. Agenda 21 has contributed to a significant rise in environmental and urban consciousness of the local institutions and the general public. The successful application of a combined approach of awareness raising, education, capacity building and technical assistance is the real message of this experience of the Forum of Cities for Life and its Peru Urban Management Education Program (PEGUP).

The federal government of Nigeria developed large-scale public housing to provide living spaces for federal employees in the recently created capital, Abuja. The paper examines the resident satisfaction with public housing and the relationship of satisfaction with specific housing features to overall housing satisfaction. The sample of 1,089 households was randomly selected from residents in 19,863 public housing units in Abuja. A five-point Likert scale was used to measure residents' level of housing satisfaction. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and correlation analysis. The residents expressed dissatisfaction with their overall housing situation; they were dissatisfied with structure types, building features, housing conditions, and housing management. They were satisfied with the neighborhood facilities. Government housing policy should encourage a decent living environment, effective housing management, and construction of high quality structure types.

The private production system continues to supply the majority of housing to the population of Third World cities. In Nigeria, statistics show that the bulk of urban housing units is supplied for rent by small-scale private landlords. This paper examines the process of housing production among this category of producers using, as a case study, the peripheral settlements of Abuja, Nigeria's new capital city. A predominance of small-size sole proprietorships is established among the small-scale house building firms, mostly for reasons of maintaining operational flexibility and cost saving. It is also found that the greatest attraction of investing in rental housing by small entrepreneurs is the hedge it provides against inflation and the stability and permanence it introduces into the capital base of economic pursuits. A strong influence of traditional chiefs in land supply is revealed, together with the emergence of a commercialised land market, resulting in speculation and contributing to rising land prices. It is shown that building materials are the most problematic of the key building components to the housing production process. It is argued that small building firms would make more profit if they had access to formal sector working capital and that the practice of using casual workers in project execution has the advantage of enabling firms to survive periods of job drought, but does not encourage growth of the firms, apprenticeship training and skills development in the house construction industry. It is concluded that what is needed to enhance the operation of this category of producers is for government to accept an enabling role that will seek to minimise the financial burden and risks to which they are currently exposed.

Studies around the world have shown that there is a significant correlation between young children's development and the neighbourhood environment in which they are brought up. While the neighbourhood environment is a master set of a vast number of inter-dependent and inter-mingled variables, one particular factor, the physical land use environment sometimes tends to be overlooked. In fact, all other environmental variables work inside the framework of the land use settings as all human activities take place on and above land and certainly within some form of physical structure. In this paper, we try to provide some insights into this particular aspect by a relatively quantitative analysis. A major youth survey was carried out and views from the young people on two major aspects of land use settings are collated. In the micro-system, we examine how the physical land use system affects young people and how much they enjoy it. In the macro level, we tally their views on certain land use policy objectives and examine how much they can and are willing to articulate their views. We have found that land use environment in the neighbourhood does impose important effects on young people and they do recognise that. However, young people seem not being able to capitalize the benefits of the “routine activities” due to various reasons, and among them management of public space is a major one. In general, we feel that there is an inadequate government effort in trying to stimulate young people's interest in contributing to the debate of urban land use policy, making most young children rather indifferent on a number of socio-economic land use issues.

Water pollution is a problem all over the world and also in Thailand and particularly in Bangkok. The Government of Thailand and the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration have realised the seriousness of the problem and have started the construction of centralised wastewater treatment systems. The idea of centralised wastewater treatment is new for Bangkok where wastewater is normally treated on-site in septic tanks. The start-up and operational costs of a wastewater treatment system are high. The success and the sustainability of the system require the support of the Bangkok population. In order to gain this support, a better knowledge and understanding of the environmental concerns of the Bangkok population, their willingness to pay for environmental improvements and the acceptability of a wastewater treatment project is needed. The study applied the theory of diffusion and adoption to examine the acceptance of the project by the residents of Bangkok, the contingent valuation method to analyse the willingness to pay of Bangkok residents and the theory of environmental psychology to investigate the factors influencing acceptance of the wastewater treatment project by Bangkok residents. Personal questionnaire interview surveys and the willingness-to-pay were used to provide information on these issues. The Bangkok residents were found to prefer a centralised system, but they had no clear preference for a cost recovery system. The majority preferred the convenience and easy comprehension of a volumetric flat rate system. Two-thirds of the respondents preferred a separate collection system and expressed a preference for the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration as the fee-collecting agency. Most were willing to pay Baht 86.87 per month or Baht 3.28 per m3 (Baht 25=US$1), while the rate proposed by the BMA is Baht 3.50 per m3. Distance to a klong (canal) and the direct experience of polluted surface water did not have any influence on the preferences. Monthly household income, level of education and environmental awareness were the principal factors that influenced acceptability of various aspects of the wastewater treatment system. However, acceptability declined when direct costs and changes in life style were involved. The conclusions of the study support the claim that the process of acceptance of wastewater treatment in Bangkok is closely related to the concept of adoption. The study found that complex stimuli, such as cost-effectiveness and the convenience of the technology, tend to influence the acceptability of the wastewater treatment project by Bangkok residents. In order to be able to introduce measures that require sacrifices from the population, the BMA should undertake campaigns of public hearings, public education and public surveys to know public opinion and the public's willingness to pay.

Inadequate urban sanitation and solid waste management in Uganda has prompted policy reforms in the two sectors. As part of this reform, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and community-based organizations (CBOs) have increasingly become involved in improving the sanitation and solid waste situation in poor urban informal settlements. This paper investigates whether social proximity influence access of the urban poor to sanitation and solid waste services provided by NGOs and CBOs. Using a sample of 337 households from 12 poor informal settlements in Kampala, social proximity in addition to other conventional factors proved relevant in explaining access of the poor to NGO and CBO solid waste and sanitation services.Highlights► We investigate access of the urban poor to NGO/CBO sanitation and solid waste services. ► We estimate the determinants of access to these services. ► Some of the poor access these services through the active intervention from NGOs/CBOs. ► Besides the conventional factors, social proximity is a key determinant of access.

In the course of 5 yr, the system of solid waste collection (SWC) in Accra has undergone a fundamental turn from public to private provision. The transition was motivated by the apparent inability of the city's Waste Management Department to deal with the mounting problems of waste collection and the prevailing belief that the market would help to overcome these. The indigenous private sector was called upon to improve service performance. Until mid-1999 public and private modes of SWC co-existed, enabling a systematic comparison between them using a 10-point assessment scheme. The analysis shows that privatisation has benefited consumers in terms of wider coverage, higher frequency, and more reliable services, but that there are also a number of drawbacks, notably worsened labour conditions and increased environmental dangers. The greatest flaw, however, is its lack of financial sustainability. This is related to the non-commercial nature of the service, particularly the social and political sensitivity of cost recovery in a poor country. The central government's 1999 decision to impose a private monopoly in SWC—in order to speed up the process and solve the waste collection problem in the metropolis once and for all—is criticised. This decision will compound financial problems, hamper the development of an indigenous business sector and fail to build on the potentials of a system that seemed very promising.

This study presents a survey of housing conditions in Accra (Ghana), a city that has experienced tremendous population growth and housing problems since the 1950s. The paper discusses population growth and housing conditions in the city, comparing the situation in the 1950s and the 1990s. It is based primarily on the analysis of surveys conducted in 1954 and 1989 by Acquah and the author, respectively. The survey data is supplemented with data from a small-scale interview of 52 households conducted in 1997, and the three Ghana Living Standard Surveys conducted in 1987/88, 1988/89 and 1991/92 by the Ghana Statistical Services. The surveys reveal that housing conditions in Accra seem to be worse than what they were in the 1950s. Factors such as the poor economy, unrealistic rent control, outmoded building regulations and lack of housing finance that have contributed to the dismal housing situation are identified and discussed.

This article examines the role of participation in land-use planning. It discusses a concrete example of planning, related to the construction of social housing in Nunavik, the most northerly region of Québec, Canada, inhabited mainly by Inuit. It looks at how the responsibilities of the various parties involved in the planning process have changed over the past 30 years and strives to understand the exact nature of their responsibilities at the present time. In so doing, it focuses on the role of citizens. This study shows that citizen participation plays a relatively limited role in planning, even though existing legislation makes it an integral part of the process. It helps to fulfil basic land-use planning functions, namely, an economic rationalization function and a political legitimization function. From this perspective, discourse on the democratic virtues of participatory planning is misleading.

The literature on world cities and global cities has a resilient tendency to list hierarchies based on, among other things, the ability of a city to act as a command and control centre of the forces of globalization. This implies, even if it is not always explicitly acknowledged, there are other cities in the process of globalization that provide the resources that are commanded and controlled. There is also a wider recognition today that the process following the fundamental changes in technology since the 1980s, despite all its significance and unique features, is only the latest phase in the historical process of globalisation. Our understanding of resource cities could then begin by identifying the features of such a city that is common to all its phases of globalization. This paper looks at the experience of the south Indian city of Bangalore with three phases of its globalization: the colonial phase, the garment phase and the information technology phase. It finds that even as a resource city like Bangalore uses some of its unique characteristics to attract the attention of the command and control centres of each phase of globalization, it requires state support to do so effectively. Since the demands of each phase of globalization are very different, it needs to create new peripheries to provide the resources the command and control centres require. This has its implications for place as the peripheries can become more dominant than the city centre in economic and other terms.

There is a need to combine different ways of producing knowledge, ranging from scientific knowledge, practice-based knowledge and local citizens’ knowledge, to enable different actors to work together in improving urban governance and collective action to tackle poverty issues in cities. Yet this approach to urban governance is a potentially divisive process. Broadening the types of actors participating in local policy formulation and giving legitimacy to knowledge other than ‘expert knowledge’ overturns the current patterns through which urban development is channelled and existing power relations in cities.However, the main argument of this paper is that scientific research can play a more integral role if it is carried out as part and parcel of the urban governance process. This requires a more participatory process of research agenda setting with local citizens, a research practice that recognizes and makes explicit the value of localized types of knowledge, and a changed role for researchers themselves from external experts into resource persons in the urban governance process.

A program of genuine urban development concepts is critical to the future urban development of formerly isolated rural areas of southwest Saudi Arabia. Recent top-down approaches by government planning agencies, however, faced difficulties to achieve successful planning solutions to the deteriorating traditional villages. New government policies are needed to enhance the success of such a program. This paper offers an overview of experienced development in the villages of the southwest Saudi Arabia, as an example of the difficulties planners face. Economic change and central-government policies of the last 30 years have looked differently to the traditional socioeconomic structures of the villages, once based on the reclamation of land for agricultural purposes and the sustained development of local forests to meet subsistence needs. Today, the villages are caught between the past and the present, represented locally by two competing socioeconomic hierarchies. The paper argues that in order to gain local cooperation in developing new patterns of urban development, innovative steps must be taken to facilitate local participation in program design, implementation and evaluation. This may depend on finding ways to connect present mechanisms of central-government control of urban development to older, traditional systems of local control of past urban development.

While much has been written concerning rural food security, associations and predictive models, work on urban food security remains fragmented with research mostly on epidemiological nutrition or on consumption economics. The paper divides factors affecting urban food security into supply, access, choice, health and social organisation. Some of the policy options available for improving food security for the urban poor are presented in each category. The appropriateness is queried of relying on the household as the basic planning unit in urban areas and the need emphasised for immediate research which can assess the effectiveness of initiatives which attempt to bring different actors and agencies together to develop policy and strategies at the city level.

There is a growing awareness that both adaptation and mitigation measures are needed to reduce the impacts of climate change. Historically, due to a wide variety of reasons, mitigation and adaptation have been framed by scientists and policy makers as two different approaches to deal with the same problem: climate change. As a result, there are large differences in the way knowledge is produced, the analytical approaches that are used, and the designed policy strategies. This paper discusses the origin of the adaptation–mitigation dichotomy. Second, the paper addresses the relationship between climate change responses and spatial planning since there is a growing awareness that spatial planning can function as a switchboard for mitigation, adaptation and sustainable development objectives. Furthermore, the paper explores the role that spatial planning can play in developing effective mitigation and adaptation options in an integrated manner, searching for synergies and trade-offs. This creates the necessity to take climate change responses into account in spatial planning practices. We argue that climate change could also lead to changes in the traditional administrative structures that spatial planners are accustomed to. Since many of the main impacts of climate change have a water dimension, we discuss the river basin approach as the new administrative level at which spatial planning can increase the effectiveness of adaptation and mitigation measures and integrate these into other sustainable development policies.

This paper discusses adaptation and mitigation strategies as outlined in climate change scenarios. The adaptive perspective is closely connected to the concept of resilience understood as different views on nature's capacity to absorb shocks, renewal and re-organization. In constructing normative scenarios images of the future are generated illustrating potential ways of living, travelling and consuming products and services where certain goals such as a reduced climate impact are fulfilled. This paper argues that tension arising from climate strategies relying on either adaptation or mitigation strategies, or combining the two strategies, warrant further examination. In this paper the inter-relationships between adaptation and mitigation are discussed by examining processes of citizen-participation in constructing scenarios and applying the concepts of resilience, vulnerability and adaptive capacity. We discuss this using the concept of deliberative planning processes as a means to achieve legitimate, effective and sustainable futures. As a part of this approach, we argue that methods for citizen-participation applied in exploring different science and technology options also provide useful insight for this type of planning processes. The theoretical arguments are combined with examples from environmental scenario construction in practice. The paper brings attention to tensions between sustainability content values, such as reduced climate impact, and more process-oriented values such as legitimacy, learning and participatory scenario construction. Moreover, the concept of open innovation processes is introduced to the context of participatory scenario construction comparing shared ground in terms of user-involvement in search of novel solutions and also increasing robustness of action plans implemented to reduce climate change.

As one of a number of strategies in support of sustainable development, international agencies have increasingly and forcefully advocated the use of environmental impact assessment studies (EIA) for projects that they sponsor in the Third World. The philosophy and many of the techniques and processes associated with EIA, however, reflect social, technological, political and economic forces in the industrialised world that contrast sharply with the development context in many Third World countries. Significant modifications in the traditional standards, approaches, methods and legislation are required to ensure that EIA offers an appropriate aid to environmental management and decision making. This is particularly so in areas where governments seek to apply standards that are consistent with the formal sector to communities that are essentially the product of ongoing informal development processes.

This work focuses on the efforts being made by King County, Washington to respond to the challenges of global climate change, concentrating on both mitigation and adaptation. King County is a leader in the United States in the development and implementation of meaningful climate change efforts in local government. The county, in conjunction with ICLEI, recently produced a workbook on Preparing for Climate Change at the Local, Regional, and State levels. While the vast majority of local governments in the United States have only taken limited steps to respond to global warming, King County stands out as aggressively looking to move in a new direction. The King County Climate Plan is based on the conviction that climate change is both a problem and an opportunity for communities to improve environmental quality through mitigation of greenhouse gases and simultaneously build resilience to adapt to global climate change. Its exceptional combination of responsibilities in planning and opportunities makes this an invaluable experience to other local governments throughout the world.The work to be presented is a case study that examines the underlying issues and challenges faced by this jurisdiction in adopting its climate change plan; the development and adoption of the plan; issues associated with monitoring and sustaining these efforts; and the broader challenges of building more resilient and adaptive communities. The case study will focus both on procedural issues, as well as, on the types of mitigation and adaptive responses. One aspect of the paper will examine King County's efforts to link climate change efforts/policy/plans to other critical community concerns (e.g., issues of equity and race), and to the economic opportunities that have become critical motivators to successfully as moving forward the county attempts to establish itself as a global leader in meeting the challenges of global climate change.

The importance of urban poverty is increasingly recognized. This paper seeks to learn from the experiences of eight urban poverty reduction programmes to understand how effective development programmes can be instituted. The emerging lessons emphasize the use of three strategies to enhance the asset base of the urban poor: strengthening grassroots organizations, transforming relations with the state and developing new alternatives to conventional urban development practices. The experiences offer insights into strategies to secure poverty reduction within the broad framework of sustainable livelihoods.

This paper examines the events that affected the development of planning as an institution in Belize. Initially, an overview of the shifts in planning frameworks that have accompanied each recent change of government is presented. This is followed by an analysis of land development issues in the Belize City Region that have accompanied the recent emergence of the private land market and the decision to release a considerable number of government lots within a very short period of time. The implications of these events for planning are then assessed with respect to a set of criteria adapted from an analytic framework proposed by William Doebele. Conclusions are offered concerning the development of institutional capacity to support land-use planning, appropriate land-use controls, deregulation and professional responsibility.

The implementation of structural adjustment programmes in many countries of sub-Saharan Africa has impacted on the construction sector in a number of ways. One effect has been a shift in production from the public to the private sector. Another is the liberalisation of markets and break-up of monopolies in the building materials industries. Presenting evidence from Tanzania and Kenya the paper argues that these changes have led to a fall in the volume of work passing through the more formalised systems of production and an increase in activity in the ‘informal’ systems. Informal production systems use ‘artisanal’ methods and are characterised by an intensive use of labour, both in on-site construction and in the production and distribution of building materials. This is an efficient (low cost) and appropriate way of working in a context of capital scarcity and an urgent need for employment creation. The expansion of artisanal activity in the informal systems is therefore seen as a beneficial outcome of economic reform. The implications for policy are assessed.

Hong Kong has been faced with property market ups and downs for many reasons over the past 10 years or so. It once experienced shortages of housing supply, leading to prolonged escalating prices. This was followed by a downturn of housing prices since the end of 1997 and in the wake of the financial turmoil in Asia. Hong Kong people have been very concerned with the housing market situation, particularly housing prices, and consider that the problem needs to be addressed to prevent its recurrence in the future. The Hong Kong government uses its land-use planning system to address this “market failure”. Also, such a system imposes constraints on land supply and development, through various means by altering the supply of housing land. As a result, the residential property has been affected, and so is the housing price.This paper attempts to explore the impact of the land-use planning system (and land supply) on housing prices in the territory. It starts with the preliminary introduction of the planning system and a review on the previous literature on the impact of land-use planning system on housing prices in Hong Kong. An analytical model is established, followed by the discussion of the empirical findings of the impacts of the land-use regulation on land supply, housing supply and housing prices in the territory. The results in Section 7 show that the planning indicators: (i) the approval rates of planning applications; (ii) the residential floor area under planning applications; and (iii) the area of greenbelt and open space zones, have significant impact on housing prices.