Reducing Informal Urban Expansion

Director of Urban Expansion, Solly Angel, led the thematic session, “Reducing Informal Urban Expansion by Engaging Rural Councils in Land Pooling and Subdivision,” as part of the World Bank Land and Poverty Conference, which also included presentations from collaborators in Ethiopia and Malawi. Session highlights include:

• Business-as-usual urban expansion results in large areas on the urban periphery that have compromised access to the urban labor market, are difficult to provide with basic infrastructure services, are largely not in compliance with regulations, and are not well adapted to climate change.
• Many of these issues can be addressed by laying out the urban periphery before it is occupied. Land subdivision before occupation goes a long way towards creating viable urban neighborhoods, while irregular neighborhoods are difficult to upgrade and often remain “slums.”
• Several initiatives that focus on the formation of land subdivisions as an antidote to informality, in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; Hawassa, Ethiopia; and Lilongwe, Malawi. 
• An effective method of creating these subdivisions is land readjustment, which involves pooling the land of rural landholders. Land readjustment can be more effective if it is participatory and led by village chiefs.

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