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Opportunities for enhancing communication settlement upgrading
with GIT based support tools
Richard Sliuzas
ITC, The Netherlands
Email: sliuzas@itc.nl
Abstract
For many residents in developing cities, informal settlements are the sole avenue of access to shelter
and basic services, however poor in quality. The need to improve the living conditions in such areas is
once again receiving high priority on the international and national development agendas. Current
approaches to settlement upgrading favour the adoption of community based, participatory styles of
planning and management. Upgrading inevitably also requires the use, albeit in cooperation with local
residents, of more traditional planning and design methods which depend in part on the ability to
analyse the physical setting of a given settlement and prepare appropriate solutions to specific
problems. Using several examples from informal settlements in Dar es Salaam, it will be shown how a
hybrid approach to spatial data provision that incorporates both the traditional sources of spatial data
and some of the more participatory approaches can be beneficial. The hybrid approach built around
the use of a series of low-cost, up to date aerial mosaics provides relevant spatial data that is relevant
and usable by both residents and professionals, thereby presenting opportunities for more
communicative and transparent discussions between actors on possible interventions in the
settlement.
Introduction
The inability of national and local governments in developing countries to cope with high
rates of urbanization has given rise to the proliferation of informal settlements in many cities.
These settlements provide shelter for as much as 86% of a city’s population under a variety
of living conditions. The term informal here refers to the illegal status of land tenure and/or
the non-adherence to building and infrastructure codes and given the scale of informality in
many cities, may encompass considerable variation in socio-economic status and living
conditions (Fekade 1997). The greatest challenges are presented by the so-called
“disadvantaged settlements” (opcit1997) which tend to have the worst living conditions and
have a high concentration of the urban poor, and most of the discussion focuses on this type
of informal settlement.
The paper begins with an overview of major changes in formal responses to informality and
urban management in developing countries. This is followed by an examination of current
approaches to settlement upgrading that emphasize collaboration with community based
organizations and a discussion of the requirements for spatial data in upgrading projects.
Some findings from ongoing studies and research in several informal settlements in Dar es
Salaam are used as a basis for the formulation of a hybrid approach to spatial data handling
in the context of settlement upgrading projects.
Informality and urban management
Various responses to informal development have been developed since the late 1960’s when
Turner and others successfully highlighted the fact that self-help housing was part of the
solution to urban shelter provision. The demolition of slum and squatter areas and public
housing programmes gradually gave way to in-situ settlement upgrading, often conducted in
tandem with Sites and Service schemes (Fekade 1997). While these approaches did
recognise the legitimate role of residents in constructing their own shelter, they also tended
to adopt externally designed technocratic approaches with an emphasis on the design and
construction of physical infrastructure i.e. roads and drainage, water supply and sanitation
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