Actors’ Influences on Land Use Planning Decisions in Small Towns: The Case of Geita, Gairo and Kibiti Towns in Tanzania

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DOI: 10.4236/jss.2019.77016    547 Downloads   1,577 Views  Citations

ABSTRACT

Towards the turn of the century, Tanzania, like many countries in Africa adopted urban planning approaches that targeted a wider stakeholders’ engagement through the use of communicative platforms and inclusive structures for decision making in the planning processes. These approaches are being practised in large and small urban centres, although most of piloting for the efficacy of such approaches was done in large urban centres. However, after over twenty years of these practices, the achievements have been less than optimal with many plans not being implemented. The proliferation of informality and poorly managed small urban centres continue to emerge and grow unabated. This paper examines the planning process in three small urban centres to uncover the level of conformity between applications of the participatory and commutative approaches, and the interests and actions of stakeholders in the planning process. It comes out that although normatively the procedures and institutional structure have adopted the requirements of participatory and communicative planning, the practice has managed to resist the openness and comprehensive inclusions of all stakes in the process. As a result, there is continued discord between the envisaged nature and content of the plans and the motives and demands of those with a stake in the small towns’ development endeavours, which contribute to the unwillingness of the developers to heed to the proposals of the plans. It is important therefore not to concentrate on the procedural requirements in the planning process but to improve inclusion of stakes and to focus on honest mediation of self-interests in the planning processes.

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Namangaya, A. and Mushi, D. (2019) Actors’ Influences on Land Use Planning Decisions in Small Towns: The Case of Geita, Gairo and Kibiti Towns in Tanzania. Open Journal of Social Sciences, 7, 172-190. doi: 10.4236/jss.2019.77016.

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