TITLE:
An Overview of Informal Settlement Upgrading Strategies in Kabul City and the Need for an Integrated Multi-Sector Upgrading Model
AUTHORS:
Bashir Ahmad Amiri, Nsenda Lukumwena
KEYWORDS:
Informal Settlement, Upgrading Strategies, Kabul City, Integrated Multi-Sector, Scale-Up
JOURNAL NAME:
Current Urban Studies,
Vol.6 No.3,
September
7,
2018
ABSTRACT: The developing economies are experiencing an unprecedented rate of urbanization,
mainly in the poor urban areas as shown through the sprawling of
slums and informal settlements of several cities in the world. This is also the
case of Kabul, the capital and primate city of Afghanistan where around 82%
of the people live in what is considered to be informal. Various interventions,
from physical upgrading to urban renewal have been undertaken by the government
and international organizations but none of them has succeeded to
solve the rapid growth of informal settlements. Given the above, the magnitude
of the urbanization and the complexity of informal settlements, this paper
suggests the use of an integrated multi-sector upgrading as a reactive and
proactive upgrading strategy. The paper analyzes the informal settlements
formation and the conventional upgrading strategies used in Kabul city. This
will help to identify dominant practices and finally rationalize them. For this
purpose, Hothkhel has been selected as the case study. As a result, it has been
found that the areas occupied by informal settlements have not been built to
their respective full capacity. This implies that there is still room for additional
buildable volume likely to lead to the preservation of available agricultural
land. The result also indicates that the integrated multi-sector upgrading has
the scale-up potential to increase the reach of beneficiaries and to ensure an
inclusive and efficient urbanization.