TITLE:
Actors’ Influences on Land Use Planning Decisions in Small Towns: The Case of Geita, Gairo and Kibiti Towns in Tanzania
AUTHORS:
Ally H. Namangaya, Dawah M. Mushi
KEYWORDS:
Urban Planning, Land Use Planning, Small Towns
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.7 No.7,
July
24,
2019
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.