Full Text Available

Note: Clicking the button above will open the full text document at the original institutional repository in a new window.

Rapid Urbanisation in Zambia – the challenge of providing low-income housing in urban areas – 1964 to 2018: The case of the city of Lusaka

Soon after independence, in 1964, Zambia’s urbanisation proceeded very rapidly presenting significant housing problems to the independence government. In the last five decades, Zambia’s Capital City, Lusaka has been growing most rapidly. Unfortunately, most of this growth has been in informal settle...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Chileshe, Alexander
Other Authors: Platzky, Laurine
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: Graduate School of Development Policy and Practice 2020
Subjects:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Soon after independence, in 1964, Zambia’s urbanisation proceeded very rapidly presenting significant housing problems to the independence government. In the last five decades, Zambia’s Capital City, Lusaka has been growing most rapidly. Unfortunately, most of this growth has been in informal settlements on insecure land because most residents cannot afford formal lowincome housing. Since 1964, government has undertaken several initiatives to bridge this low-income housing crisis. These include; providing complete housing, providing housing subsidies, providing serviced land, enacting new laws, establishing new institutions and even giving away housing for free. But all these initiatives, designed around the ruling political party governance system, have not yielded the desired results. As a result, the urban housing backlog which was estimated to be around 24,000 housing units at independence may now grow to over 3.0 million by 2030 if urgent action is not taken. Government has an opportunity to transform the urban housing sector by addressing weaknesses in the current laws and institutions, providing specific support to low-income households and encouraging private sector involvement. In all this, government must remember that context matters.