Urban land grabbing and its implications to sustainable urban development a reflection from Oshitayi area, Ondangwa (Namibia)

[摘要] Land grabbing is not new as this concept can be traced back through centuries of humanhistory all over the world. Throughout the world, land either in rural or in urban areas, wassubjected to some form of grabbing. The main focus for this mini-dissertation was to seekanswers as to (1) why people (i.e. commercial and residential users) gradually choose tograb strategic unplanned land within the townlands of Ondangwa, particularly in the Oshitayiarea; and (2) the implications of land grabbing to sustai nable urban development. Theobjectives were to determine the reasons for land grabbing and what possible impacts (bothpositive and negative) this land grabbing can have on the sustainability of urbandevelopment. This mini-dissertation was theoretica l and relied mostly on qualitative datacollected using semi-structured in-depth interviews, document reviews and participantobservations. A sample size of 27 respondents was used to provide data for this minidissertation.Fifteen respondents were randomly sa mpled from a group of 1 268 landgrabbers consisting of 1 054 commercial users and 214 res idential users occupying landillegally in the Oshitayi area. Another 12 respondents were purposely sampled from a groupof 25 target population (i.e. six officials working for the Ondangwa Town Council as well assix private professional town planners with experience and knowledge of the situation in theOshitayi area). Even though there is a globally accepted notion that land grabbing takingplace in many cities is fuelled by urban poverty, there are new reasons found for landgrabbing taking place in the Oshitayi area. The emerging picture of this type of land grabbingis different from the usual accepted norm of pro-poor land grabbing whereby the poor peoplewho are unable to afford serviced land in urban areas are believed to grab any availableundeveloped urban land for shelter. This type of land grabbing was found to be moreopportunistic in nature which is observed not to have been founded on the ground ofseeking shelter. This means that the actors involved in this type of land grabbing knew whatthey want with the land they are occupying and they are merely not the urban poor. It wasevident from the findings that the reasons attributed to this type of land grabbing includesinvestment opportunities being pursued by local entrepreneurs, the cumbersome andbureaucratic legislative framework that is governing land delivery, opportunisticcompensations, poor institutional coordination and lack of public awareness/participation inmunicipal agendas. Sporadic land grabbing was found to have positive implications for theeconomic and social aspect of sustainability, whilst negative implications are eminent forspatial and environmental aspects of sustainability with respect to urban development.

[发布机构] University of the Free State