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Planning ahead for better neighborhoods: long run evidence from Tanzania

Michaels, Guy ORCID: 0000-0002-8796-4536, Nigmatulina, Dzhamilya, Rauch, Ferdinand, Regan, Tanner, Baruah, Neeraj and Dahlstrand-Rudin, Amanda (2017) Planning ahead for better neighborhoods: long run evidence from Tanzania. SERC Discussion Papers (SERCDP222). Spatial Economics Research Centre, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK.

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Abstract

What are the long run consequences of planning and providing basic infrastructure in neighborhoods, where people build their own homes? We study "Sites and Services" projects implemented in seven Tanzanian cities during the 1970s and 1980s, half of which provided infrastructure in previously unpopulated areas (de novo neighborhoods), while the other half upgraded squatter settlements. Using satellite images and surveys from the 2010s, we find that de novo neighborhoods developed better housing than adjacent residential areas (control areas) that were also initially unpopulated. Specifically, de novo neighborhood are more orderly and their buildings have larger footprint areas and are more likely to have multiple stories, as well as connections to electricity and water, basic sanitation and access to roads. And though de novo neighborhoods generally attracted better educated residents than control areas, the educational difference is too small to account for the large difference in residential quality that we find. While we have no natural counterfactual for the upgrading areas, descriptive evidence suggests that they are if anything worse than the control areas

Item Type: Monograph (Discussion Paper)
Official URL: http://www.spatialeconomics.ac.uk/
Additional Information: © 2017 The Authors
Divisions: Spatial Economics Research Centre
Centre for Economic Performance
Subjects: H Social Sciences > HC Economic History and Conditions
H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor > HD100 Land Use
H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor > HD28 Management. Industrial Management
JEL classification: O - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth > O1 - Economic Development > O18 - Regional, Urban, and Rural Analyses
R - Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics > R1 - General Regional Economics > R14 - Land Use Patterns
R - Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics > R3 - Production Analysis and Firm Location > R31 - Housing Supply and Markets
Date Deposited: 29 Jan 2018 16:55
Last Modified: 11 Dec 2024 19:26
Funders: Economic and Social Research Council
URI: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/86570

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