Planned vs. Lived: An Analysis of the Planning Practices and Relations of Power Involved in Addis Ababa’s Integrated Housing Development Programme (IHDP)

According to UN Habitat, nearly 80% of Addis Ababa’s inner city consists of slums – a figure that has rapidly been changing due to the Integrated Housing Development Programme (IHDP): a government-led programme launched between 2005 and 2017 to redevelop inner-city slum areas and subsequently rehouse low- and middle-income residents in peripherally located, subsidised condominium flats. In clearing inner-city land, the IHDP has prompted large-scale displacement of communities and paved way for private sector-led redevelopment. Meanwhile, the relocation to condominiums has been challenging for former slum dwellers as they have had to undergo drastic spatial and lifestyle changes. Such urban transitions have raised questions about the ‘selling out’ of existing communities and who Addis Ababa’s redevelopment is for. Through a discourse analysis, this thesis critically examines how governmental bodies have framed and implemented the IHDP in comparison to the experiences of local...Show moreAccording to UN Habitat, nearly 80% of Addis Ababa’s inner city consists of slums – a figure that has rapidly been changing due to the Integrated Housing Development Programme (IHDP): a government-led programme launched between 2005 and 2017 to redevelop inner-city slum areas and subsequently rehouse low- and middle-income residents in peripherally located, subsidised condominium flats. In clearing inner-city land, the IHDP has prompted large-scale displacement of communities and paved way for private sector-led redevelopment. Meanwhile, the relocation to condominiums has been challenging for former slum dwellers as they have had to undergo drastic spatial and lifestyle changes. Such urban transitions have raised questions about the ‘selling out’ of existing communities and who Addis Ababa’s redevelopment is for. Through a discourse analysis, this thesis critically examines how governmental bodies have framed and implemented the IHDP in comparison to the experiences of local populations. Specifically, legal documents informing processes of slum clearance and resettlement to condominiums have been studied within a conceptual framework derived from Scott and Harvey, among other scholars, against the accounts of affected residents. From this study, it becomes clear that the IHDP has been applied in a top-down manner, making a radical departure from local needs and traditions, and furthering the government’s interests of creating a modern and globally competitive city. The thesis concludes that the ‘metis’ found and practiced in disappearing slum settlements needs to be incorporated in the city’s redevelopment plans to reinvent what constitutes a ‘new’, but social and spatially just, Addis Ababa.Show less

Leiden University Student Repository

Documents

In Collections

Planned vs. Lived: An Analysis of the Planning Practices and Relations of Power Involved in Addis Ababa’s Integrated Housing Development Programme (IHDP)