How effective are informal property rights in cities? Reexamining the relationship between informality and housing quality in Dar es Salaam

Improving access to adequate housing is a global development priority. Formalisation of property rights occupies a central role in this agenda, based on long-held ideas about the weaknesses of informal arrangements in cities. In practice, however, we know remarkably little about how informal property markets in urban areas work. Drawing on both quantitative and qualitative data, this paper demonstrates that informal institutional arrangements in Dar es Salaam are surprisingly effective in securing ownership and addressing transaction costs – in other words, in the key dimensions of property rights targeted by formalisation projects. It also reveals, however, that the system is ineffective at upholding the third yet often-overlooked component of property rights: land use rights. This results in a social dilemma that traps housing in a low-quality equilibrium. The findings have direct implications for policy in Dar es Salaam and across the world and open new avenues for comparative research

Surveys and the City: Three Challenges to Quality Data Collection in Urban Areas

Development economists use household survey data to measure living standards across the world, but reliable data for cities in the global south is hard to come by. This article addresses three challenges to collecting data in cities – measurement, missing people, and money – as well as steps that can be taken in the design, implementation, and analysis of survey data to try and address them

Tracing lineages to uncover neuronal identity

Many previous studies have focused on understanding how midbrain dopamine neurons, which are implicated in many neurological conditions, are generated during embryogenesis. One of the remaining questions concerns how different dopamine neuron subtypes are specified. A recent paper in Neural Development has revealed features of a spatial and temporal lineage map that, together with other studies, begins to elucidate the developmental origin of distinct neuronal subtypes within the developing midbrain

Titling and beyond: Evidence from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Land titling has been a policy priority for developing country cities for decades. In Sub-Saharan Africa and across the world, tenure formalization has been promoted as a tool to improve the quality and value of urban housing. The track record of these projects, however, has generally been disappointing. Why is this? In this paper, we argue that project design has paid too little attention to contextual features of land markets in estimating the benefits of formalization to individual households. We draw on evidence from a case study city – Dar es Salaam, Tanzania – to show that in cities where broader property rights institutions are incomplete and informal sources of tenure security are strong, formal property rights may not be valued by households. This raises questions about the households’ willingness to pay for regularisation and suggests that complementary strategies to build trust in government and consolidate public benefits of titling will be needed to ensure that projects have a beneficial impact

Moving from Reconstruction Resilient Urban Planning for a Bright Future

Today, more than half of Haiti's population calls cities and towns their home, in a major shift from the 1950s when around 90 percent of Haitians lived in the countryside. Urbanization is usually paired with economic growth, increased productivity, and higher living standards, but in Haiti it has taken a different course. Potential benefits have been overshadowed by immense challenges, all of which require immediate action. To better understand the factors that constrain the sustainable and inclusive development of Haitian cities, this Urbanization Review organizes the challenges along three dimensions of urban development namely planning, connecting, and financing. Planning reviews the challenges in supporting resilient growth to create economically vibrant, environmentally sustainable, and livable cities. Connecting focuses on the obstacles of physically linking people to jobs and businesses to markets, while financing focuses on identifying the key capital, governance, and institutional constraints that are hurdles to successful planning and connecting

Local orientational order in liquids revealed by resonant vibrational energy transfer

We demonstrate that local orientational ordering in a liquid can be observed in the decay of the vibrational anisotropy caused by resonant transfer of vibrational excitations between its constituent molecules. We show that the functional form of this decay is determined by the (distribution of) angles between the vibrating bonds of the molecules between which energy transfer occurs, and that the initial drop in the decay reflects the average angle between nearest neighbors. We use this effect to observe the difference in local orientational ordering in the two hydrogen-​bonded liquids ethanol and N-​methylacetamide

Een kunstwerk onder de Nieuwe Maas

The tunnel below the river the Nieuwe Maas not only is a civil-technical achievement. Connecting both banks of the Maas the tunnel is an element to improve the coherence in Rotterdam's urban conglomerate of centre, harbours and housing areas. As Holland's first tunnel below water-level (1937-'42) this tunnel moreover has to be seen as a technical object of prestige. To improve contact between the town- and harbour developments on the left bank with the mother town on the right side ir. L. W. H. van Dijk , director of Municipal Works in 1929 proposed to lay out a tunnel in the line Park-Charlois. Joining the network of thoroughfares this tracé would ameliorate interlocal connection to the south as well. This solution at first being furnished in 1854 the idea of a tunnel had continually been rejected because of doubts on technical realizableness. The tunnel also was subject of discussion among municipality and the State Department of Buildings and Roads, which had planned a bridge to the east of the town at Stormpolder. In 1933 the Department however accepted the Burgomaster and Aldermen's proposal to lay out a junction in the line Park-Charlois serving urban and interlocal traffic, the bridge at Stormpolder being mainly of regional importance. Still in 1935 Minister dr. H.Colijn demanded the institution of a committee to explore the design, costs and usefulness of both plans which had to be worked out in detail. After many sessions of the town council and requests to the Government with respect to financing in 1937 the State finally agreed with the tunnel-plan which had been extended with space to traffic by pedestrians and cyclists. Knowledge had to be acquired before one could start building. Representatives of Municipal Works undertook study tours to the United States, Great Britain and Germany. Because of the condition of the soil, the sink-method of sinking concrete tubes next to one another into a firm dry-dock proved to be the most suitable. The Municipal Technical Service advised the construction of a four-laned tunnel with bugger-squares to separate in- and out-coming traffic. In many ways, the first car-tunnel, the Holland-tunnel in New York, served as an example. The Maas-tunnel consists of three parts: one river-part and two instalments on land, which parts have been connected by the foundations of the ventilation-buildings on caissons. Next to these buildings an entrance building destined for pedestrians and cyclists and a garage are built on each side of the river. The traverse of the Maas-tunnel meets local as well as interlocal traffic. During the period of the Rebuilding the metro project was presented (1960-'68). This metro-line also contains a tunnel below the Nieuwe Maas. Within the framework of the new network of thoroughfares surrounding Rotterdam the Beneluxtunnel (1967) has been constructed to the west of the Maas-tunnel. Local and interlocal junctions of the banks are being adapted. Nevertheless, the Maas-tunnel still is an important link in the urban network as well as an example of how to construct these sort of tunnels like this was the case at the Y-tunnel of Amsterdam

Een kunstwerk onder de Nieuwe Maas

The tunnel below the river the Nieuwe Maas not only is a civil-technical achievement. Connecting both banks of the Maas the tunnel is an element to improve the coherence in Rotterdam\u27s urban conglomerate of centre, harbours and housing areas. As Holland\u27s first tunnel below water-level (1937-\u2742) this tunnel moreover has to be seen as a technical object of prestige. To improve contact between the town- and harbour developments on the left bank with the mother town on the right side ir. L. W. H. van Dijk , director of Municipal Works in 1929 proposed to lay out a tunnel in the line Park-Charlois. Joining the network of thoroughfares this tracé would ameliorate interlocal connection to the south as well. This solution at first being furnished in 1854 the idea of a tunnel had continually been rejected because of doubts on technical realizableness. The tunnel also was subject of discussion among municipality and the State Department of Buildings and Roads, which had planned a bridge to the east of the town at Stormpolder. In 1933 the Department however accepted the Burgomaster and Aldermen\u27s proposal to lay out a junction in the line Park-Charlois serving urban and interlocal traffic, the bridge at Stormpolder being mainly of regional importance. Still in 1935 Minister dr. H.Colijn demanded the institution of a committee to explore the design, costs and usefulness of both plans which had to be worked out in detail. After many sessions of the town council and requests to the Government with respect to financing in 1937 the State finally agreed with the tunnel-plan which had been extended with space to traffic by pedestrians and cyclists. Knowledge had to be acquired before one could start building. Representatives of Municipal Works undertook study tours to the United States, Great Britain and Germany. Because of the condition of the soil, the sink-method of sinking concrete tubes next to one another into a firm dry-dock proved to be the most suitable. The Municipal Technical Service advised the construction of a four-laned tunnel with bugger-squares to separate in- and out-coming traffic. In many ways, the first car-tunnel, the Holland-tunnel in New York, served as an example. The Maas-tunnel consists of three parts: one river-part and two instalments on land, which parts have been connected by the foundations of the ventilation-buildings on caissons. Next to these buildings an entrance building destined for pedestrians and cyclists and a garage are built on each side of the river. The traverse of the Maas-tunnel meets local as well as interlocal traffic. During the period of the Rebuilding the metro project was presented (1960-\u2768). This metro-line also contains a tunnel below the Nieuwe Maas. Within the framework of the new network of thoroughfares surrounding Rotterdam the Beneluxtunnel (1967) has been constructed to the west of the Maas-tunnel. Local and interlocal junctions of the banks are being adapted. Nevertheless, the Maas-tunnel still is an important link in the urban network as well as an example of how to construct these sort of tunnels like this was the case at the Y-tunnel of Amsterdam