Does size matter? Displacement processes applied in urban development projects in Dar es Salaam City

Abstract

This paper aims at comparing processes and challenges faced by few displaced property owners from regularization projects and mass population displacement of property owners from airport expansion project. The paper describes procedures used by the government and project implementers in displacing mass population from airport expansion project; in comparison with that used in few individual property owners from the regularisation projects. It analyses the urgency on responding to the needs and demands of individually few and collectively mass population of the affected population in the resettlement areas within Dar es Salaam city. The paper applied a case study strategy on which two projects were compared and contrasted. The data used in this paper were collected from two different researches with two different case studies. In both cases, in depth interviews were applied to affected property owners who were displaced from regularization projects in Manzese and Buguruni Wards; and those who were displaced from the airport expansion project in Kipawa Ward. Through their narrations; process, procedures, and risks/harms faced by both groups were described, analysed and compared through eventualization method. The paper aims to find out if size of the displaced people did matter in influencing government involvement in speeding up the displacement process. It compares few cases of three property owners who were affected from the regularisation projects; with more than two thousand property owners who were displaced from two settlements which were completely demolished to give land for airport expansion. It was found that displacement processes took 15 years with 14 procedures that is, many and longer in one project compared to the other one which took less than two years with about six procedures followed. The paper also describes common displacement risks faced by both projects.

Keywords: regularization, mass population, property owners, resettlement, compensation