Market and Daily Housing Production in Fast Changing East African Cities

This research project looks at everyday housing production, permanence, and adaptation in Dar es Salaam’s fast changing neighborhoods. The aim is to decode everyday housing practice in the city by though four main issues of inquiry:

As the city of Dar es Salaam continues to grow and state and private agents plan to invest in strategic territories, how is it possible to facilitate processes whereby local residents can exercise their right to housing and, if desired, remain in their neighborhoods of origin?

What are the processes, transactions, practices and relationships that occur every day at the neighborhood level and that help explain long term permanence, in spite of precarious living conditions?

How do residents perceive their everyday tactics to produce, remain in and adapt to fast changing urban settings?

How can such understanding help imagine other models of urban production and transformation disconnected from formalization and regularization, and public-private sponsored, large scale urban renovations?

Lead Researcher:

Dr. Priscila Izar, Ardhi University / Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Co-Research Fellows:

Dr. Nathalie Jean-Baptiste, Ardhi University

Dr. Tatu Limbumba, Ardhi University

Mejah Mbuya, Director and Co-founder of Afriroots, MBA Candidate at the African Leadership University

Papers & Publications

Izar, P & Jean-Baptiste, N. “Housing practice and urban transformation at the interface of formality and informality. The case of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.” Anais to XVIII Enampur – Tempos em de-transformação/ utopias. Natal. May 27 – 31, 2019.

Izar, P & Limbumba, T. A matter of value: scope and limitations of state support models to housing provision in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (in progress)

Izar, P & Mbuya, M. Trade and everyday life in East African Coastal Cities: the evolution of two street markets and their surrounding communities in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (in progress)