Urban Poverty & Climate Change in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania:

quality. Olvera et al. (2002) state that the “unequal access to transportation networks is all
the more critical in that it is combined with a more or less pronounced lack of services”
in various areas (p.89), with the poor road connections in unplanned settlements being the
cause of greater distances to main schools and health services. They state:
• The availability and cost of public transport weighs heavily on essential fields such as
health and education in that they tend to reduce access to those services;
• Often, poor households (the vast majority) must limit their trips outside the neighborhood
to the most indispensable activities;
• Both public and private primary and secondary schools are at a greater distance from
unplanned settlements than from affluent neighborhoods;
• Above and beyond the difficulty of transportation, particularly for schoolchildren, the
simple cost of trips increases the overall cost of schooling and may constitute one of the
factors resulting in the premature exit from school for children in poor families.
• Transportation difficulties further reduce the possibilities of finding an accessible job;
• Health services such as public/private clinic/hospitals are closer in proximity to affluent
neighborhoods than to squatter settlements. The cost and inconvenience of traveling to
these areas, in compliance with the high cost of health care, greatly deters the poor
population from using and benefiting from hospital services;
3.2.4 Housing
Dar es Salaam has three municipalities: Temeke, Ilala and Kinondoni (as shown in Fig.
1(a)). The largest concentration of poor unplanned settlements is in Kinondini; these are
overcrowded and lack basic infrastructure services. Most of the city’s unplanned
settlements are located along the Kilwa, Morogoro, Nelson Mandela and Pugu roads
(Howe and Bryceson, 2000). Briggs and Mwamfupe (2000) state that development of the
city’s informal settlements was driven by hydrological characteristics and the available
public transportation system, and Sietchiping (2005) shows that informal growth patterns
tend to emerge along riverbanks, steep slopes, dumping grounds, abandoned or
unexploited plots, along transportation networks, near industrial and market areas, and in
low-lying areas or wetlands. Figure 19 displays the location of Dar es Salaam’s informal
settlements (in year 2002).
Although formal procedures apply for plot acquisition in Dar es Salaam’s planned urban
areas, illegal housing is common in unplanned areas. This results in insecurity of land
use, which can play a major role in the vulnerability of residents. Dar es Salaam’s open
spaces (public and private lands) are widely used for urban agriculture, for example, but
agreements between owners and users are sometimes nonexistent or informal.
37