Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/171144 
Year of Publication: 
2017
Series/Report no.: 
CESifo Working Paper No. 6680
Publisher: 
Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo), Munich
Abstract: 
What are the long run consequences of planning and providing basic infrastructure in neighborhoods, where people build their own homes? We study “Sites and Services” projects implemented in seven Tanzanian cities during the 1970s and 1980s, half of which provided infrastructure in previously unpopulated areas (de novo neighborhoods), while the other half upgraded squatter settlements. Using satellite images and surveys from the 2010s, we find that de novo neighborhoods developed better housing than adjacent residential areas (control areas) that were also initially unpopulated. Specifically, de novo neighborhood are more orderly and their buildings have larger footprint areas and are more likely to have multiple stories, as well as connections to electricity and water, basic sanitation and access to roads. And though de novo neighborhoods generally attracted better educated residents than control areas, the educational difference is too small to account for the large difference in residential quality that we find. While we have no natural counterfactual for the upgrading areas, descriptive evidence suggests that they are if anything worse than the control areas.
Subjects: 
urban economics
economic development
slums
Africa
JEL: 
R31
O18
R14
Document Type: 
Working Paper
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