Etelvina Saldanha – 12:32 AM
Urban Growth & Infrastructure

Hello everyone, in this sector, the destruction caused by the war in Angola reached almost all the heavy vehicle fleet, 80% of the park by rail and 20% of the park aircraft. Most roads became inoperative, and approximately 2800 kilometers of railway line only 12% remained in good condition (currently being under the recovery program Angoferro).
 Thus, the Government has developed a National Strategy for Transport in Angola for the period 2000-2015, which includes, among other measures, the construction of an integrated transport network and its integration into SADC and also the introduction of figures public-private partnerships or privatization, for reimbursement of the private sector in infrastructure managed by the state.
 The intention is to revive and modernize the transport system in Angola, in terms of new infrastructure (including terminals and dry ports), operations, regulation and institutions, so that it can serve as a lever to expand economic activities and ensure sustainable development across the country, as part of national reconstruction. In 1994, this road network consisted of 8000 km and 7870 km of paved gravel roads, which equalled a network of 75 000 km of roads. This total of 16,000 km of road is managed by the Angolan National Roads Institute (INEA). 
These roads are vital for linking Luanda to other provincial capitals and access to ports and borders, which is essential to economic dynamism.

Railway System: 
The Angolan railway system consists of lines that cross the t’s parents in east-west direction, and whose length is about 2750 km.
The core network is the Benguela (1305 km)2. 
(Being one of the most important railway lines in southern Africa, linking the plateau lands of Angola, Huambo and Zaire landlocked Zambia and rode through the Democratic Republic of Congo) with the port of Lobito. 
The other lines are the Moçamedes (907 km), linking the port of Namibe and Menongue that, when restored, will allow for transport of goods and people more efficiently between the port-city of Namibia to southern Angola and the Northern Namibia.
 The line Luanda-Malanje, also known as line Luanda, has an extension of 538 km3 and when rebuilt will connect to Luanda, agricultural zone, by excellence of Angola (the valleys of kassange and Kwanza), and the diamond fields.

Ports System
: Angola has three major ports, which makes a connection point to the rest of Southern Africa.
The three existing railway lines are the links to these three ports:
Luanda. Lobito and Namibe. In suits tonnage, there is another important port, the oil terminal Malongo. Cabinda.
 Aerial system transposed
. Angola has a national airline, TAAG – Angola Airlines has flights to domestic and international. In Luanda airport there are flights to destinations in Africa, Europe, South America, in the Caribbean. 
The Luanda airport also has flights to other airlines like TAP, Air France, SAA, Aeroflot, and others. 
Airport of Luanda was quoted between 30 busiest airports in the world, with an increase of 81.9% of its cargo volume from 1995 to 19962. 
Given the situation experienced in Hong Kong, China where some steps were:
trebled the annual license fee for cars, doubled the first registration fee (to 70% -90% of the import price of the vehicle) and doubled fuel taxes. Private and public vehicle ownership fell quickly. In 1985, the share of private cars registered in cars had fallen to 50%, 10% of them taxis.


I would add a few more measures could be effective in reducing transit system in my city, who also suffers from the problem of transportation bottlenecks:
– Schedule the repair works of roads for the period of the night and not duringthe day.
– Increase the tax car and trucks.

– Coordination of traffic signals for an order not to accumulate too many cars.
– Transportation underground and surface metro etc. 

– Car parks outside urban centers.

– Restrict the movement of heavy vehicles for periods at night, since they arethe heights of less traffic flow

– Incentive programs for people riding public transport instead of private transport.

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Soumya Dharmavaram – Tuesday, 25 September 2012, 07:19 PM
Re: Urban Growth & Infrastructure

I understand that following the destruction caused by war, transportation linkages between cities is very important. Could you tell us more about the transportation system in Luanda itself?

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Allan Cain – Tuesday, 25 September 2012, 07:32 PM
Re: Urban Growth & Infrastructure

Dear Soumya & colleagues,
I wanted to return to some of those issues that relate particularly to post conflict cities like Luanda, Kabul and several others. We have the situation of major population growth over extended periods of time during the war, that resulted in increasing densities due to families from rural areas seeking the relative safe havens in the poor districts in the centres of cities. We have seen population growth without corresponding infrastructural and transport development. In fact increasing numbers of people will put demands on the same old infrastructure. With the end of the war, we suddenly get pressure for a geographical extension of the city when the hinterland becomes safer. This urban expansion can be very rapid and likely beyond the capacity of urban planners and administrators of land to control. Rapid growth of peripheral slums seems to be characteristic of the post-conflict period.

It is important for urban planners and managers to anticipate these demographic shifts and corresponding pressures on land use in order to develop policies to guide this settlement pressure during and after conflicts. The tools presented in this course will be very useful but the planning horizons may have to be adjusted to accommodate for the very rapid changes that we can anticipate.

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Soumya Dharmavaram – Tuesday, 25 September 2012, 08:57 PM
Re: Urban Growth & Infrastructure

Thanks, Allan. What is the transportation system in Luanda? How is coping with rapid population growth coupled with rapid urban expansion? In the face of very rapid growth and planning uncertainty, what would be key/skeletal land use measures that can keep pace with transportation demand in Luanda?

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Allan Cain – Tuesday, 25 September 2012, 09:22 PM
Re: Urban Growth & Infrastructure

 Dear Soumya,
I have addressed these issues about transportation growth in Luanda in my 3rd assignment paper. I am attaching it here without the graphics:

Luanda’s first post independence structural plan was developed in 1998. It was largely based on the concept of ring roads in an attempt to break down the traditional colonial “radial” pattern that was dominated by three transport corridors that radiated out from the traditional port area of the old city of Luanda. The ring road served to draw populations out to the periphery of the city and has resulted in new urban growth on both sides and encouraged a significant geographical expansion of the city. Luanda has become one of Africa’s fastest growing cities in the last two decades with an annual population growth of between 5-6%. The physical growth of the city has been even faster, more than doubling in size in the last 15 years.

It is forecast that Luanda will continue to grow at about 4.5% annually. With raising land prices in the CBD and new investment center of Talatona inner city slum areas are also experiencing raising land values. Inner city slum areas are slowly being gentrified and the poor have begun to migrate away from the inner city to find cheaper land in the periphery.

In preparing Luanda’s next CIP, we must consider the existing city’s transport and service structure laid down in colonial tines and also the positive and negative influences of the 1998 structure plan. The colonial radial road pattern has lead to the concentration of investment in the CBD where land prices have increased dramatically. The CIP that we envision will promote a multi-nodal development of Luanda. The ring road development of the last plan has resulted in a leap-frogging of development and the opportunity to plan new urban development nodes in the peri-urban areas. Three new development centres are emerging. The previous fishing village of Cacuaco, north-east of Luanda falls within the ring road and has become a major residential area with some future potential for the development of sea-side amenities. The second node to the east is now linked by the new ring road is called Viana. It had been planned as an industrial satellite town but now has become part of metropolitan Luanda. The third new node is in the south of the city centre at Kilamba Kiaxi where Chinese investment has been employed to build a dormitory community, a new university campus and an Olympic-scale sports complex.

While the new multi-nodal urban development strategy may help take the pressure off of Luanda’s old congested CBD an appropriate “transport-oriented” development strategy has still to be implemented. The third new node remains isolated and connected only by the new ring-road. It was built on the urban fringe for convenience and ease of land acquisition. However, there is no arterial transport link to the city centre where the majority of people still work. The sports educational facilities remain weakly connected and transport times for commuters average at about 2 hours per journey (well above the maximum recommended 40 minutes). The reliance on auto-centric road-based transport has lead to increased congestion where the commercial rate of traffic movement in the CBD averages only 5 km per hour and an almost complete lack of parking which remains free for those who can find a space.

Increasing land prices have resulted in public open spaces and parks being appropriated for new high-rise buildings. Water courses and drainage channels which are dry except for the rainy season are clogged with rubbish, preventing run-off and provoking serious flooding every year. The proposed CIP envisions the development of a “wedge-based” greening strategy that will incorporate a multi-functional land use, supporting a rapid-transit (rail system), intermittent storm water drainage (preventing seasonal floods), providing parklands for recreation as well as erosion control and water absorption/retention through the planning of indigenous trees and vegetation. Each green-wedge will support a rapid-transit corridor between the CBD and one of the three new nodes.

The CIP will cover metropolitan Luanda and require multi-jurisdiction coordination between Luanda’s five municipalities and the Luanda provincial Government. In order to implement the CIP the provincial Government will need to approve a set of new bye-laws and revise some existing zoning to allow for multi-land use and set some new regulations such as parking-fees and coordinate city wide rubbish/waste management and a well controlled modern land-fill.

The acquisition of land for the creation of green-wedges as well for the development of corridors for rapid-transit lines will require careful and regular consultation with affected or adjacent local communities. Plans must demonstrate that improved environmental services and transport will directly benefit low-income areas. Land values will inevitably increase in areas adjacent to the new corridors and around the nodes. Land readjustment/pooling approaches can encourage buy-in from neighboring communities who may lose some land but find their retained land has increased substantially in value. Communities adjacent to the new green wedges should be permitted to acquire allotments for gardens and urban food production and compost their household organic waste. The proposed “Green CIP” will require some remedial actions to correct existing urban patterns and adapt to Luanda’s post-war population explosion. It will promote water and sanitation upgrading to at least meet MDG targets, and promote consultative planning processes that are inclusive of poor residents.

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Soumya Dharmavaram – Tuesday, 25 September 2012, 10:16 PM
Re: Urban Growth & Infrastructure

Thanks, Allan. It is interesting that the ring road development Luanda has resulted in leap-frogging. Something for us to consider when we talk of relieving the traffic pressure within our cities. We would like to hear more details about the transportation system in Luanda.

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Ilídio Daio – Wednesday, 26 September 2012, 04:41 AM
Re: Urban Growth & Infrastructure

Dear Soumya and collegues,
In my opinion would be very difficult to finance large investment in transport services. Should be taken combined measures integrating land use and transport, such:

– Transit oriented development strategy, creating high density mix use urban nodes, to facilitate accessibility where employment, services and residence are agglomerated.

– Balancing rings and radials roads, maximizing their capacities with a spatial strategic planning.

Transport demand management play a very important role in rapidly growing cities, that combined measures guided with a strategic planning are part of solution.

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Andre Melo – Wednesday, 26 September 2012, 12:30 PM
Re: Urban Growth & Infrastructure

The successful implementation of the planned transport infrastructure and land use for Luanda, as described by Allan, will require a double pronged approach. As jurisdictional strategies are worked on from the top, a lot of ground work should also be done with households at neighborhood level.

 There is great need to carry out massive sentizations, demonstrations, and monitoring of household waste transformation to compost which can be used for urban kitchen gardening in Luanda’s neighborhoods. This will produce several benefits. Besides those associated with reduced household expenditures on food and improvements on their dietary nutritional value, it will help households optimize water usage and reduce their contribution to undesignated gabbage fills which provoke flooding.

 Ultimately, this broad based strategy will prevent roads in low-income neighborhoods from being damaged by open running waste water. Land Readjustment models also have the capacity to facilitate the merging of household/neighborhood efforts with those of the communal/municipal administrations to put road, water, sewer, and electricity networks in conditions that serve the needs of low-income communities and facilitate the collection of tax/levies on these services by the designated entities.

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Klara Danilovic – Monday, 24 September 2012, 10:02 AM
Re: Urban Growth & Infrastructure

Dear Vanessa,
Thank you for bringing in some very interesting issues, such as subsidies for fuel. It is very interesting to read how Luanda tries to solve the transportation challenges. Your latest statement is rather strong. Informal transport means seem to be unsustainable. Do you think that some kind of public campaign could help to promote new mass transit system, or only economic instruments and enforcement of rules can suppress informal transport means?

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Jose Van-Dunem – Tuesday, 25 September 2012, 10:04 AM
Re: Urban Growth & Infrastructure

Hi everyone,
Concerning the question, I don’t think that financing large investments in transportation related taxes only would be the solution to address traffic congestion problems specially in developing countries. Just to add to what most have said and relating to Luanda’s context. I think that mass investment in transportation may also imply more use of private automobile if private ownership is not controlled. The government in Luanda is investing regularly in transportation system by recovering and reconstructing roads which were once in bad conditions but the levels of traffic congestion still rising every day. Other issue is the quality of the infrastructure itself is questionable because the new upgraded and constructed roads don’t last for long period of time. Some routes are easily degraded and the authorities have to repay companies to repeat the process.

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Nuno Reis – Tuesday, 25 September 2012, 11:30 AM
Re: Urban Growth & Infrastructure

Hi Jose,
I think that you are correct in your analysis. On the one hand people in developing countries lack the resources to pay taxes on the other hand there is no efficient supervision of construction of roads and public infrastructure. However, I still think that it is important to have public transportation systems that are efficient and cheep. I also understand that a reorganization of urban space with greater proximity of people to the activity and businesses centers would reduce the need for investment in transport infrastructure because we would have the reduction of people need to move or circulate.

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Jose Van-Dunem – Tuesday, 25 September 2012, 12:23 PM
Re: Urban Growth & Infrastructure

Yeah Nuno! I agree with you completely. In the case of Luanda, at the moment it is not viable to implement measures like fuel price hike and motor vehicle import taxes. People don’t have efficient public transportation alternative to travel to work and access services; the city would simply stall because private motor vehicle has been the solution for many of us. Other measures would be to locate new services around neighborhoods to prevent people from travelling long distances while there is no BRT, proper functioning bus and trains.

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José Tiago Catito – Tuesday, 25 September 2012, 01:50 PM
Re: Urban Growth & Infrastructure

Hi I agree with you José. I’m joining the discussion only today, but I’d like to share my opinion concerning to Luanda.  Some years ago the government increased the fuel prices, and the taxes for imported vehicles, one of the objectives was to reduce the flow of vehicles circulating in the city making the chaotic traffic, but it didn’t work because such measures do not take into account that most people use private transport instead of public transport that does not satisfies the demand.

Another aspect has to do with the network of roads in the periphery is in most cases in poor condition which makes movement difficult, access to services is poor and people has to travel long distances to get this services. As measures to mitigate these problems should be implemented multi-sectorial plans involving several structures as urban planning and construction, land administration, environment, transport and others. I believe there are already plans, but while they are not implemented successfully, the framework of Luanda will still continue to be chaotic.

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Ilídio Daio – Friday, 21 September 2012, 09:17 PM
Re: Urban Growth & Infrastructure

Dear Pedro, Soumya and collegues,
China has being exercise a strong influence in Africa in several domains, and the urban one of the more relevates. 
Angola 3rd economy in Africa in 10 years after the end of war, and Luanda the capital, is facing a fast urbanization and belong between the 3 more expensive cities in the world. 


In this city, was planned and built a brand new township by Chinese named “kilamba.”  
Have 5.400 Ha , with 377 buildings with 8 /12 floors (total 750 buildings in the end of project.) 
This new township dist 20 km from Luanda CBD, with some inadequacies of transport accessibility as well as financial for affordability in purchasing of the apartments. Some press she calls “ghost city.” See link.

I have two questions:

1 – Do you think that could have local technicians’ coordination with the Chinese companies in the next phases? and How? 

2 – What influence can have the transports sector to dynamise, and reshape that city?

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 Pedro Ortiz – Sunday, 23 September 2012, 07:10 PM
Re: Urban Growth & Infrastructure

Dear Llidio, 

What is the rate of growth of Luanda? We shall extrapolate that and see what Luanda should make to cope with that and address a sustainable future. if we don’t have this approach that future is going to overrun us, as it probably doing right now… 

I have been looking to the location of the Chinese ‘citadel’. The location is strategic and even though new-towns don’t work (and we can discuss that if you would like to) it can be integrated in the overall pattern of Luanda’s growth structure. 

Let’s discuss that. How much, where and how to foresee and respond to the needs of Luanda. Would you like to explore that? Those are the essential questions we have to answer to address both your questions on how to dialogue with the Chinese project and how to use the transport policies to shape the future of the Metropolis.

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Pedro Ortiz – Sunday, 23 September 2012, 08:17 PM
Re: Urban Growth & Infrastructure

Public Administration in urban planning fulfils two roles:
1- Fosters development by the proposals and interventions it makes. It’s the propositive side. The investments (infrastructures and facilities) and the leadership role. Those are the commitments of the public sector.

2- It controls the private sector to avoid the negative externalities of it. (Have a look to the analysis on ‘externalities’ made in the Tsendsuren response) For this policing role you must have the capacity to implement the necessary urban discipline. If you don’t then everyone will do whatever they want and you have to cope with it. ‘Legalizing’ afterwards might be of no use if you still are unable to enforce urban discipline and the uncontrolled building process will go on.

 To do correct planning you need both. Public sector leadership and private sector control. If any of both is missing, we are in trouble. And in many (most) places we are in deep trouble!



But, do not forget that even if you have both you must know how to use it:
1- Leadership must be ‘legitimate’. You must really have to point to the right direction and do the investments necessary, efficient, equitable and sustainable.

2- And Control must be flexible and the outcome of a dialogue where the private sector has the freedom to have initiatives and entrepreneurship. They are the ones that produce economic development and wealth. So, what you have to do with the private sector is to give them freedom and control the externalities, the negative ones. 

In planning this is not easy, because it is not easy to calculate the long term effect of those externalities. A cost-benefit analysis in each case is not possible. Then you have to rely in regulations that would provide the framework to control the negative externalities. But you have to be very much aware that that is the purpose of those regulations. 

let me say that they have to be: ‘The minimum possible and the maximum necessary’… and not the other way around.

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Pedro Ortiz – Monday, 24 September 2012, 03:55 AM
Re: Urban Growth & Infrastructure

Luanda has two very clear directionalities:
1) The coast and 2) the inland axis.

These two directionalities join at the historic city center and produce an orbital structure defined by the diagonals that enclose the urban consolidated continuum. 
The crossing of the orbital structure with the inland directionality is the most important strategic point for development. The Industrial parks have been located there. Industrial activities are not the best for those strategic locations. They should be of an upper rank. Directional centers of tertiary and office activities would be better in the long term. They must be linked to the historic center by a BRT, a LRT or a rail commuter line.

 The structure is very similar to Dar es Salaam. You should look at this. 

The Chinese new town along the orbital road could become in the future a sub-center for that area of the metropolis, but the whole structure has be be thought over and not just let to be devolved by disjointed incrementalism by foreign forces which are looking for the long term General Interest of Luanda nor Angola. 

Would you like to develop these concepts?

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Ilídio Daio – Wednesday, 26 September 2012, 05:18 AM
Re: Urban Growth & Infrastructure

Dear Pedro,
 Luanda urban growth is about 8 % a year. I think that kilamba new township, will create another inland growth corridor, but should be combined with a inner ring trunk infrastructure (rail, express road) with a future radial system integrating land use and transport, creating a new linear compact node between CBD and chinese township.

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Pedro Ortiz – Wednesday, 26 September 2012, 01:42 PM
Re: Urban Growth & Infrastructure

Dear Ilidio
,
8% is enormous! That means 100% in less than 10 years! Luanda is doubling its size every ten years. You have to produce, provide land for all these people. That is the only way of not making a mess for the future of Luanda and Angola (the share of the Capital in the economy of the country makes of it a national problem and not just a municipal one.)

I am afraid the policies you just mentioned are not enough to address the issue. And there is a serious administration responsibility on addressing these issues in the right way and the right dimension if one does not want to be accountable for the mess that one can leave behind.

There are solutions. There is only the need to be able to address the issue at the right level and produce the discussions and solutions at that level.


Best, Pedro

Post Scriptum: Beware of ‘ring roads’. They create an orbital system that takes you to congestion and gridlock as the final outcome. Rather better to create linear corridors to expand and decongestion.

 

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Jose Van-Dunem – 10:40 AM
Land Use Plans

Dear all, planning instruments like policies, land use and zoning regulations, have only being introduced recently in most municipalities of Luanda. In the period of civil war, Luanda sprawled with slum because of flock of people coming from different regions of the country looking for safer place to settle. The government could not control the haphazard growth of the city by then; even the existing colonial regulations became basically ineffective. The inexistence of professional planners within governmental institution led to the deficient attempt to reorganize the city growth.

Luanda’s and most of municipality’s master plan are currently being elaborated with the involvement of public and the assistance of international urban planning companies. Within the municipalities these instruments aim to tackle urban redevelopment, appropriate infrastructure, and public housing, and incentive on economic development through local economic development since these are some of the major concerns affecting Luanda city. The public is reacting positively to these measures but still some reservations to the success of the implementation. The all process could take decades to be completed.

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Allan Cain – Thursday, 13 September 2012, 08:58 PM
Re: Land Use Plans

Elections were held in Angola s few weeks ago at the end of August 2012. We do not have mayors yet in Angola and the first municipal elections will be held only in 2015. However, I am going to assume that I am one of the deputies elected for the urban district of Luanda and my constituency is Cazenga Municipality. This is the closest we have to an elected representative for an urban district. Cazenga is one of Angola’s oldest high density municipalities composed of mainly slum settlements. Cazenga is the most populous municipality in Angola and contains almost a quarter of the population of the metropolitan region of the capital Luanda. Some of the country’s largest informal market-places were located in Cazenga. Many informal market places have been recently closed and sellers forcibly removed to the periphery of the city.

There is a rising discontent in Cazenga’s slum communities due to the loss of informal sector employment and the threat by the previous administration to continue with demolitions and forcibly remove a large number of slum dwellers to townships beyond the edge of the city. While the governing party was re-elected last month it was with a smaller majority than previously and the turn-out for elections was drastically reduced to little over 50% in urban districts like Cazenga. Opposition parties made significant inroads into poor bairros. The newly elected Government has a five-year term and it is my proposal as elected deputy for this urban district to develop a new urban strategy that will regain the support of urban residents by revising planning strategies and taking more consultative and participatory approaches.

Cazenga occupies an area of 38.6 Km2. The municipality grew quickly during the years of conflict until 2002 when internally displaced families fled the interior of the country and occupied informal settlements. The population today is 1,250,000 and the average population density is 32,380 persons per square kilometer. Only 8% of the population has sewage connections, 14% have running water in their homes and 62% of the households have a connection to the electric grid. Only 26% of the working population has formal employment, 45% earn their livings in the informal market and 29% are unemployed. Less than 10% of householders have secure access to the land that their homes occupy. The government lacked the institutional capacity to manage Cazenga’s growth during the war years and settlers were obliged to acquire land, housing and basic services through informal market mechanisms. Populations consider assets purchased in good faith through these processes as acquired legitimately and are increasingly concerned about rumors of forcible removals.

The Government has begun to take a number of measures to begin to address the chronic problems of Cazenga and other urban municipalities of metropolitan Luanda. A draft “structure plan for Luanda” was published in the late 1990s when the war was still on-going, but aside from some specific “Greenfield” projects on the outskirts of Luanda was never detailed. A “strategic spatial plan” for the metropolitan region of Luanda and neighboring Bengo province was developed but never formally approved. The process of decentralization of governance began in the post war period. There has been a de-concentration of powers and budgets to municipalities but true local governance will only be achieved after municipal elections planned for 2015. Local Administration is still appointed by central Government and appointed Provincial Governors still have a strong influence in urban issues. Municipalities are obliged to prepare annual plans and budgets and have new responsibilities for land management and basic services, but do not yet have the qualified staff or resources to address these responsibilities.

The State President has created a “special office” to address the problem of urban renewal in Cazenga and several other urban districts of the inner-city of Luanda. The special office is linked with Provincial Government of Luanda and is tasked with developing au urban development strategy for these slum districts and proposing physical planning solutions. The tools needed for achieving this task are not yet in place. Land legislation published in 2004 reaffirming the State’s ownership of land has not been fully regulated yet and by-laws on managing peri-urban land have not yet been approved. Inappropriate “colonial era” regulations are still often applied. The informal land market prevails and has legitimacy with the large majority of people and the State has little authority to enforce its claim to land ownership and therefore to impose its master planning decisions without resorting to heavy-handed police coercion. Authority is further complicated by over-lapping jurisdictions. The “special office for urban renewal” has the political clout of the State President’s office behind it but was put in-place in offices adjacent to the office of the Luanda Provincial Institute for Urban Management, and without apparent institutional linkages with the Ministry of Urbanism and Construction who has national responsibility for setting policies for the urban sector. The new roles of Municipalities in urban management of land and basic services have yet to be fully developed but hold promise for the future when local elections are held.

As a newly-elected deputy representing this urban region I have one of the few legitimate voices to claim to speak on this issue on behalf of the constituency. The course that I have recently attended has demonstrated to me the limitations of traditional “master planning” approaches in the rapidly changing context of post-war Angola. The need to adopt a “strategic special planning” approach is evident but lacking local democratically elected representatives it is challenging to engage the “stakeholders” that should be consulted. An “urban reference plan” outlining major road systems that will provide a simplified guide to the growth of the metropolitan area and needs to be prioritized. Due to contentious land tenure at the margin or the city a “guided land development” plan is not feasible because private land owner’s claims are not fully respected by the state. However the process of land-pooling/readjustment has proven to be successful in another Angolan province and may prove to be a method that reconciles land claimants with government’s urban expansion plan in a way that market forces can be mobilized to compensate existing land occupants and provide financing for the implementation of basic infrastructure services.

Appropriate regulatory instruments need to be introduced to support the physical planning process in Cazenga. I will propose a regulatory by-lay linked to the Land Law covering peri-urban land that will reinstate the right of occupation in-good-faith that will provide scalable land tenure rights to slum-dwellers. The by-law will introduce a set of urban standards related to environment, safety, adequate access, floor area ratios and service access that will allow slum communities to progressively upgrade their land tenure status. A physical land cadastre will be an initial step in this process and I propose carrying this out in a participatory manner using local residents associations to implement enumerations using participatory mapping and GIS tools. The cadastre and the eventual land regularization will provide Municipalities with an opportunity to generate income through the issue of titles and eventually introduce property taxes in order to capture and recover some of the increased value created by the formalization of property rights. Income can then be invested in improving basic services such as water, sanitation and electricity that can produce more income through consumer service fees. Until municipal elections are held in 2015, the “consultative councils” (CACs) set up by the Decentralization Law must serve as formal mechanisms to promote community participation in the planning processes and approve physical plans and budgets, functions that “municipal councils” will assume after the 2015 elections. Municipal Forums that civil society organizations have already established to represent residents and local consumer interests must be engaged in the planning process and consulted at all stages and be adequately represented in the CACs. At this stage after the end of the civil war and before local elections it is important to promote behavior chance in urban areas by ensuring that civil society is adequately engaged in urban land planning processes in order to build consensus, ensure sustainability and reduce potential conflicts.

 

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Laura de Azcárate – Friday, 14 September 2012, 01:19 PM
Re: Land Use Plans

Hi Jose,
 I find very interesting what you explained about master plan of many municipalities of Luanda. When did the civil war finish? It’s common that after a war (and more intensively a civil war) people use to move massively and settle in slums.it’s necessary to make a subdivision and specific area plans to achieve land use planning and be aware of the importance of this urban issues in order to not to cross the growth boundaries and create a distinction between urban and rural areas.

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Jose Van-Dunem – Friday, 14 September 2012, 06:00 PM
Re: Land Use Plans

The civil war in Angola ended in 2002 when the leader of the rebel party Jonas Savimbe from (UNITA Party) was killed during the battle in February.

Concerning the slums; the authorities are developing townships in Viana Municipality located in the south of Luanda about 25 km from the city centre. It is mostly housing projects with water, electricity and sanitation. The housing typology varies from two to three rooms attached housing in stands of 250 m2. The authorities relocate people living in slums and risky areas to these new houses free of charge. Some problems concerning these settlements, is that most relocated people work in the city or nearby and they have difficulties with transportations to reach their workplace due to inexistence of efficient public transportation system (being addressed on the Master plans). Some services are not found within the new townships therefore people are forced to travel back to city centre to access services.

There has been restructuring of Luanda´s administrative municipalities and districts, which somehow can be seen as a strategy to avoid social segregation. The new townships are now located 5km to new urban centres like city of Kilamba south of Luanda, Talatona noble neighborhood (also in the south of Luanda) and Luanda´s new international airport currently under construction. Brown sites are being used as well as a strategy to carry out urban requalification process in order to eradicate slums within the city. Example; at the moment empty sites of 60 and 30 ha are being used to establish new urban zones for about 30 000 people. The project emphasizes social or public housing (mainly apartments, 4 storey buildings), infrastructure, urban parks, services and social equipments and provision of spaces for private investors as well. Once these sites are fully constructed, people will be removed from slums adjacent to these new settlements. Then areas left by the people will be cleared and the process will be repeated until the slums are eradicated. That’s the vision of the government for a long term process and implementation.

The master plan for Cazenga, Sambizanga and Rangel is still in course and at the moment the consultants are collecting contribution from different stakeholders; public in general and other institutions. The people involved in the project are shaping a plan which integrates as much as possible of the inhabitant’s background and social activity to prevent the elaboration of a plan which does not identify with the people to which it is being prepared for. Suggestions such free market which is very characteristic of Angolan culture is being considered, aspects such as sense of community, space for outdoor activities, sports, theatre etc all being considered, as well as. For more info u can access the face book here or search: Luanda Norte, and link here.

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Vanessa Maschio dos Reis – Monday, 17 September 2012, 05:37 PM
Re: Land Use Plans

In Luanda land use plans and regulations still have low impact on the city. On the other hand, infrastructure projects have high impact on the urban fabric. In my point of view one of the main causes for the low impact of land use regulations and plans is the lack of inspection that is linked to the weak institutional capacity. Although the Government is promoting the recruitment and expansion of its technical staff, these actions are insufficient to account for the complexity of the problems of regulation of urban land.

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Jose Van-Dunem – Tuesday, 18 September 2012, 01:37 PM
Re: Land Use Plans

Dear Klara, Vanessa and all,
Regarding your question about the threat to realization of the plan, I think that the position of the government towards implementation of the project can be considered as a concern. This project in particular has a strong social character in which the people are to be maintained in their area of origin as they participate in the process. But excessive involvement of private interest and corruption could cause deviation from original focus and therefore make vulnerable the people to which the project is intend to benefit.

Vanessa, from what I have seen, in terms of participation, there has been forums within Cazenga and Sambizanga, where the people from around these areas and other stakeholders have been asked to raise their concerns about the project as a give inputs, ideas to the vision and goals of the project in order to improve the initial set. There has been four sessions in which students from universities, representatives from other government institutions, community representatives have been invited to participate in the different phases of elaboration of the plan. New sessions will take place in each of the municipalities for community’s participation for discussion of more detailed plans to be developed.

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Vanessa Maschio dos Reis – Tuesday, 18 September 2012, 10:48 PM
Re: Land Use Plans

Dear Jose,

Thanks for your response.
 It is important that the example of the participation on Cazenga and Sambizanga be heavily documented and later identified the good practices. So can serve as a reference for other Angolan municipalities, as a local and actual example (not theoretical or foreign), in addition to the already by-law established Councils of Social Dialogue and Consultation (Conselho de Auscultação e Concertação Social).

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Allan Cain – Monday, 17 September 2012, 09:25 PM
Re: Land Use Plans

Dear Vanessa,
I agree with you that one of the constraints on planning is the lack of regulation for urban land and for planning legislation. The preamble to the Angolan planning law talks about public consultation and community participation but there are no clear regulations on how this consultation can happen. Angolan planners however should seek opportunities to formalise the regular participation of communities who will be affected by their plans. This can be done through civil society forums that exist in almost all of Luanda’s municipalities and have a good representation of communities and local associations.

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Sara Castro – Tuesday, 18 September 2012, 04:53 PM
Re: Land Use Plans

Dear Allan, 
I am interested to know if you read the case study on Japan and the CDC or Community Development Councils model. Is the Angolan experience similar? See here. 
Also, there is this fascinating ICT based Porto Alegre Brazil model for community engagement on behalf of local governments. It is the WIKICITY or PortoAlegre.cc model. Citizens voice their concerns, needs (Via text, phone or social media) and these are mapped on the website here. You can even zoom in by street level to see the key needs. Then the local government has 5 days to respond to the message, and they also organize face to face events and the upgrading happens according to key citizen needs in that area.

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Moisés Festo – Friday, 14 September 2012, 11:55 AM
Re: Land Use Plans

Dear all,
I agree with José, Example of Luanda we can find in all provinces in Angola but in low scale. One of challenge I think is capacity building for member that work in institution that have responsibility to land management. In Huambo province the master plan was elaborated in 2003/04 without take account participatory aspect. The result of this master plan was good in papers (a lot of colors) but impossible to Implement because that master plan does not reflect the real context of Huambo city. When we talk about institutional reform in institutional capacity be how can we have strengthened. Also take in account aspects of capacity building for the technicians of public institutions.

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Etelvina Saldanha – Tuesday, 18 September 2012, 02:52 PM
Re: Land Use Plans

Hello,
In my view referring to the topic, the reasons that lead to inefficiency and failure of master plans is that in my country as well as in other underdeveloped countries, these master plans are being developed by people outside the Angolan reality. There is a tendency from these planners to pick example from other countries that are not related to our experiences then they try to apply.

At the moment city of Luanda has a vast area of slums to be urbanized and it will be impossible to accomplish if these basic instruments of development and urban expansion are not applied. They contain guides for economic growth as well as social equilibrium and justice.

For that reason the government is requesting the people to participate in the process of urbanization by giving inputs to what they consider important to assist the technicians working on the plan of urban redevelopment. I completely agree with you Alain when u mentioned: “people in the street don’t know about urban regulations and plan. Some can’t read a plan while some can’t read at all. So how can we expect them to respect them?” First people need to know that there is a master plan and know what they r saying this because there are people in my town who are unaware that the country is making a master plan and is working on it right now (Angola has high levels of illiteracy about 33%,. It has decreased to 11% in 8 years from 44% to 33%).

We can create something that fits the reality of Angolans in general, there should be more disclosure and taking into account that there is about 37 to 50 languages (dialects) it would be essential to translate this same information in native languages so that all population in tune and can know the important step that government is giving. A master Plan should definitely grant the participation of the public since groups of all sphere of the society should be involved in all phases of the elaboration and implementation of the plan.

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José Tiago Catito – Tuesday, 18 September 2012, 03:29 PM
Re: Land Use Plans

My opinion about this matter is: The city of Luanda, built to house 700 000 people, welcoming nearly six million, as a result of 30 years of civil war that devastated Angola, forcing the displacement of thousands of people from the countryside to the capital in search of safety and supply.

 However, Luanda remains literally an urban center surrounded by slums, called “slums” where live the vast majority of its population, with the social problems that this entails concentration. However there are plans for redevelopment of the city of Luanda, they are being implemented in several phases, but in my opinion there is still a lack of compliance with plans and land use regulations on the part of urban builders, weak institutional capacity of Luanda government for the enforcement of these plans and regulations, on the other hand the land is owned by the state which in itself does not represent incentive for private investors

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Ellen Pratt – Tuesday, 18 September 2012, 11:28 PM
Re: Land Use Plans

Dear Jose,
Luanda’s urban context is similar to Monrovia. I would be interested to learn what types of redevelopment plans have been developed? Were they municipal lead planning exercises or were these plans done at the national level. Can you also tell us more about how planning is structured. Is it a function of the City of Luanda or the mandate of a national agency (such as a Ministry of Works).

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Massamba Dominique – Tuesday, 18 September 2012, 04:40 PM
Re: Land Use Plans

Hi everybody,
This is my opinion about the reality of my city. The city of Luanda still has many problems due to various factors combined, since the construction of which was to house 700,000 people, and is not that what is happening today, there is a very sharp growth. However, Luanda remains literally an urban center surrounded by slums, home to the overwhelming majority of its population, with the problems of lack of infrastructures. 

In Luanda there are plans for redevelopment and land use regulations, the more they have little impact on the city for lack of oversight by the institution responsible for this area, and lack of disclosure by the population because the population inhabit the lands to order.

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Antonio Capitango – Tuesday, 18 September 2012, 04:29 PM
Re: Land Use Plans
 
There is a lack of urban plans and urban planning regulations because it mostly makes the city grows by a disordered and partly unable to clear a legal instrument that people can rely on for his defence. ‘Cause here we can say that land and a scarce resource in urban development for several reasons but also their management is a factor of economic development. But in general we have a source of information in the event of doubt on it be updated depending on the development of cities with different counting policies.

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Ilídio Daio – Wednesday, 19 September 2012, 01:02 AM
Re: Land Use Plans

Dear Collegues,

My city Luanda, after decades of conflict, and living now 10 years of peace, it still faces massive migration, before for the war, but now for the improvement of the life conditions and job. Thereby, peri-urban areas are densifying quickly in a chaotic way, originating ghettos and slums. I agree with that the urban plans and regulations have little impact due to some reasons: 

– The governmental framework is still very centralized what turns the local power still weak. The social and ethnic heterogeneity of the urban peripheries, hinders the creation of community sense and participative
– The local administrations lack qualified technical personnel in amount to face several challenges.
– The institutional fragilization is outstanding, with consequences of corruption, fiscalization lack, impunity, etc. 

– The different partners’ and stakeholders coordination doesn’t exist in the implementation of the urban plans.
– The outdated laws urban, are not sufficiently regulated.
– Strong predominance of the informal sector exists, in the market of lands, construction, etc. 
But the main reason for the lack impact of the urban plans is inexistence of a deep study of the target population.

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Etelvina Saldanha – Wednesday, 19 September 2012, 03:27 PM
Re: Land Use Plans

Hello,
Soumya thanks for the reply, and I would say that the population plays a very important role, or the most important of all role in the acceptance of the master plan, the cities are made for people and cities without them, are nothing but abandoned buildings and we have a good example in Luanda in addition to the centrality of Kilamba Kiaxi, since the population may act as a saboteur of the director plan, we’ve had examples where the population said ”build something here that we do not want and we will destroy it”- and so, to say that the city planners teem to be in tune with the community, that’s the only way we can see the success and effectiveness of all this land use plan.

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Andre Melo – Thursday, 18 October 2012, 12:15 PM
Re: Land Use Plans

Dear Etelvina,
In my opinion a master plan is not the best for a city that grows so fast like Luanda, worse still knowing that the whole country is actually growing at a very fast rate. It is more favorable to create land use instruments that can be turned into planning tools and applied at basic or intermediate administrative levels beginning with titling. This is very important to guarantee an orderly and responsible development and application of sustainable policies.

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Vanessa Maschio dos Reis – Monday, 17 September 2012, 05:01 PM
Re: Land Use Plans

Hi Ellen,
In addition to what has been already commented about Luanda on Forum 2, both Group 1 and Group 2, I have some comment to add about the institutional capacity for participatory urban development plans in Angola in general.

 Although there has been a remarkable renewal of part of the institutional framework through technical procurement, there is still a reluctance to incorporate participatory activities from technical staff of some public planning agencies.
 In other words, in general, institutions are not used to be an element actively participative on the development of urban planning process when lead by hired consulting companies. Although it is mandatory by law the popular participation in the development of these urban plans, some technicians of those public agencies sometimes set themselves absent from this process. This is a pretty much likely reminiscence of the immediate post-conflict period, when those agencies used to get plans alike already finished.

 In my point of view, it is important to develop awareness actions for institutional agencies change in posture. What are your impressions on this very particular situation? What could be the proper approach to insert those public agencies in a leading way, even when they hire consultants for the general planning task?

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Ellen Hamilton – Wednesday, 19 September 2012, 02:29 AM
Re: Land Use Plans
 
Hi Vanessa,
This is an interesting experience. So the public is involved and the technical people are not? It’s usually the other way around! Does the city have a city development strategy that is the broad framework for the plan? Would it help for the elected leadership of the city to take ownership of the process of developing a city development strategy which would provide the rationale behind the planning process (and which would also mean the city officials saw it as their job to be involved)? (If I have misunderstood the political situation, please let me know.) 

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Ilídio Daio – Wednesday, 19 September 2012, 02:19 AM
Re: Land Use Plans

Dear Ellen, my city Luanda, capital of Angola, is facing a post-conflict effects of massive migration. Peri-urban area still densifying, and i agree with you that, master planning has been so unsuccessful particularly in rapidly growing cities as Luanda. I would like to know is if the strategy of “Urban Cell”, in a very dense and overcrowded slum “Cazenga” municipality, could be a option, a mix of Strategic Spatial Planning with Urban reference and urban grid?

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Ellen Hamilton – Wednesday, 19 September 2012, 03:35 AM
Re: Land Use Plans
 
Dear Ilídio,
Thank you for sharing the PowerPoint. I just looked at it. As I understand the idea is to introduce regular avenues and a street grid into a densely populated slum area. Have I understood correctly? If so, I would imagine that this could be very beneficial to the residents, although also could be very costly for the city as some sort of resettlement/compensation would be needed for people who lose their homes in order to build the roads. Are you looking at other elements of slum upgrading, too? There are some very successful programs in some cities and they might have some experiences that they could share with this kind of retrofitting of a slum area with roads. One thing this does suggest to me is the importance of keeping road rights of way free from being built upon as this is much cheaper to do than paying for moving people who are already living where the roads should go.

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Ilídio Daio – Wednesday, 19 September 2012, 03:41 PM
Re: Land Use Plans

Dear Ellen,

I aware of Brazilian experience of “Favela Bairro”, but paradoxically the favelas communities have some basic infrastructure and facilities solved, but still marginalized and social/spatial segregated, probably very costly in tong terms.
 Our Luanda reality, 80% of the lives, work in informal sector, normally very dense. 
Slum upgrading can result in some semi-regular slums, but the vast majority are very crowed and chaotic shape, that its very difficult to create some emergency access roads or drainage/sewage systems without demolish several home. I’m more concerned with transformation or evolutions status of the slums, but obviously aware of social and financial cost. Maybe some special chemotherapy for that particular “urban cancer”.

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Vanessa Maschio dos Reis – Thursday, 20 September 2012, 11:15 AM
Re: Land Use Plans

Hi Ellen,

Thanks for your comment. I am not aware of the ‘existence’ of such city development strategy, although the Central Government promotes regularly some Federal Programs among which include various sectors related to urban infrastructure and urban planning. When I write ‘existence’ I mean actual implementation, because there are some published laws that were supposed to act as part of a legal Master plan but are effectively only a scarce draft of it, with no practical use (outdated goals, inconcise information, not validated statistics etc). 

Concerning to the technical motivation at the offices, in my point of view it can be partially explained due to a serious overlapping of technical authorities addressed to planning commissions, when the tasks of each of them is usually not clearly defined. Sometimes these technical authorities have some political or technical incongruence among themselves, particularly regarding to the leading heads. Otherwise, it is much easier to promote popular participation, because the political machine itself has inherent mechanisms of mass appeal that work very efficiently, regarding to moving the citizens to participate in any process. May the results be politically guided or not, it only depends of the progress of democracy, which is very slow but it is happening, truly. 

I hope I have been clear, because this issue is so full of subtle nuances that probably I missed some other detail.

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Allan Cain – Monday, 17 September 2012, 09:29 PM
Re: Land Use Plans

Dear Vanessa,
I agree with you that one of the constraints on planning is the lack of regulation for urban land and for planning legislation. The preamble to the Angolan planning law talks about public consultation and community participation but there are no clear regulations on how this consultation can happen. Angolan planners however should seek opportunities to formalise the regular participation of communities who will be affected by their plans. This can be done through civil society forums that exist in almost all of Luanda’s municipalities and have a good representation of communities and local associations.

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Leonardo Cambumba Samunga – Monday, 1 October 2012, 04:31 PM
Re: Land Use Plans

Unfortunately this lack of monitoring of the few existing urban plans that reside in the locality (municipality of Cacuaco), and there often and get hit by several factors, which include: Little personal and sometimes unqualified to work in the area of Municipal Administration urbanism, and to follow strictly implemented, the plans gizados; and another aspect relates to the centralization of the subject that is usually designed by professionals linked to the Ministries (former Housing and urban Development) without regard to the involvement of local technicians; as well as the absence of a culture of listening and consulting residents, which would play a role when involved in local tax.

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José Tiago Catito – 04:17 PM
Tell us about your city

Luanda is the smallest province of Angola, with 24,651 km ² in area. Its population is approximately 5 million inhabitants. Its capital is Luanda, the capital and largest city of Angola. Luanda’s also the most industrialized province of Angola and the greater economic growth, having suffered few effects of the Civil War and it has also benefited from the exodus of people from their areas of origin to Luanda. With the economic and social stability of recent years, Luanda has enjoyed numerous new investments.

Administrative reform of 2011, the province saw its enlarged area, and it will have seven counties:
Cacuaco
Belas
Cazenga
Icolo e Bengo
Luanda
Quiçama
Viana

The former municipalities of Ingombota, Kilamba Kiaxi, Maianga, Rangel, Samba and Sambizanga now form the new city of Luanda. Luanda has a bay and a sandbank, Ilha de Luanda, which spans more than fourteen miles of beaches, restaurants and houses of fishermen. The city centre is undergoing transformations and skyscrapers contrast with the very sophisticated slums around the city. It is believed that over 70% of the population of the capital living in suburban areas. Luanda Sul is the largest housing development area and is the site where it was built the first shopping centre in Angola – the Belas Shopping – Fine in the city.

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Vanessa Maschio dos Reis – Monday, 10 September 2012, 06:13 PM
Re: Tell us about your city

Hi everybody, here follows my case-study Luanda. 
I am providing the images of the city and I will post them still today.

a. name: Luanda (country: Angola)
b. urban hierarchy: National Capital
c. primary urban function: political-administrative
d. land area (km2): 18.826 (Province) and 2.181(05 non-rural municipalities) Source: Governo Provincial de Luanda
e. urban population: 4.511.000 (UNSD-2009)
f. density (population/km2): 2.068

Luanda is the Capital of Angola, a political and administrative centre and the main national port. It is also the main financial centre of a national economy based mainly on oil and diamond extraction. As a Portuguese colony for more than four centuries, it is explicit the typically European signature of its urban design.

During the civil war, which began soon after independence in 1975, the capital served as a refuge for most of the rural population, which caused a demographic leap from 1.822.000 citizens in 1993 (ESDF) to 4.511.000 in 2009 (UNSD). This rapid growth resulted in both a suburban territorial sprawl (mainly slums a.k.a. musseques) as the saturation of the existing urban infrastructure. Since peace was established in 2002, the government has been concentrating its efforts on redevelopment of urban areas, the creation of new centralities in peri-urban areas and the allocation of infrastructure in the slums territories.

The urban area of Luanda spans five of the seven municipalities that fulfil the province of Luanda, whose territories had their political and administrative boundaries recently refurbished by Law n. 29/11 of September 2011. The Government points out as the key factors that drove the boundary changes of this Province, apart from general administrative and technical issues, the increase of the number of inhabitants and of the value of public assets, as well as infrastructure deployment needs.

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Jose Van-Dunem – Monday, 10 September 2012, 11:40 AM
Re: Tell us about your city

Hi everyone, I am Jose Van Dunem from Angola (Luanda). I have recently graduated in Town Planning (in South Africa) and I am currently located in Luanda which is the capital city of Angola. Luanda is situated on the cost of Atlantic Ocean and is the country´s main economic center as it holds the headquarters of country´s major companies, industry as well as the nation´s main port. The main economic activities involve manufacturing, commerce, oil off shores and refineries. The population is estimated at 6.7 million people in an extension of 24.651 km² resulting in density of 271/km2 which is extremely high.

I am working as a planning technician in a recently created cabinet which is responsible for carrying out the process of urban requalification of one of the most populated municipalities called Cazenga (with 2 million inhabitants) and two other districts Sambizanga and Rangel, with estimated population of 800 and 200 people respectively. These areas are characterized by lack of basic services, sanitation, slums placing immense challenges on the government to carry out poverty eradication programme and provision of service delivery.

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Leonardo Cambumba Samunga – Monday, 10 September 2012, 04:44 PM
Re: Tell us about your city

Cacuaco is a town and municipality in the province of Luanda, Angola. It has 571 km ² and approximately 950 million inhabitants with a population density of 1664 inhab. / Km ² is Limits the south with the municipalities of Viana and Cazenga, west by the Atlantic Ocean and the municipality of Sambizanga the north and east with the municipality of Dande, Bengo province. The municipality of Cacuaco is crossed from north to south by the River Bengo. Communes (3): Cacuaco, Kicolo, Funda. It is a tourist area considered for has beautiful beaches and a hotel chain acceptable.

 

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Etelvina Saldanha – Monday, 10 September 2012, 12:47 PM
Re: Tell us about your city

Name of city: Angola, Province: Luanda
Urban hierarchy: city; municipality, communes, district
Primary urban function: Administrative, market, manufacturing, finance.
Land area: (km2); 12467000 Km2
Urban population ; 20.609.294
Density: (population/km2) 516,6 /km²

In Angola, it is generally accepted that the weight of the informal sector in the economy is massive, the informal sector continues to weigh nothing trivial in wealth created annually. As might be expected in developing countries, given their economic structures often more fragile, which is the case in my town although we are on track to head the steps too wide, but in general, the existence of political conjunctures, less favourable social and legal, which makes us more susceptible proliferation of informal or parallel economy.

Although the weight of the informal sector is an unavoidable reality in the country, at least in the short term, and this is responsible for providing livelihood to a large majority of the population, we cannot close our eyes to the negative consequences that entails for the informal economy economic and social development of Angola. First, informal economic activities are not taxed. This limits the outset, the redistribution of wealth associated with taxes on corporate profits. The revenue collected by the state is not money that will not be channelled to increase the wellbeing of Angolans, delaying the march of Angola towards a more just and equitable society. Furthermore, companies that operate in the informal sector alienate themselves generally of banking practices and conduct business with the financial system.

Another disadvantage generated by economic informality is that jeopardize the prospects for business growth. The informal sector businesses employ usually only its owner, which is not generating more jobs and not contributing more effectively to create wealth in their surroundings, practice a price list which varies from day to day. You can still say that the informal sector has been unable to generate resources and solutions to put the Angolan economy in more advanced levels of development, it should be noted that informal economic activity may be a catalyst unwanted illegal activities such as marketing goods stolen, counterfeit or smuggled.

One of the changes our government is via the incentive to microcredit and BUE is the new service that concentrates in one place, delegations of various services, public administration involved in the process of incorporation and licensing of micro enterprises, Small Business, with supervision of the Ministry of Justice. With this program we intend to conduct the promotion and development of small businesses scale, with the following objectives: Increasing the supply of goods and services Angolans; The creation of jobs and consequent poverty reduction; Reduce the informal economy; Stimulate the frequency of vocational training.

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Vanessa Maschio dos Reis – Monday, 10 September 2012, 06:48 PM
Re: Tell us about your city

Hello Jyotti

,
The data you presented on Mumbai caught my attention. I realized that the urban area has very high density and is one of the most populous cities in the world. The challenges are great! I would like to know more about Mumbai, these whole inhabitants are from recent migration? In your view, what forces have acted in the way of urban Mumbai? How is the density distributed in the city?

 In the case of Luanda, Its density is not equally distributed through its urban area. Estimates indicate that about ¾ of the urban population lives in the suburban slums. This also means different densities according to the types of occupation. E.g., the District of Rangel, located in a central area, has a high population density (20.995 hab/Km2, according to GPL*) if compared to the Municipality of Cacuaco, which is located in a peri-urban and expansion-vector area (aprox. 23 hab/Km2, according to GPL*). But while both share a low-income profile, on the other hand there is an expansion-vector area that has been established as a new centrality, in the Municipality of Belas, occupied partially by low-density condominiums and aiming a high-income population, composed usually of foreigners.

This high density of Luanda’s urban area is justified mainly from the migration of rural communities during the armed conflict. Centripetal forces acted in this densification process.

In recent years, the government has focused on creating new centers in peri-urban areas with the aim of attracting as much resettle the population that occupies the central area of the city. Given the concepts presented in Module 1, I realize that these new centers are designed to act as centrifugal forces to minimize urban sprawl and population density of downtown.

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Yvette Mónica Carrillo Salomón – Monday, 10 September 2012, 09:54 PM
Re: Tell us about your city

Dear Vanessa,
It is true that the city is considered as a complete artistic expression of the Modern Movement -urbanism and architecture are associated with landscaping by Burle Marx and works of art of great expression in public spaces and buildings. BUT what I see now are spaces that are underused, degraded or in process of abandonment; I see the loss of functionality of some areas in the urban structure; a deteriorating process of valued regions of the city which could receive better uses. There are a lot of urban voids used as parking lots, areas with exposed soil, illegal deposits of waste, empty plots, sectors in abandoning process, and the gaps generated by infrastructure networks. These are the main examples that have generated serious impacts on the urban landscape of Brasilia World Heritage. I think indeed it must be a change.

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Vanessa Maschio dos Reis – Thursday, 13 September 2012, 11:00 PM
Re: Tell us about your city

Hello Jyotti

,
Sorry for the delay in answering… and thanks for your comment.

 First I would like to clarify a crucial point about the Luanda’s data. In Angola the last population census has been run in 1970, period when the country was still under the colony of Portugal and before the armed conflict which caused the mass migrations, which in turn formed the bulk of the suburb of Luanda. Current data about the territorialisation of Luanda’s population are based merely on estimates, not always reliable sources.



So, by my perceptions of landscape transformations, I can say that the measures adopted by the government have not been effective in achieving these goals.

 The core city is a highly valued area and its density keeps on growing, even constructively. This consolidation brings consequences such as loss of cultural heritage and historic buildings and the saturation of road infrastructure installed. 

Some suburban areas are being rehabilitated, followed by removal of the poor masses who cannot afford the space that will be rehabilitated, what happens to be a clear evidence of a gentrification process, e.g. the Prenda’s area.

Much of the poor population has been relocated to Zango’s area, located on the far urban periphery. This new centrality is a place that, despite the decent housing availability, there is a serious lack of proper infrastructure and transportation services. The poorest people in this area have been relocated far away from the core city, where the usual job opportunities are, although informal.

 And there is the case of Kilamba City. Apart from its housing stock of over 3,000 housing units built (in its 1st phase), in May 2012 it was occupied with few than 50 families. The major difficulties for the occupation of these housing are the unaffordable prices to most of the population, the difficulty of registration and funding.

 Nevertheless, a new population census is expected for 2013.

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Ilídio Daio – Tuesday, 11 September 2012, 02:26 AM
Re: Tell us about your city

Hi everybody! My name is Ilídio Daio, i’m from Luanda capital of Angola.

City of Luanda capital of Angola, Province of Luanda,
Urban hierarchy; city; municipality, district and communes,
Primary urban function; Administrative, logistic, tourism, finance,
Land area (km2); 18713 km2, after new administrative boundary division (adding two big rural municipalities), but the previous urban center area were about 1104 km2
Urban population; about 6 Milion
Density (population/km2); 320pop./ km2 after new administrative boundary division, but the previous urban center area were about 5434 pop./ km2 , highlighting that Cazenga Municipality (see map attached) with 41 km2 (2% of The Urban Luanda area) have 2,5 million population (1/3 of the total Luanda population), representing 60975 pop./ km2, overcrowded very dense flooding slum area.

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Allan Cain – Tuesday, 11 September 2012, 08:50 PM
Re: Tell us about your city

Here is my assignment for FORUM 1 on Luanda.

Name of city: Luanda
Province: Luanda
Country: Angola
Urban hierarchy: capital, secondary city, small town or others;

Luanda is the capital city of Angola, but also a municipality within the province of Luanda. It is also considered by urban planners to be a metropolitan region. Angola is going through a protracted period of administrative restructuring that has the eventual aim of creating a new level of local governance. For the purposes of this exercise I will refer to the urban structure of Luanda as it existed up until recently. I will provide a map showing the traditional urban administrative form of the city as well as the new form into which it will evolve. The process has not yet been completed.

Primary urban function: Administrative, market, manufacturing, tourism, finance, or others;

Angola is a highly centralised country (politically & economically) and the capital city Luanda is many times larger than any other provincial urban centre. It is therefore the administrative, marketing and financial centre of Angola. The wealth of Angola is drawn from its extractive industries of petroleum and diamonds. While these primary sources of wealth are mainly distant from the capital, the management and financial control of these industries are all channelled through Luanda. Luanda is a port city with a hinterland extending to the northern region of the country, with road and rail links running west to east reinforcing its role as a transport hub.

Land area (km2); The province of Luanda has a land area of 2,257 km². The area occupied by Luanda’s formal and informal settlements in 2010 was 350 km²

Urban population: The last census of Luanda was carried out in 1983. Since then the Angolan civil war forced a large number of internally displaced persons into the relative safety of the capital region. Development Workshop’s GIS department has been monitoring the population growth of Luanda over the last decade since the end of the conflict using remote sensing using satellite imagery. We estimate that Luanda’s population today to be over 6.5 million people. It is probably one of Africa’s fastest growing urban areas.

Density (population/km2): Luanda’s average urban density is 18,570 persons per km² but some of the high density inner-city slums have densities over 50,000 persons per km². The annual population growth rate over the last decade has been over 6% per year.

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Massamba Dominique – Friday, 7 September 2012, 03:00 PM
Re: Tell us about your city

Greetings to all course participants. 

I am very happy to be part of this course, the first time I participate in a course in gender, and hope to learn a lot about planning and urban land use. 
Luanda is the smallest province of Angola, with 24,651 km ² in area. It has a population of approximately 5 million inhabitants. Luanda’s also the most industrialized province of Angola and the greater economic growth, having suffered few effects of the Civil War and it has also benefited from the exodus of people from their areas of origin to Luanda. Due to the large population growth experienced by the city, the price of land / land increased and the slums of the city continued until near the border towns. Luanda this receiving various projects implemented by the government and many without infrastruture and this causes the population are concentrated in cities.

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Moisés Festo – Thursday, 6 September 2012, 04:03 PM
Re: Tell us about your city

Greetings all.
I am very pleased to be participating in this course. Let me present to you a few lines to my city. The Huambo city is the capital of the province of Huambo. It has a surface of 2,609 km2 and a population of approximately 1,200,000 inhabitants. More than 75% of the population lives in peri urban city.

It is one of the cities destroyed by the civil war that ravaged the country for 30 years. With the war many services no longer exist, especially what regulated the land, both urban and rural. Due to natural population growth and migration factors the city grew from a physical standpoint and no monitoring of an institution of the provincial government. As a result, citizens have no document in possession of the space occupied by them, are disordered neighbourhoods, districts without infrastructure. Moreover, the government is implementing projects and distribution of allotments of plots without infrastructure.

The great challenge now facing the peri urban is applying methodologies for rehabilitation of these areas. The shortage of qualified staff within government agencies to respond is a factor that leads to the application of methods less suitable for the implementation of urban requalification projects. The public transport services and communication are still very weak and expensive compared to other African countries.

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Moisés Festo – Monday, 10 September 2012, 05:01 PM
Re: Tell us about your city,

Hello!
I’m Festo from Huambo/Angola. I agree that privatization have a negative influences in urban plan. other issues that contribute negatively in implementation of urban plan is a lack of directory (head) plan, that define where urban land started. Per example here in Angola our land law  gives different treatment between urban land and rural land. according the law, the rural land must be management through costmary low, but same times we don´t know where is rural and urban land. This situation has caused conflicts mainly between government institutions and citizen

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Carlos Figueiredo – Wednesday, 12 September 2012, 07:20 AM
Re: Tell us about your city,

Huambo is a city recovering from a long and bitter civil war (1974-2002)
A. Huambo, Angola.
B. Huambo is the provincial capital of Huambo. An important administrative centre. Huambo is also an economic centre for its role in the Benguela Railway (Huambo has the central workshop of the railway) and for the commerce of agriculture products. Huambo is somehow the centre of a region that is much broader than the province, Central Highlands.
C. The city occupies around 50 km2
D. The urban population is of about 300.000 inhabitants (not reliable data exists but a census is under way and data should be available soon)
E. 6000 inhabitants / km2

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The National Forum on Large-Scale Land Acquisition aimed to enhance national capacity through the partner organizations in monitoring large scale land acquisitions in Angola that potentially come into conflict with community and individual local family land claims. The July 3 meeting took the form of an open forum, hosted by the Faculties of Environment and Architecture at the Methodist University in Luanda, where students, our partners, member of Civil Society and guest presenters coming from the Eastern, Central and Southern provinces (areas with significant cases of cola) learned, presented and shared their views and experiences about this issue.

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