NEW BOOK:
WHY PLANNING DOES NOT WORK. LAND-USE PLANNING AND RESIDENTS’ RIGHTS IN TANZANIA. BY TUMSIFU NNKYA (2008)
Published by Mkuki na Nyota Publishers Ltd, Dar es Salaam. www.mkukinanyota.com
PO Box 4246, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. ISBN 978-9987-449-68-2
This book presents a detailed account of land use planning practice in the context of public land ownership policy in Tanzania.
Applying the case method and narratology in the exploration and presentation of planning practice, the reader is taken across a terrain of power struggles over land value, between actors in the planning system and residents whose right to participate in the planning process and to their land tenure rights, economic interests and socio-cultural values are disregarded.
Ineffective planning and unplanned growth occurs until the planners are compelled to involve the residents. The changes that followed in planning practice, which then began to work, is attributed to the residents’ protracted struggles, capacity to organize, and courage to defend their rights in the face of power, and to reject domination and deprivation.
An ethnographic approach is adopted in order to examine the interplay of technical planning, power and politics. Although the study is about a specific area in Tanzania, it has relevance for planning in many other parts of the world where democracy is weak or non-existent.
Patsy Healey (University of Newcastle Upon Tyne) writes on the back: “This is a deeply fascinating study, and one of the best on the relation between policy/plans and what actually goes on that I have seen. The narrative approach works very well. A particular merit of the study is the way it follows issues up into the legal as well as administrative arenas”.
Review by Vanessa Watson (University of Cape Town)
