CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

This chapter provides the background knowledge of housing construction and urban dynamics in the world, African, Sub-Saharan Africa, Cameroon, North West and Bamenda III, as it is observed that many residential houses and fences under construction are most often marked by the council authorities to stop construction. Not only have residential houses and fences been suspended, some have been demolished. This chapter also provides the research question, objectives and hypothesis. And it equally describes the study area and brings out the significance of the study to various stakeholders. The characteristics of the study area are also brought out in this chapter.

• Research context

Construction output globally is estimated to be rebounded in 2021 (+4.1%) to $13.2trillion, from a minor downturn to 2020 (-0.1%). In 2022, construction growth globally is expected to slow to about 3.0%, with infrastructure work replacing housing as the strongest sector. Growth rates are forecast to vary from +20% in Panama to -10% in Myanmar. We expect 27 of the countries to still have lower volume of construction output in 2022 than in 2019 (Global construction perspective, 2022). Apart from mortality and morbidity, the COVID-19 pandemic has significantly disrupted the dynamics of urban systems, defined as “the spatial organization of networks of urban centers at regional, national, and international scales” (Marshall et al., 2019) According to the Economist Intelligence Unit (2021), as of April 2020, commercial flight activities worldwide had fallen almost 75% below the 2019 levels. Martínez et al., 2021, investigated the role of public space configuration, transportation, and urban connectivity in developing safer cities during the pandemic. The right to adequate housing is a universal right which is recognized at the international level and in more than one hundred national constitutions throughout the world. It is right recognized as valid for every individual person. It is shocking to note that in spite of this right, the number of homeless, inadequately house, and evicted persons are increasing in the world, especially in urban centers (Golay et al., 2007).  Mouratidis, (2021) literature paid little attention to how the restricted mobility of people and goods affects the dynamics of urban systems.

According to the United Nation (2018), it is reported that about 1.6 billion persons live in poor housing condition worldwide while about 2.4 billion do not have good sanitation facilities. Housing problems are not only cantered around deficient housing quality but is today more directly to poor quality housing and lack of sustenance. Good quality housing enhances socio-economic development and well- being, yet in many cities of the developing countries, a large proportion of the population still occupies housing with rudimentary materials. Demographic processes are the driving force behind urbanization according to the data published in World Urbanization Prospects. Data published by the United Nations, 2/3 of the world’s population will live in urban areas. In the second half of the 20th century, urbanization rapidly accelerated. Dynamic growth of cities was observed in the world. Many areas in the world are gaining momentum (Pictet, 2021). People migrate in search of a higher standard of living and the benefits of an urban lifestyle (Weinstein et al., 2002) and (Schneider et al., 2014). The migration of people to towns and cities was particularly high after 1950. From the level of 751 million, the urban population grew to 4.2 billion in 2018. It is predicted that by 2050 this number could rise by another 2.5 billion (United Nation, 2018). Indeed, global experience suggest that it is common for informal housing condition to improve incrementally over time through infrastructure upgrading, self-build construction, and tenure claim recognition (Payne et al., 2004; Payne 2005; Choguill 1999).

Globally, since 1950, the process of urbanization has been faster with more than half of the world’s population now living in urban areas with about 54.5% in 2016 as compared to 37.9% in 1976 (ThessISSMUN  (2016). The present dynamic state of human settlements in the world is the outcome of urbanization. A broader socio economic and political process in the world shall affect human settlements at all levels; global, national and local. About 52% of the developing world’s population shall be living in cities by 2020. Demographic explosion in Africa and Asia is certain. The success or failures in urban development policies shall be observed in the physical structure of human settlements and their nature; formal or informal (United Nation Centre for Human Settlement (2006). Urbanization has a major impact on housing – particularly what type of housing is required, where and for what type of resident – but not all types of urbanization will engender the same housing impacts, largely because the housing effects of urbanization differ depending on the speed and rate at which population changes happen, and what is driving urbanization. The oft quoted statistic is that globally 50% of the world’s population lives in an urban area. This figure however, masks high regional disparity. In countries part of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), urbanization levels is 70% or higher are typical. The 2018 Revision approximated 55% of the world population lived in towns and cities in 2013. It is projected that this value will reach 68% by 2050. This is due to changing lifestyle and a gradual reduction in agricultural employment in favor of the endogenous functions of cities (Montgomery et al., 2003).

The world is becoming increasingly urbanized and half of humanity now lives in urban areas more than 70% in Latin America, North America and Europe (UN-Habitat, 2008). The UNFPA (2007) contends that the space taken up by urban localities is increasing faster than the urban population itself. Between 2000 and 2030, the world’s urban population is expected to increase by 72% while the built-up areas of cities could increase by 175%. Urban regions of the world over are grappling with the reality of a highly dynamic metropolitan growth and developmental dynamism that accompany such growth (Chirisa, 2009). These changes express themselves most evidently in peri-urban areas. The expansion of cities into peri-urban areas is a process that is commonly referred to as peri-urbanization leads to changes in land use patterns in such environments (Owusu, 2008).

In many African cities, the leader’s aspiration for economic development is often disconnected from the lived realities of young residents. The nexus between youth migration and urbanization in Africa is not well understood, and policy responses are often inappropriate or ineffective (Amare et al., 2021). Many African countries have signed the New Agenda which commits them to supporting migrants, refugees and displaced people in urban settings, and helping them to gain access to an adequate standard of living.  In Africa, the urbanization process is characterized by poor planning. Houses are constructed informally in risk-prone areas leading to many hazards like floods, landslides, as well as pollution. The urbanization of the developing countries suffers a lot from insufficient planning and management. Many cities in the third world have very large areas of unplanned development exceeding the number of planned area in most cases (Kuffer et al., 2011). Housing in Africa is typically an approached through a development lens and framed as a means to alleviate poor living conditions and improve the current and future economic prospects of individuals and households living and working in African towns and cities. This particular conceptualization of housing is apparent in the dominant discourses in national housing policies and the policies of international development agencies. Although, by focusing on individuals and households, such policies risk overlook the ways in which housing helps to construct urban space and life for all residents. Where housing is located, the form it takes, materials it is made from, and who is able to live in it affects land use (amid competing commercial and public interests for urban land), environmental sustainability, and spatial and economic equality (as who lives where is heavily influenced by a person’s income, wealth, class, and in some countries their race and ethnic identity). This makes housing a political issue of great social importance across the continent. The concept of housing, reflected in housing policy, includes some or all of these related ideas. Correspondingly, policies on infrastructure, transport, public services, education, economic growth and rural and urban planning, are relevant to housing. Therefore, housing is best seen as a cross-cutting issue that affects improvements to people’s health, safety, livelihoods, wealth, assets, and overall sense of wellbeing (Patel, 2013). In Africa, some of the lowest levels of urbanization overall are found (less than 20% in Burundi, Ethiopia and Niger for example, (Freire et al., 2014).

According to the NGO Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE 2006), more than 4 million persons were victims of evictions between 2003 and 2006 2 million in Africa. An estimated, 100 million persons are homeless and more than a billion are inadequately housed. By 2050, the United Nations estimates that 3 billion persons will be living in slums with most of these persons found in the developing nations albeit no continent is, nor will be spared. Housing is traditionally regarded as an urban issue and there is a strong urban orientation to housing debates in global scholarship (Clapham, et al., 2012; and Turner, 1976), which is continued because contemporary housing challenges are intertwined with challenges raised by urbanization, a growing phenomenon across the continent. African states (embedded in land law, building regulations and urban planning), available resources, and the wider political-economic environment forged by influential actors including the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Most of this housing were built to replace dilapidated ‘slum’ or squatter housing in core urban areas and to build new public housing for lower income workers (Stren, 1990). African urban areas were changing in this period. UN-HABITAT launched its seminal report “The Challenge of Slums” to build safer and more inclusive cities (2003). The housing policies of post-colonial nationalist governments, many influenced by socialist ideas of housing as a social good, sought to address this need for better quality housing for low-middle income Africans (Tipple, 1994).

The UN-HABITAT makes a number of recommendations to national governments to re-shape their urban landscape with better planned public spaces including upgrading informal settlements. This challenge, in policy at least, has been taken up by governments in South Africa (Patel, 2015), Mozambique (Earle, 2014) and Kenya (Otiso, 2003). As the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have given way to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), within goal 11 to “make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable”, is the target to “by 2030, ensure access for all adequate, safe and affordable housing and basic services and upgrade slums” (UN, 2015). Africa is also gaining urbanization momentum and now has three mega cities in Cairo, Lagos and Kinshasa (Pictet, 2021). Most of the countries in Africa have one way or the other included access to a decent shelter in their Constitution. The social development aspect of housing is recognized by Goal 11 of the 2030 agenda for sustainable development: “Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable.” The literature has established clear links between housing conditions and social outcomes, including health, social belonging, education outcomes, social security, and satisfaction with living conditions (Doling et al. 2013; Thomson and Pettigrew 2005).

As the urban population in Africa continues to swell due to accelerated unplanned urbanization, housing becomes a major problem to the urban dwellers. This is particularly true in most African cities where residential land accounts for the largest proportion of total urban land uses in these cities (Coker et al., 2008). As highlighted by Choguill (2008), a city is found to be unsustainable if one of its indicators which is housing is not considered sustainable. The evolution of settlements throughout Africa from tiny hamlets to larger settlements has led to an urban population in Africa of about 40%. The urban areas have the highest concentration and the most dynamic growth in human settlements. Cities have attracted and will continue to attract population due to the wide range of opportunities for economic advancement that they provide. Several regions in Africa have high population densities. And the human settlement distribution, interconnectivity and accessibility are important factors to understand socio economic and political issues for urban development (Linard et al., 2014).

In Sub-Saharan Africa, housing development can be an effective creator of jobs where construction technology is still largely labor-intensive and most houses are made with locally available materials. Low-cost housing construction utilizes mainly unskilled labor and it can therefore provide significant number of decent paying jobs for the poor who have limited employment opportunities and education. In addition, housing development generates jobs in many other secondary industries such as furniture, equipment and supplies (Tipple, 1994). Sub- Saharan African is experiencing a housing crisis. While around one billion people live in slums around the globe, 200 million of those live in Sub- Saharan African slums by 2020 (UN-Habitat, 2014). This number represents “61.7% of the region’s urban population,” making Sub- Saharan African the highest in the world for urban poverty. Urban populations in Sub-Saharan African were projected to be approximately 150 million in 1990.4. They are growing rapidly and all available international projections point to a continuation of this growth. The urban population now in Sub- Saharan African is annually growing at 4%. The World Bank has funded slum upgrading programs to combat rising urban poverty in Sub- Saharan Africa. These programs were largely “self-help” models.

Informal housing represents a spectrum of different shelter locations, conditions, and tenure status informal housing which is not necessarily equal to slum housing.  Rather, informality represent a continuum of housing condition, ranging from units without access to any improve infrastructure, absent compliance with planning and building standard and lacking land and property tenure security to unit with sequentially  greater levels of permanence, tenure security and quality, while the precise degree and cost requirement of housing standards have been debated. (Payne 2001; Cohen 2007), the definition of informality allows for wide variation in the type and quality of housing. In many areas, land is subject to tenure regimes that limit the ability of markets to circulate land or to define and protect development rights. “About 97% to 99% of people in Sub-Saharan Africa do not have access to formal financing” that allows them to build or buy a home, people haphazardly build their own informal housing or remain in slums. Organizations like the NGOs are actively working to help housing poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa slums. Habitat for Humanity completed a six-year program in 2018 called “Building Assets, Unlocking Access”. The Habitat for Humanity’s approach allowed Africans to progressively build their own housing, access small-scale loans and set up small payments. In 2010, when the SSA urban population reach 37% only 34% of urban residents had access to piped water, down from 43% in 1990. In many of the larger SSA cities, up to around 1950, developed areas tended to be fully serviced. This occurred particularly in the informal areas where houses are often built before the plot is hooked up to water, electricity, and sanitation. The sequence of infrastructure planning and investment in informal settlement is the opposite of that in wealthier neighborhood. The formal process of plan-service-build-occupy is reversed into occupy-build-service-plan (Baross et al., 1987).

The proliferation of informal settlement in Cameroon is explained to be as a result of the deficit of housing supply, unaffordability, weak legal and institutional system. Factors which explain why this is becoming recurrent include a deficit of housing supply, unaffordability issues, and weak legal and institutional system of the country. Several initiatives have been implemented to respond to the acute need of housing by the population, especially in Douala and Yaoundé yet in the last decades, high demographic growth coupled with rapid urbanization, low revenue of the majority of households are some of the reasons that have led to the proliferation of informal settlement in the cites of Douala and Yaoundé (Egoh et al., 2021). It is estimated that 47% of the population of Douala and Yaoundé live in informal settlements (NIS 2012). The annual housing deficit in 2013 was at 100,000 units (Centre for affordable housing in Africa, 2014). The problems of haphazard urban construction and the question of squatter settlements present a major challenge in most Cameroonian cities (Fombe et al., 2010; Amawa et al., 2012; Achankeng, 2003; Ndenecho et al., 2002). This represents a series of urban governance challenge since it can impair the attainment of Vision 2035 which aims at transforming Cameroon into “An Emerging Economy by 2035”. The urban population in Cameroon doubled within a period of 30 years after independence moving from 28.3% in 1976 to 44.3% in 2005 (Fombe et al., 2012). This has resulted in rapid urban expansion of Cameroonian cities such as Yaounde, Douala, Bafoussam and Bamenda. The impact of the expansion of these cities is felt at the peripheries like Bikoko in Douala, Mile 16 in Buea, Barombi Kang in Kumba and Nkwen in Bamenda among others.

Urban housing in Bamenda is currently inadequate, poorly planned, designed and constructed (haphazard) and underserviced with basic human requirements such as water supply, waste disposal and sanitary facilities. This present predicament greatly prevents the attainment of sustainable housing in the city. There is also the existence of the dual economy, whereby housing types which have not been segregated as low, medium and high income houses co-exist side by side. Also the hills and valley side development of houses in the city has become risky and discourages sustainable housing to be achieved. Therefore, there is need for a strategic planning orientation or sustainable housing development in Bamenda. The suburbs of Bamenda I, II and III Municipalities are growing faster in size than in population and infrastructures, witnessing continues expansion of built-up and commercial land among others, resulting in the degradation of agricultural and forest lands, leading to loss of livelihood, joblessness, misery and poverty for rural dwellers. Changing lifestyle of dwellers in the rural-urban interface has equally enhanced increase degradation resulting from pollution. Extension of the built-up area and other human developments into non-developable areas (marginal lands) like very steep slopes (Sisia and Abangoh) prone to geomorphological hazards and riverine/wetland areas (Mulang and Mbelem) prone to flooding and designated as “non- habitable” have increased the frequency of natural hazards, all these in contravention of the Law No 2004/003 of AVR.2002, which prohibits housing development in such areas. Sprawl in Bamenda, is not compatible with the supply of adequate infrastructures. The neighborhoods are strewn with poorly, drained, poorly connected and narrow streets among other infrastructures. The high living cost around the CBD has pushed the newly arrived into the suburbs. There is need to evaluate the trend and disparities in the dimensions of land use and sprawl across the various peripheral zones of the Bamenda municipalities from 1996 to 2018 constitute the basis of this study which is hinged on the premise that land use dynamics and sprawl dominate the northeast of Bamenda compared to the northwest and the southwestern sections (Fombe et al., 2020)

According to Jude et al., (2017), Bamenda III has witnessed significant transformations in land uses within her peri-urban zone. Such changes are witnessed in agricultural, residential and commercial land uses among others. This dynamism calls for an investigation on their developmental implications. And according to Mbanga (2018), human settlement  in  Mbelem and Atielah in the early 1990’s has witness urban dynamics as there has been the creation of  high schools and Universities which is a driving force for human settlement dynamism in Bamenda III municipality. The population had more than doubled and so was the total surface area covered by human settlement which also more than doubled to 1143 hectares. Farmland was gradually reducing from 2998 hectares in 1989 to 2778 hectares in 1999. The settlement dynamism continued to date. The current phase of human settlement in Bamenda III municipality 2015, is observed that major changes have taken place in the Bamenda III municipality in the human settlement process. The South West-North East direction trend of human settlement evolution has been maintained with some growth poles created in the North West, towards the North and towards the East. The major change in 2007 was the creation of the Bamenda III Sub Division and the Bamenda municipality giving it a major administrative and municipal autonomy.

• Statement of the research problem

The number of settlements in Bamenda III has been undergoing a series of dynamics in their setting. Settlements in Bamenda III, Sub division has grown at a faster rate in recent years. Green areas have been progressively conquered by inhabitants for their different activities. Settlement increase is becoming more complex to be controlled by stakeholders in charge of urban planning in Bamenda III. Many people have settled on unauthorized zones which are not permitted to be occupied. Also, the expansion and urban sprawl of the area has led to the encroachment and occupation of risk zones in Sisia. Bamenda III is characterized by poor planning system, as most houses are constructed before development. The dynamics in Bamenda III, however takes place in the process of expansion and vertical construction. Areas that were once forest are now occupied by buildings or other services. In addition, most of the structural development in Bamenda III is highly reflected to housing quality which plays a vital role in the development and growth in every economy. Due to the rapid expansion of the population of about 20,000 and the poor physical building control being witnessed in Bamenda III, most people especially the poor inhabit in ecological vulnerable areas. The construction of houses in this areas leads to the destruction of ecosystem in some areas which has causes flooding and if not looked upon can cause other problems.

It is observed that, many residential houses and fences under construction are most often marked by the council authorities to stop construction. Not only have residential houses and fences in Bamenda been suspended, some have been demolished. Houses in Bamenda III look shabby and nasty especially in Sisia and in some parts in Atieba quarter as they are constructed close to the road linking residential areas, but some of these buildings are dilapidated corrugated roofing. In addition, the negative trends of dynamics in human settlement have had an impact in the planning of Bamenda III, as many regulations governing housing construction put in place by the government officials are not respected. Many people now build without following adequate procedure for building. Most houses are now constructed without a building permit. These pose a problem to planners as well as a problem to non- awareness by the population about construction norms. It is also observed in the Nkwen market that a high rate of road encroachment by bikes as well as marketers. This unplanned settlement dynamics generates a great problem of urban disorder; encroachment of roads by market, vehicles, household, littering waste along the street.

• Research questions

1.3.1 Main research question

What are the impacts of housing construction on urban dynamics in Bamenda III Sub-Division?

1.3.2 Specific research questions

1)  Who are the stakeholders involved and their contributions to housing construction in Bamenda III Sub-Division?

2)  How is housing construction unfolding in Bamenda III Sub- Division?

3) What are the urban dynamics trends in Bamenda III Sub-Division?

4)  What are the challenges and mitigation actions faced in housing construction and urban dynamics in Bamenda III Sub- Division?

1.4 Research Objectives

1.4.1 Main research objectives

To assess the impact of housing construction on urban dynamics in Bamenda III Sub-Division

1.4.2 Specific research objectives

1)  To identify stakeholders involved and their contributions to housing construction in Bamenda III Sub-Division

2)  To examine how housing construction is unfolding in Bamenda III Sub-Division.

3) To assess urban dynamics trends in Bamenda III Sub-Division

4)  To investigate the challenges and mitigation actions for housing construction and urban dynamics in Bamenda III Sub-Division