Challenges to Socially Equitable Land Use Management

For decades, modernistic planning traditions have imposed zoning ordinances in developing countries that were designed for European towns. 

The development standards were not affordable to the poor and enforcement was unrealistic. Additionally, middle- and higher-income groups used planning as a way of maintaining their property values and excluding “less desirable” low-income residents, ethnic minorities and traders from their areas. 

Consequently, such a top-down planning approach failed to accommodate the needs of the majority of residents in rapidly growing and largely poor informal cities and contributed to urban poverty and socio-spatial marginalization. 

Unfortunately, modernistic planning remains the dominant form of planning in most parts of the world. Limitations of conventional approaches to address urban poverty include:

1. Slum clearance and relocation, which sees slums as visually unacceptable in their plans for modernization. 
2. Slums were demolished and their residents were provided land, in some cases housing, at the periphery of the city. 
3. The crucial dependence slum dwellers had on their livelihood opportunities at their earlier locations within the city was ignored. 
4. Many slum dwellers have moved back to the city to resume their earlier work.
5. Public housing provided as a state responsibility. 
6. This has proved to be expensive and is being gradually abandoned since governments lack the resources to provide housing for the vast number of slum dwellers.
7. Land use policies and regulations, such as low floor area ratio (FAR) and rent control legislation, have restricted the supply of land and housing for the urban poor, e.g., in Lahore, Dhaka and Mumbai.
8. Piecemeal upgrading through multiple agencies has provided secure tenure, housing or basic services in selected high-profile slum pockets prior to election times. 
9. Lack of a comprehensive strategy that is not sustained politically has wasted resources. Granting of title to land has usually not taken into account renters, other informal tenure arrangements in slums, non-family slum units and women as head of households. 
10. The excluded sections of slum communities have either established new slums or enlarged existing ones.