Changing attitudes to land
in the (expanding) urban area of
Xilunguine / Lourenço Marques / Maputo
Paul Jenkins
Professor of Architecture and Human Settlements
Urban Studies, School of the Built Environment, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh
http://www.sbe.hw.ac.uk/staffprofiles/J/PaulJenkins.htm
Research Professor in Architecture
Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture
http://www.esala.ac.uk/people/academics/pjenkins.html
Changing attitudes to land in the (expanding) urban area of
Xilunguine / Lourenço Marques / Maputo
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Introduction
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Urbanisation in Sub-Saharan Africa and Mozambique
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Political economic forces and socio-cultural values
Maputo: Recent trends and new ways of understanding the ‘urban’
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The scale, context and nature of urbanisation
The concept of informality
Maputo: A brief historical overview of urban expansion and land
occupation
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Sources of information and nature of underlying research
Hiding from or imitating the state
Implications for urban development
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Feb 2010
Challenging embedded concepts of order and disorder in urban space and
form
Paul Jenkins, Research Professor in Architecture, eca / Professor of Architecture and Human Settlements, HWU
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Changing attitudes to land in the (expanding) urban area of
Xilunguine / Lourenço Marques / Maputo
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Sources of information and nature of underlying research
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Working professionally in Mozambique as city planner Maputo 1980-5 and then at
central government level (including with international agencies) 1985-1993 – latter
period including social research
Continued professional engagement in urban issues in Mozambique, including Maputo
since on short-term basis
ESRC funded project 2000-1 on emerging urban land markets in the city
Current Danish Research Council funded project 2009-11 on ‘Home Space in African
cities’, based in Maputo
Continued wider research into the history of the city as well as current trends
Personal engagement in Mozambican society from early 1980s to present
Sources of information are both formal (‘professional’, ‘academic’)
and informal
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Feb 2010
Academic engagement includes architecture, planning, anthropology and urban history
(physical and social)
Paul Jenkins, Research Professor in Architecture, eca / Professor of Architecture and Human Settlements, HWU
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Changing attitudes to land in the (expanding) urban area of
Xilunguine / Lourenço Marques / Maputo
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Urbanisation in Sub-Saharan Africa: scale and economic context
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Feb 2010
Sub-Saharan Africa is the last global macro-region to begin to urbanise, a process which
is well underway
 In 1950 SSA had 33 million urban residents = 4.5% world population
 In 2005 it had some 330 million urban residents = 11% world population
 In 2030 it is estimated to have 730 million urban residents = 15% world population
This process is happening in quite unique context of high levels of general poverty
 High proportion of least developed countries
 Two decades of economic stagnation and structural marginalisation,
 Some recent changes e.g. Chinese/Brazilian investment
For more see Chapters 1 & 9 in Jenkins, Smith & Wang (2006) “Housing and Planning
in the Rapidly Urbanising World”, Routledge
Paul Jenkins, Research Professor in Architecture, eca / Professor of Architecture and Human Settlements, HWU
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Changing attitudes to land in the (expanding) urban area of
Xilunguine / Lourenço Marques / Maputo
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Urbanisation in Sub-Saharan Africa: nature
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Feb 2010
Urban settlements of ancient origin, usually linked to exchange and trade
Fixed urban settlement reinforced by European mercantilism (16th century on) and later
colonisation (late 19th century)
Colonial control over urban settlement removed at independence leading to rapid rise in
urban population through rural-urban migration (post 1950s)
While in-migration still important, natural population growth in urban areas is generally
now more significant
Tendency to primacy in urban form, however recent trends in urbanisation leading to
proportional growth in secondary and tertiary urban areas
Increasing complexity of urban migratory trends, including international, circular and
intra-urban
Many ‘not-urban, not-rural’ settlement forms and ‘straddling’ survival mechanisms
developing due to limited economic absorption in urban economies
Paul Jenkins, Research Professor in Architecture, eca / Professor of Architecture and Human Settlements, HWU
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Changing attitudes to land in the (expanding) urban area of
Xilunguine / Lourenço Marques / Maputo
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The concept of urban informality
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This is predicated on:
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Feb 2010
Limited (and often decreasing) forms of ‘formal’ economic
growth – and lack of recognition of importance of urban-based
economies in policy (including international organisations)
Government decentralisation not being accompanied by
resources in urban areas and limited government capacity to
regulate the ‘formal’
UN estimates SSA had 166 million ‘slum
dwellers’ in 2001 (72% urban population)
By 2015 this is estimated to double to 332
million
The 146 million new slum dwellers in SSA will
far outstrip UN goals (improve lives of 100
million slum dwellers worldwide)
‘Informal settlements’ are now generally seen as
‘slums’ – is this a return of a puritanical attitude, or a
different form of anti-urban bias?
The majority of urban dwellers live and work in
situations of so-called ‘informality’
There is a need for a new attitude to the life-work
conditions of the urban poor majority, one based on
social legitimacy and not some form of idealised urban
normality drawn from other places and other times
Paul Jenkins, Research Professor in Architecture, eca / Professor of Architecture and Human Settlements, HWU
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Changing attitudes to land in the (expanding) urban area of
Xilunguine / Lourenço Marques / Maputo
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Maputo: A brief historical overview of urban expansion and land
occupation: a story of political economic forces and socio-cultural
values
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Early colonial period
1850-1915
Middle colonial
period 1915-1955
Late colonial period
1955-1975
Early independent
period 1975-1990
More recent
independent period
1990-2010
Jenkins (2009) “African cities: competing
claims on urban land”, chapter in ‘African
cities: competing claims on urban spaces’,
Nugent & Locatelli (eds), Brill, Leiden
Feb 2010
Paul Jenkins, Research Professor in Architecture, eca / Professor of Architecture and Human Settlements, HWU
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Changing attitudes to land in the (expanding) urban area of
Xilunguine / Lourenço Marques / Maputo
Maputo expansion: Early colonial period 1850-1915
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Small permanent trading settlement
consolidated with land leasing arrangements
from Crown (1858). Large scale foreign land
speculation in 1860s.
Original European settlement
1876 plan, initial expansion
plan 1878, final expansion
plan 1903
Gold discovered in Transvaal 1870s, leading to
rapid growth of port. Annexation of land to north
with hut tax established 1882. Railway built from
1886 - 1895. First land register established
1886. Town raised to city status by Crown 1887.
Indigenous land rights removed 1890, except in
‘reserves’ . Partition of Africa at Berlin
Conference 1894/5 required consolidation of
area of military control, which was expanded to
subordinate the indigenous (Nguni) Gaza state
to north. Capital of colony moved to city 1895,
first expansion plan 1896, state investment in
major public works
Feb 2010
Paul Jenkins, Research Professor in Architecture, eca / Professor of Architecture and Human Settlements, HWU
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Changing attitudes to land in the (expanding) urban area of
Xilunguine / Lourenço Marques / Maputo
Maputo expansion: Early colonial period 1850-1915
• Early 20th century. State bought back land
holdings in northeast outside of previous
boundary but some foreign speculators
resisted – legal disputes lasted until mid 20th
century. Slow physical development of
planned settlement until tram installed
1920s
• Urban area expanded informally to
northwest with small colonial land
concessions – used for informal African
housing from late 1920s - northeast
development blocked by land speculators
Maputo 1915, showing wider area to come within the land cadastre, incorporating
previous areas of indigenous settlement, informal development and land speculation
Feb 2010
Paul Jenkins, Research Professor in Architecture, eca / Professor of Architecture and Human Settlements, HWU
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Changing attitudes to land in the (expanding) urban area of
Xilunguine / Lourenço Marques / Maputo
Maputo expansion: Middle colonial period 1915-1955
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Middle 20th century. Colonial settlement
schemes and indigenous labour
migration underpinned rapid urban
expansion: former in ‘cement city’ with
class and racial division, and latter in
informal settlements, mostly renting
land/housing from settler landowners
(northwest). Housing scheme for
‘assimilados’ built 1940s
During late 1940s industrial production
started and some new satellite
settlements developed (e.g. Machava).
New urban master plan prepared by
1952 – avoiding most northwest informal
settlements but requiring expropriation or
engagement with large foreign
landowners to Northeast (to restrain new
speculative development)
Feb 2010
1925 cadastre plan showing informal
area (NW); 1952 area of speculator
blockage (NE) and 1952 urban plan
Paul Jenkins, Research Professor in Architecture, eca / Professor of Architecture and Human Settlements, HWU
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Changing attitudes to land in the (expanding) urban area of
Xilunguine / Lourenço Marques / Maputo
Maputo expansion: Late colonial period 1955-1975
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Continued rapid demographic expansion with sponsored
immigration and limited effective control of inward rural
migration. Formal development pushed upwards due to
informal settlement barriers northwest and slow
resolution of northeast land disputes. Urban land registry
area in Maputo extended significantly to north 1965 88% of 770 Ha in private freehold/leasehold, 85% held
by 11 landowners
Change of legislation on foreign inward investment led to
late industrial boom, generally settled in new town to
west (Matola) leapfrogging informal areas and also due
to land availability/cost. Associated sites and services
areas developed for indigenous workforce and change of
legislation allowed indigenous urban land holding.
1970s – Belated attempt to control increasing informal
settlements in Maputo with new Master Plan (1969-1972)
and new Metropolitan Urban Planning Authority including new sites and services developments and
improving services to informal settlements.
Feb 2010
1972 master plan
Paul Jenkins, Research Professor in Architecture, eca / Professor of Architecture and Human Settlements, HWU
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Changing attitudes to land in the (expanding) urban area of
Xilunguine / Lourenço Marques / Maputo
Maputo expansion: Early independent period 1975-90
• widespread pent-up in-migration and
limited action (reactive/proactive)
• 1975-6 start of sites and services in
Maputo
• 1977-9 state action through UN supported
expanded sites & services (Machava),
and informal upgrading (Maxaquene)
• City council ‘basic urbanisation
programme’ in urban periphery 1980-5
provides 10,400 new plots for lower
income groups, but soon to collapse due
to political clientelism
• 1989 Operacao Producao’ - failed to
restrict urban in-migration, civil war has
an increasing effect in southern region
• Massive in-migration in late 1980s, early
1990s due to war and collapse of rural
economy
Feb 2010
Land occupation maps based
on aerial photography
Paul Jenkins, Research Professor in Architecture, eca / Professor of Architecture and Human Settlements, HWU
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Changing attitudes to land in the (expanding) urban area of
Xilunguine / Lourenço Marques / Maputo
Maputo expansion: More recent independent period 1990-2010
Informal settlement
continuing to north of
Matola within reach of
road access (limited in
interior)
Densification of formal
land layouts and
Informal settlements in
Matola
Formal sector
speculation ties up all
land around New
motorway to South
Africa
New aluminium factory
(with associated
residential development)
in province increasingly
attracting informal
settlement
Mix of formal sector
speculation and informal
settlement into province
Feb 2010
Informal settlement
continuing on
escarpment into
neighbouring
provincial district
Marracuene
Formal sector
speculative land
grabbing and some
layouts along main
north road, informal
settlements across
municipal boundaries
Mix of formal layouts
for middle class and
densifying informal
settlement on coastal
plain
Speculation at
Catembe to south of
the bay and lobbying
for bridge to realise
land values
Paul Jenkins, Research Professor in Architecture, eca / Professor of Architecture and Human Settlements, HWU
13
Changing attitudes to land in the (expanding) urban area of
Xilunguine / Lourenço Marques / Maputo
Maputo: Recent trends and new ways of understanding the ‘urban’
• 1997-8 construction of new motorway to
Witwatersrand led to distant relocation of
people to new housing area to northeast
of city – this led to wider engagement in
illegal land market
• 2000 study identified emerging land
markets as major way to access land
despite continued nationalised status
• Floods of 2000 led to major donor
assistance in re-housing people – area
available an extension of 1982 sites &
service area to north
• Heightened sense of land values led to
extensive ‘corrupt’ / non-regulated land
access practices, which have now
become the de facto norm for land
development
Feb 2010
As recent research has shown, a strong tendency in this
process is to ‘imitate the state’ in informal land
development, as well as housing (Nielson 2009, 2010 )
Paul Jenkins, Research Professor in Architecture, eca / Professor of Architecture and Human Settlements, HWU
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Changing attitudes to land in the (expanding) urban area of
Xilunguine / Lourenço Marques / Maputo
Informal
continuation of
‘planned’ land
development by
‘traditional’
landholders, city
council officials
and local
administrators for
personal gain
Core of the 2000-1
emergency
housing area
1982 sites &
service area, only
effectively
occupied by
early1990s
1990s ad-hoc
partially planned
sites for teachers
etc
Feb 2010
Paul Jenkins, Research Professor in Architecture, eca / Professor of Architecture and Human Settlements, HWU
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Changing attitudes to land in the (expanding) urban area of
Xilunguine / Lourenço Marques / Maputo
The
alternative
strategy is
more one of
‘hiding’ from
the state
Here
traditional
land holders
sell of land
around their
own home
spaces in
areas less
well
accessed
Feb 2010
Paul Jenkins, Research Professor in Architecture, eca / Professor of Architecture and Human Settlements, HWU
16
Changing attitudes to land in the (expanding) urban area of
Xilunguine / Lourenço Marques / Maputo
Maputo: Recent trends and new ways of understanding the ‘urban’
• This current situation reflects both strong socio-cultural interests and political economic
forces where the boundaries between the 'formal' and 'informal' are kept fuzzy
• In this 'grey area' a range of new attitudes and practices develop which are exploited by
the poor as well as the rich, the weak as well as the powerful - albeit differentially
• the political and economic elite have been speculating in land since the late 1980s,
using the lack of legislation to access land through state allocation, and later the
new land legislation to consolidate their rights to this land – they occupy the best
locations and large areas
• the poor operate underneath the state as informally as possible, but aiming to avoid
state interference by imitating the state’s norms, or ‘hiding’ from these – adapting
socio-culture values to political and economic realities
• the emerging middle class has until recently been relatively excluded from this
process, but is now acting under new planning legislation to strengthen their land
access – this potentially threatens lower-income informal access, especially where
this is not ‘planned’ – which is the majority of the city area
Feb 2010
Paul Jenkins, Research Professor in Architecture, eca / Professor of Architecture and Human Settlements, HWU
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Changing attitudes to land in the (expanding) urban area of
Xilunguine / Lourenço Marques / Maputo
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Implications for urban development 1
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Feb 2010
Links between social order and physical order in space and form are historic but varied
– however these became dominant in ‘Western’ thought from the Enlightenment and
are deeply embedded within the discourse of urban planning
These are largely based on positivist epistemologies that define abstract norms and
apply these as a means of control – this process being led by state-licenced expertise
While this was to some extent possible in a world where urban space and form was
largely driven by state-dominated political economies (whether capitalist or communist,
colonial or post-colonial), it is proving impossible in the urban explosions of the most
recent form of globalisation and demographic change
The resources needed to continue to plan rapid urban growth in many parts of the world
are not available in the current political economies and hence there is limited physical
control by the state – what does this mean for ‘ordered’ urban development
Paul Jenkins, Research Professor in Architecture, eca / Professor of Architecture and Human Settlements, HWU
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Changing attitudes to land in the (expanding) urban area of
Xilunguine / Lourenço Marques / Maputo
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Implications for urban development 2
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Feb 2010
In this context the binary of what is ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ often becomes a way of the
powerful exploiting the majority
As illustrated in Maputo, this produces various approaches by the poor majority to
develop urban areas either hidden from, or reflecting, state activity – as this is usually
exploitative to the benefit of elites
Any attempts to 'plan' the city here needs to understand the realpolitik of the political
economy and emerging hybrid socio-cultural attitudes to urban land, and not
necessarily attempt to implant some form of 'rational planned order‘
Such an approach to what is valid as 'urban' in this context needs to be inductively
assessed and not deductively based on imported norms and values of the ‘urban’
To function, this form of ‘planning’ thus needs to be grounded in de facto culturally
embedded perceptions and socially constructed forms of interaction, challenging the
state’s de jure dominance of land and environmental resource
Paul Jenkins, Research Professor in Architecture, eca / Professor of Architecture and Human Settlements, HWU
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Changing attitudes to land in the (expanding) urban area of
Xilunguine / Lourenço Marques / Maputo
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Key sources:
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Feb 2010
Costa (2007) “O preco da sombra: Sobrevivencia e reproducao social entre familias de Maputo” Livros
Horizonte, Lisbon
Jenkins (2001) “Emerging land markets for housing in Mozambique: the impact on the poor and
alternatives to improve land access and urban development - an action research project in peri-urban
Maputo”, Edinburgh College of Art/Heriot-Watt University, School of Planning & Housing, Research
Paper No. 75
Jenkins (2004) “Querying the concepts of formal and informal in land access in developing world - case of
Maputo”, chapter in ‘The formal and informal city – what happens at the interface’, Vaa & Hansen (eds),
Nordic Africa Institute, Uppsala
Jenkins (2006) “The image of the city in Mozambique”, chapter in ‘African urban economies: viability,
vitality or vitiation of major cities in East and Southern Africa?’, Bryceson & Potts (eds), Palgrave,
Basingstoke
Jenkins (2009) “African cities: competing claims on urban land”, chapter in ‘African cities: competing
claims on urban spaces’, Nugent & Locatelli (eds), Brill, Leiden
Jenkins, Smith & Wang (2006) “Housing and planning in the rapidly urbanising world”, Routledge, Oxford
Nielsen (2008) “In the vicinity of the state: House construction, personhood, and the state in Maputo,
Mozambique”, PhD: Institute of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen
Nielsen (2010 forthcoming) “Regulating reciprocal distances: House construction projects as inverse
governmentality in Maputo, Mozambique”, chapter in ‘Markets for peace’, Buur & Rodgers (eds),
Palgrave, Basingstoke
Paul Jenkins, Research Professor in Architecture, eca / Professor of Architecture and Human Settlements, HWU
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