Proliferation of illegal dwellings in Windhoek suburbs: a case study of Goreangab suburb

Abstract

The world’s population is increasingly urbanising, mostly in developing countries. Therefore there is much influx into the cities and hence planning may be a challenge to most of those cities’ authorities. These influxes are driven by search for better life. Hence socio-economic factors are the top challenges faced by most poor communities of countries like Namibia, and leads to much of the urban population living in shacks because their expectations of the city life were not met. They hence take refuge into cheap living by simply building their shacks in the city suburbs. These shacks are likely to be put up anywhere and anytime, creating increasingly misunderstandings/havocs between the community and the authorities. Such misunderstandings are likely argued that are result of weaknesses of the policies or their implementations; lack of communications between the authorities and the community on rules, regulations and their enforcement. To fix such gaps and create understanding between authorities and the culprit communities, a discussion study was conducted in Goreangab suburb as a case study. In this study, discussions with authorities and with illegal dwellers were conducted. The studies have indeed determined socio-economic factors as the drive for the influx of people building shacks on the outskirts of the city and have also found the issue shacks proliferation not an issue of planning but a matter of nation building.