Digafe Behailu Melesse, Adam Achamyeleh Gashu, Shibeshi Gebeyehu Belay
Land Policy and Governance at the Institute of Land Administration, Bahir Dar University, Bahir Dar, Ethiopia.
Heliyon. 2023 Jun 23;9(6):e17557. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e17557. eCollection 2023 Jun.
Urban densification is considered as the best tool for efficient urban land utilization, containment, and minimizing urban development costs. It is also a widely accepted approach to mitigate shortages of urban land and urban sprawl. With this in mind, Ethiopia has adopted a standard-based urban land allocation policy. The policy relies on population size during the urban planning process to address issues related to sustainable urban development by increasing the densities of its urban areas. However, the impact of the existing urban land allocation policy on urban densification has not been investigated adequately. Thus, this study examines the contribution of existing urban land allocation policies to urban densification in Ethiopia. A mixed research approach was employed to achieve the objective of the study. The study revealed that the policy gives more attention to the immediate and tangible conditions than the efficient use of land resources. Therefore, it allocated an average of 223 square meters of land to each person for urban development. The study implies that the country's urban land allocation policy is ineffective in achieving the intended outcome of urban densification. Instead, coupled with uncontrolled urban population growth, it has been exacerbating the rapid horizontal expansion of urban areas. With the current trend of horizontal expansion of urban areas, the country's land resources is expected to be converted into a built-up environment within the next 127 years unless the policy is radically changed. Thus, this paper calls for revisiting the existing urban land allocation strategy of the country in a way that responds towards efficient urban land allocation and sustainable urban development.
城市集约化被视为高效利用城市土地、控制城市发展并将城市开发成本降至最低的最佳手段。它也是缓解城市土地短缺和城市扩张的一种广泛认可的方法。有鉴于此，埃塞俄比亚采用了基于标准的城市土地分配政策。该政策在城市规划过程中依据人口规模，通过提高城市地区的密度来解决与城市可持续发展相关的问题。然而，现有的城市土地分配政策对城市集约化的影响尚未得到充分研究。因此，本研究考察了埃塞俄比亚现有城市土地分配政策对城市集约化的贡献。采用了混合研究方法来实现研究目标。研究表明，该政策更关注直接和切实的条件，而非土地资源的有效利用。因此，它平均为每人分配223平方米的城市发展用地。该研究意味着该国的城市土地分配政策在实现城市集约化的预期成果方面是无效的。相反，加上不受控制的城市人口增长，它一直在加剧城市地区的快速横向扩张。按照城市地区目前的横向扩张趋势，除非政策发生根本性改变，预计该国的土地资源将在未来127年内转变为建成环境。因此，本文呼吁重新审视该国现有的城市土地分配战略，以实现高效的城市土地分配和可持续的城市发展。
