Integrating Resilience in the Urban Planning Process in Mlandizi Town: An Approach Towards Promoting Comprehensive Over Piecemeal Planning

Abstract

Urban resilience is one of the prominent themes in urban development discourse. Its importance resonates with the quest to balance rapid urbanization and adaptation to climate change and variability, which raises the need for building adaptive capacities within urban system. Despite the rapid urbanization in Mlandizi, Tanzania, the town is planned on a piecemeal basis that lacks a holistic view of the urban system. While the integration of urban resilience into the urban development planning process is effective for building adaptive capacities, piecemeal planning raises questions about its effectiveness to integrate the tenets of resilience for addressing a wider range of climate risks, shocks and stresses. This paper ascertained the extent to which piecemeal planning integrated urban resilience into the planning process in Mlandizi small-town. Mixed-research methods were used involving geospatial mapping, in-depth interviews and field observation. Land use/cover change analysis and mapping of urban development were conducted in piecemeal planned areas. Susceptibility to flooding was assessed in the Ruvu river floodplain through an overlay of houses on the Digital Elevation Model. In-depth interviews and field observations were conducted to ascertain the urban resilience outcomes of piecemeal planning. Results suggest that informal urbanization constitutes 90% of the housing development in Mlandizi. There is also rapid land use change and conversion of the natural landscape to man-made land uses, which results in diminishing green spaces. The results further indicate that the piecemeal planning process ignored consultation of stakeholders and strategic environmental assessment. As a result, it failed to provide an appropriate policy for integrating urban resilience with spatial planning. This paper argues for the adoption of comprehensive planning that integrates resilience in urban planning processes, and builds capacity for addressing a wide range of shocks, including the impacts of climate change.