Reversing Uncontrolled and Unprofitable Urban Expansion in Africa through Special Economic Zones: An Evaluation of Ethiopian and Zambian Cases

Jiabo Xu and Xingping Wang
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Jiabo Xu: School of Architecture, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China
Xingping Wang: School of Architecture, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 21, 1-20

Abstract: Despite the growing attention on uncontrolled and unprofitable urban sprawling in many African countries, few pragmatic solutions have been raised or effectively implemented. While uncontrolled and unprofitable urban expansions happened primarily due to poor land use management and dysfunctional land market, the cost of land management enforcement and reform is high. This paper suggests that the recently re-emerging special economic zones (SEZs) in Africa could be a practical way of using government intervention to reduce uncontrolled urban expansion and optimize urban land use. By evaluating the spatial impacts of two SEZs on their host cities in Ethiopia and Zambia, this paper demonstrates that SEZs could notably change urban expansion in terms of its speed, direction, and spatial structure. By using SEZs as an experimental area for land policy reform, the government can also effectively unlock a profitable urban development model with the functional primary and secondary land market. However, the diverging results in Ethiopia and Zambia also show that the optimizing effect can be significant only when the government is participatory and can fulfil its public function, including delivering proper planning in advance, lunching land policy reform, and even executing compulsory land acquisition for public interests.

Keywords: special economic zones; urban expansion; land management; spatial appreciation; entrepreneurial government (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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