Social Aspects of Housing, Understanding Communities and Neighborhoods: The Case of Six Areas in Addis Ababa
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Date
2005-06
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Addis Ababauniversity
Abstract
The social aspect is something that is yet to develop in the practice of housing in the city of Addis Ababa. Social studies focus on the demographic and land negotiation aspects only, as seen in the practice of the City Administration. The planner hence focuses more on the provision of maximum number of plots with little or no respect to the sociological software issues of communities and neighborhoods.
Therefore the research tries to address these two essential units by taking six case studies. The method that was followed to do the research was the case study method. Since the very existence of communities and neighborhoods according to general principles and design aspects is to be investigated, sample areas of six different locations were taken from the city of Addis Ababa. The criterion for selection is representativeness. One aspect of the criterion is age. There are two time packages, that is, older and recent settlement. From the older Old Airport, Lideta and Bole areas have been taken, while from the more recent Gerji, CMC and Saris areas have been considered. The other selection criterion is class. Three samples have been selected in the first package, that is, the Bole area from the more affluent, the Old Airport area from the middle and moderately affluent and the Lideta area from the lower income. In the latter package, since the target of the housing has been basically addressing the middle and lower class, we have only these classes under domain. In both packages, general principles according to literature review have been applied to investigate what exists in terms of communities. In that of neighborhoods, British standard studies1
1 R.N. Morris and John Mogey, “The Sociology of Housing”, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, p.108 ; here the standard has been applied to the case of Berinsfield, even if a resettlement case, the standard applying to non-resettlement cases of housing too. have been considered that were also applied to the resettlement case of Bernisfield, principles that can also apply to other housing cases as well, as in the cases of this thesis. Findings show that the city lacks fully constituted community or neighborhood units in the sample housing areas, as measured according to international standards referred, due to mainly the lack of formal centers. No degree of informality in the existing situation could substitute the formal center, for if so, communities would have surfaced out. Neighborhoods have also been found to be incompletely constituted as well, again a hierarchic reflection of the unfulfilled content of the community, implying the need of centers in the future
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Case of Six Areas