Abstract
Urban land markets play an important regulatory and development function in the efficient and effective access, use and sustainable management of land and property markets. Efficient commodification of urban land markets underpins inclusive and progressive urban human settlement functioning. However, inefficient urban land markets perpetrate suboptimal land and property market shifts and changes that encourage speculation, landholding, fragmentation and splintering of urban land markets, whether for commercial, industrial, residential or recreational purposes. This chapter makes use of the complex dynamic systems approach to unpack the narrative of urban land markets and performance in Zimbabwe from 1990 to 2020. The lessons from the review act as a benchmark for infusing new insights on how postcolonial Zimbabwe can utilise both formal and informal urban land markets in transforming and transitioning towards sustainable human settlements. The results indicate how formal and informal urban land markets can be managed towards sustainable human settlements. Furthermore, the chapter illustrates and advances urban land market transitions and an innovative framework that explains how the contemporary urban land market forces of demand and supply interact in Zimbabwe. The way the current land market struggle is unfolding in Zimbabwe is reflected by the emergence of new housing standards, products, technologies, formats and geographical areas.
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Notes
- 1.
During the dollarisation period, the Zimbabwean government adopted a multicurrency system in their economy, where the country was using a basket of currencies that included the US dollar (US$), South African rand, Botswana pula and British pound.
- 2.
Notable recent projects that added to the housing stock in 2018 and 2019 were done by the Central African Building Society (CABS), which undertook a project of 2,797 units in the Budiriro suburb of Harare and a 1,080 unit project in the Pumula/Nkulumane suburb of Bulawayo. The CBZ Bank serviced 1,174 stands in Victoria Falls and the National Building Society developed 600 houses in the Dzivaresekwa suburb of Harare.
- 3.
This is despite the existence of several private–public partnerships in residential, commercial and industrial property market developments facilitated by the Harare City Council, with government and property stakeholders in Zimbabwe.
- 4.
In Harare City, Monvale wetland was converted to a residential area, the Belvedere wetland near the national sports stadium witnessed the construction of a multipurpose centre (hotel and wholesale), while a school was built on the Ashdown Park wetlands.
- 5.
Politically linked names for cooperatives were adopted, such as Madzibaba Border Gezi, Sally Mugabe cooperative and the Josiah Tongogara cooperative.
- 6.
A general valuation roll is a legal document that consists of property information of all rateable properties.
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Chakwizira, J. (2021). Urban Land Markets. In: Matamanda, A.R., Nel, V., Chirisa, I. (eds) Urban Geography in Postcolonial Zimbabwe. The Urban Book Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71539-7_13
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