Human settlements planning - The missing factor
The Daily Graphic of May 4, 2017 published an article, titled “Congestion galore in Ghanaian urban centres”. The writer lamented the filth and poor sanitation in some city markets. The article did not touch on the genesis of the problem.
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It is appropriate to state at the onset that the situation of dysfunctional cities being decried is the result of decades of neglect of human settlements planning. We failed to consider urban centres as an integral part of the whole - the other side of rural. Already, we are being made aware that by 2030, 65 per cent of the world’s population will live in cities and urban centres.
And interestingly Africa and Asia, according to UN Habitat, will have a higher percentage of their population living in urban areas; yet both these continents have the highest incidence of the global poor.
Ghana, like many countries in Africa, will need to review and revisit the issue of Human Settlements Planning if cities indeed are to live up to expectation by 2030.
In the colonial era, major towns with commensurate infrastructure were established to facilitate the exploitation of natural resources for external markets.
Ghana is largely agrarian linked to rural areas which are underserved with appropriate infrastructure and characterised by poverty. Rural areas lack towns to serve as service centres. In 2000, the Western Region, for example, had only 500 (six per cent) settlements out of 9000 settlements qualifying as towns and majority of these were in the southern coastal zone.
Capacitating rural settlements with infrastructure will facilitate improved productivity in the agricultural and allied sectors. To this end, it is necessary that a colonial approach be adopted for exploiting resources from the rural areas. This approach superimposes a spatial pattern that alters the status quo with one which is more rational for the efficient movement of goods and services.
Overall planning for settlements to serve as central places should be the main focus of planning, especially at the district level. Settlements selected for central roles should have symbiotic relationships with their catchment areas – responding to functional needs.
The problems of Ghana’s major cities will linger on and their solution only superficial if they are not considered holistically within the context of human settlements planning.
To address the urbanisation problems effectively, focus should shift immediately to the establishment of a hierarchy of settlements (major, big and small towns) which are functionally interdependent and blends both rural and urban concepts in what could be conveniently termed a rural /urbanisation approach or “urbanisation”.
This approach has the following overall developmental effects:
• Facilitate the modernisation of agriculture and agro-related and non-farm activities.
• Link centres vertically and horizontally to optimise access for a large section of the rural population.
• Provide a threshold population to effectively increase utilisation of socio / economic facilities.
• Attract greater agglomeration of economic activities.
• Facilitate the bringing together sectoral infrastructural investments.
• Establish linkage of economic growth activities with spatial considerations.
Congested and filthy cities’ problems are not stand-alone problems. They are intricately linked to the overall human settlements planning problem which has been neglected over time. It is encouraging to note ,however, that in 2012, the government came up with a National Urban Policy Framework and an accompanying Action Plan. And in 2016,the government enacted a Land Use and Spatial Planning Act, Act 925. All of these are efforts yet to be implemented to review among others the roles of settlements in national development.
In conclusion, it important to state that the human settlements planning and the rural – urbanisation approach as espoused is a multiple dimensional panacea, which seeks to create settlements to act as counter magnets to reverse movements to the big cities; and also provides answers to a number of policy issues in the President’s State of the Nation’s Address. It is relevant for the agriculture for food and job initiative of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture; the one district one factory programme; the rural development programme of improving accessibility of the rural folks to socio / economic facilities; facilitating employment creation and poverty reduction. And on the global front, the approach provides the basis for addressing directly at least goals number one, two, nine, 10, 11 and 13 of the Sustainable Development Goals.
Everything currently being described as deplorable in our cities is the price being paid for decades of neglect to human settlements planning. The rural /urban approach is comprehensive and should be considered alongside other interventions designed to solve urbanisation problems in our cities.
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Urbanisation and growth of urban centres definitely have a significant role to play in development but this must be seen within the context that they are part of the whole.
The writer is a development planner. E-mail : [email protected]