Customary Land Conversion and the Formation of the African City
As cities grow and spatially expand, agricultural land is converted into residential land. In many developing countries, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, this process is accompanied by a change in land tenure, whereby plots held under traditional...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2020
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/184281584971290852/Customary-Land-Conversion-and-the-Formation-of-the-African-City http://hdl.handle.net/10986/33484 |
| Summary: | As cities grow and spatially expand,
agricultural land is converted into residential land. In
many developing countries, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa,
this process is accompanied by a change in land tenure,
whereby plots held under traditional customary arrangements
are sold to new urban residents, possibly with formal
property rights. This paper studies joint land-use and
land-tenure conversion in an urban economics model in which
intermediaries purchase agricultural land from customary
owners and attempt to transform it into residential plots
with statutory property rights. The spatial equilibrium
includes a mix of land uses and rights where statutory and
non-statutory residential plots coexist with customary land
that is mainly used for agriculture. Because customary
ownership is subject to uncertainty (because of tenure
insecurity), the conversion process includes a potential
information asymmetry between customary owners and
intermediaries. The analysis shows that a market failure may
emerge whereby some customary owners prefer to continue
farming their land rather than participate in the urban
residential land market, which results in a city that is too
small. Empirical analysis using Malian data validates the
key features of the model captured by land price gradients,
as well as the ranking and the variance of land prices, and
is suggestive of the presence of information asymmetry. |
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