DETERMINANTS OF EXPANSION OF SQUATTER SETTLEMENTS: THE CASE OF HOSANNA TOWN, HADIYA ZONE, SOUTHERN ETHIOPIA

Abstract

This study was conducted in 2016 to understand the determinants of expansion of squatter settlements in Gofer Meda subcity of Hossana Town, South Ethiopia. For this study a descriptive cross-sectional survey design with a mixed approach was employed. A sample of 369 households from 2400 households was taken proportionally using stratified random sampling technique. A questionnaire and key informant interview were used to collect primary data. Secondary data were collected from various sources like documents and online resources. The research used both quantitative and qualitative techniques for the data analysis. The finding of this study reveals that squatting in the town is a recent phenomenon that came into existence since 1999 E.C. The outstanding factors aggravating expansion of squatter settlements were identified to be age, migration, types of occupation, income and construction permit. Moreover, majority of the squatter settlers were internal migrants to the town coming in search of employment opportunities. Besides this, squatters in the study area were both poverty and non-poverty driven, informally occupied plots of land, have poor quality housing condition and are located in areas of poor social and physical infrastructural services. Thus, due to poor land delivery and management coupled with rapid growth of urban population and increasing demand for land, problems of squatting is getting serious in study area. Therefore, the city administration should enforce and implement fast and responsive land delivery system to prevent and control the emergence of new squatters in addition to pro-active measures and regular monitoring system for reducing squatting activity.

 

Key Words: Determinants, Squatter settlements, Hosanna, Ethiopia

DOI: https://ejesm.org/doi/v11i6.3

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