A Comprehensive and Critical Analysis of Illegal Land Market in Mekele Peri-urban: A Lesson to the Rapid Urbanization in Ethiopia

Abstract

This research was initiated to investigate the derivers of massive illegal land market in Mekele’s peri-urban area that has been unprecedented and pervasively for the last decade so as to shade light mainly to the urban planning regime and to the residential land market of Tigray Region and hence the country. Data was collected from survey of five hundred and forty two households and other primary and secondary sources by applying a concurrent exploratory mixed research method. The findings, unlike other researches to date, indicate that derivers of the illegal land market are basically structural problems. Expansion plan beyond the city's legal jurisdiction - “a cart before the horse,” seeking expansion instead of rural hinterland transformation, illogical blending of Local Development Plan implementation and adjudication, dichotomous rural-urban land right and acute scarcity of land supply are the key structural derivers. Among the conventional challenges ramifying illegal land market are absence of rigorous rural land use plan and rural residential land registration and sporadic adjudication. Owing to structural nature of the problem, neither bulldozing nor regularization has been found appropriate response. Therefore, the feasible solution should be comprehensive enough in which urban plan that transforms the hinterland, establishing rigorous rural land use planning and registration as well as ensuring robust adjudication system. All other solutions will work only if the significant land supply via illegal means is brought in to the formal system.

Keywords: illegal land market, urban planning, rights dichotomy, wealth appropriation