scholarly journals Informal land investments and wealth accumulation in the context of regularization: case studies from Dar es Salaam and Mwanza

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manja Hoppe Andreasen ◽  
Gordon McGranahan ◽  
Alphonce Kyessi ◽  
Wilbard Kombe
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Household Wealth ◽  
Dar Es Salaam ◽  
Housing Development ◽  
Housing System ◽  
Wealth Accumulation ◽  
Informal Housing ◽  
Middle Income ◽  
Research Findings

Between half and three-quarters of new housing development in African cities has been taking place on land acquired through informal channels. This paper offers insights from a study of self-builders’ investments in informal land and housing in Dar es Salaam and Mwanza, two of the largest and fastest-growing cities in Tanzania. The findings demonstrate that self-builders’ investments in informal land and self-built housing are inextricably linked with household wealth accumulation processes and long-term security. In light of the research findings, the paper offers reflections on the potential impacts of ongoing land formalization processes. The paper argues that the informal housing system has far more advantages than appreciated by proponents of formalization, that the vision of bringing “dead capital” to life is misleading, and that the anticipated emergence of active formal markets for land and housing may not serve the needs or interests of low- and middle-income households.

A People’s Portfolio of the United States

Divested ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 137-156
Author(s):  
Ken-Hou Lin ◽  
Megan Tobias Neely
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Wealth Inequality ◽  
The United States ◽  
Household Wealth ◽  
Wealth Accumulation ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Distribution Of Wealth ◽  
Baby Boomer Generation ◽  
Social Class Inequality

This chapter focuses on how finance has transformed household wealth—a trend with long-term implications for how social-class inequality becomes entrenched. It first reviews the uneven distribution of wealth in the United States. Wealth inequality has risen since the last quarter of the 20th century. Today, fewer American families have sufficient means to accumulate wealth over time, and the concentration of capital in the hands of a select few has widened the fault line between the richest and the rest. The chapter also examines how the distribution of wealth has changed across generations—more precisely, what social scientists call “cohorts.” That is, wealth for the baby boomer generation differs greatly from wealth among the millennials. Since wealth accumulation develops over the course of a person’s life, families in young adulthood and near retirement are considered.

scholarly journals Do We Really Need Another Journal?

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-16
Author(s):  
Tiit Mathiesen
Keyword(s):  
Business Models ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Population Data ◽  
World Federation ◽  
Middle Income ◽  
Non Profit ◽  
Middle Income Countries ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
Study Population

A new Journal sees dawn – but didn't we already have too many journals and too many articles published to go to oblivion rapidly? Publishers take advantage of the move towards open access. The need to attract an audience and select papers for high-quality decreases with the move towards business models where journals charge article processing fees to cover expenses and create margins. The Journal of Global Neurosurgery (JGNS) is not a business project: it is far more altruistic and intends to fill a real need. The long-term prospects will not depend on revenue but on the sustainability of the publication model, which by necessity must be low cost and non-profit – other ways, the new journal will not be able to fill the need. "Global Neurosurgery" is becoming increasingly vogue. Individual neurosurgeons and the World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies have fostered projects to develop our specialty in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC), where single neurosurgeons have catered to many millions of patients. We see a worldwide quiet revolution of expanding surgical infrastructure and dissemination of knowledge in countries previously deprived. The stakeholders of this revolution have soon identified a veritable glass ceiling when it comes to publication. Submissions have frequently been seen as relevant or generalizable for the audiences of existing journals. Clinical neuroscience in LMICs is, much to the surprise of many practitioners and editors in previously established structures, different. Fundamental issues such as study population and external validity were rediscovered when population data, research findings, and practice guidelines from affluent, relatively elderly western people with access to smooth infrastructure and exquisitely equipped hospitals were applied with little meaning in LMICs with different demographics and epidemiology. Yet, many clinical studies from LMICs were adapted to previous literature's format and style, without detecting the unique qualities, "the cracks in the wall" of existing paradigms, that would bring the progress of knowledge and change. I believe that a research community with a thorough understanding of the specific qualities of infrastructure and epidemiology in LMICs is being established, and it needs dedicated platforms. A journal is one such platform that can serve to define and direct the subspecialty.

Taken For A Ride

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matteo Rizzo
Keyword(s):  
Public Transport ◽  
Urban Poor ◽  
Dar Es Salaam ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
Bus Rapid Transit ◽  
The Political ◽  
Urban Experience ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
Informal Economies

The growth of cities and informal economies are two central manifestations of globalization in the developing world. Taken for a Ride addresses both, drawing on long-term fieldwork in Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) and charting its public transport system’s journey from public to private provision. The book investigates this shift alongside the increasing deregulation of the sector and the resulting chaotic modality of public transport. It reviews state attempts to regain control over public transport, the political motivations behind these, and their inability to address its problems. The analysis documents how informal wage relations prevailed in the sector, and how their salience explains many of the inefficiencies of public transport. The changing political attitude of workers towards employers and the state is investigated: from an initial incapacity to respond to exploitation, to political organization and unionization, which won workers concessions on labour rights. A longitudinal study of workers throws light on patterns of occupational mobility in the sector. The book ends with an analysis of the political and economic interests that shaped the introduction of Bus Rapid Transit in Dar es Salaam and local resistance to it. Taken for a Ride is an interdisciplinary political economy of public transport, exposing the limitations of market fundamentalist and postcolonial scholarship on economic informality and the urban experience in developing countries, and its failure to locate the agency of the urban poor within their economic and political structures. It is both a contribution to and a call for the contextualized study of ‘actually existing neoliberalism’.

scholarly journals Climate drivers of plague epidemiology in British India, 1898–1949

2020 ◽  
Vol 287 (1928) ◽  
pp. 20200538
Author(s):  
Warren S. D. Tennant ◽  
Mike J. Tildesley ◽  
Simon E. F. Spencer ◽  
Matt J. Keeling
Keyword(s):  
Predictive Models ◽  
Control Measures ◽  
Climate Data ◽  
British India ◽  
Middle Income ◽  
Middle Income Countries ◽  
Complex Interactions ◽  
The World ◽  
Spatio Temporal

Plague, caused by Yersinia pestis infection, continues to threaten low- and middle-income countries throughout the world. The complex interactions between rodents and fleas with their respective environments challenge our understanding of human plague epidemiology. Historical long-term datasets of reported plague cases offer a unique opportunity to elucidate the effects of climate on plague outbreaks in detail. Here, we analyse monthly plague deaths and climate data from 25 provinces in British India from 1898 to 1949 to generate insights into the influence of temperature, rainfall and humidity on the occurrence, severity and timing of plague outbreaks. We find that moderate relative humidity levels of between 60% and 80% were strongly associated with outbreaks. Using wavelet analysis, we determine that the nationwide spread of plague was driven by changes in humidity, where, on average, a one-month delay in the onset of rising humidity translated into a one-month delay in the timing of plague outbreaks. This work can inform modern spatio-temporal predictive models for the disease and aid in the development of early-warning strategies for the deployment of prophylactic treatments and other control measures.

Limits of the current implementation of incremental housing

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Goran Ivo Marinovic
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Housing Policy ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Bank Loans ◽  
Housing Project ◽  
Middle Income ◽  
Specific Location ◽  
Current Implementation ◽  
Incremental Housing

In the case of conventional public housing, urban planners and policymakers design the layout of a housing project in a specific location and then estimate how many households can afford a home. This housing policy has been pursued as a legitimate solution for housing low- and middle-income households where the houses are individually financed by bank loans or mortgages raised by the occupants. John Turner criticised conventional housing solutions by affirming that ‘developing governments take the perspective of the elite and act as if the process of low-income houses were the same as in high-income countries and the same as for the small upper-middle class of their own countries’. Bruce Ferguson and Jesus Navarrete extend this argument with their critique of distributing finished houses to low-income populations and then requiring long-term payments, which are harmful to the beneficiaries. They note that ‘governments think of housing as complete units built by developers that households must purchase with a long-term loan rather than as a progressive process’.

scholarly journals Design of a Database of Case Studies and Technologies to Increase the Diffusion of Low-Temperature Waste Heat Recovery in the Industrial Sector

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 5223
Author(s):  
Miriam Benedetti ◽  
Daniele Dadi ◽  
Lorena Giordano ◽  
Vito Introna ◽  
Pasquale Eduardo Lapenna ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Low Temperature ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Heat Recovery ◽  
Waste Heat Recovery ◽  
Waste Heat ◽  
Industrial Sector ◽  
Implementation Rate ◽  
Depth Analysis ◽  
Technology Market

The recovery of waste heat is a fundamental means of achieving the ambitious medium- and long-term targets set by European and international directives. Despite the large availability of waste heat, especially at low temperatures (<250 °C), the implementation rate of heat recovery interventions is still low, mainly due to non-technical barriers. To overcome this limitation, this work aims to develop two distinct databases containing waste heat recovery case studies and technologies as a novel tool to enhance knowledge transfer in the industrial sector. Through an in-depth analysis of the scientific literature, the two databases’ structures were developed, defining fields and information to collect, and then a preliminary population was performed. Both databases were validated by interacting with companies which operate in the heat recovery technology market and which are possible users of the tools. Those proposed are the first example in the literature of databases completely focused on low-temperature waste heat recovery in the industrial sector and able to provide detailed information on heat exchange and the technologies used. The tools proposed are two key elements in supporting companies in all the phases of a heat recovery intervention: from identifying waste heat to choosing the best technology to be adopted.

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