Planning Adoption And Implementation Of Ethiopian Capital Planning

As the capital city Ethiopia,Addis Ababa is the economic,political and administrative hub of Ethiopia with a high expression of the state-directed vision for local urban development.In the former 50 years,the city has played its role international significance as the head quarter of the African Union(AU).UN Economic Commission for Africa(UN-ECA)and a regional office for many international organizations.In retrospect,the implementation of the City Development Plan had taken a number of turns at different times during the past decade.Arguably,some of its crucial recommendations in its previous master plan had not materialized,like many cities in the developing world,Addis Ababa is facing a number of problems related to population growth,lack of economic opportunities,inadequate infrastructure,shortage of housing,and large areas of informal development with major environmental problems.The dual image of the city epitomizes the tension that affect Addis Ababa in its attempt to present itself as administrative and diplomatic capital of Africa while dealing with the challenges of providing housing and adequate infrastructure services to its inhabitant.It is evident that Ethiopia is one of the fastest growing cities in Sub-Saharan Africa of the last two decades.Given Ethiopia’s status as low-income country and its significant use of foreign aid and technical assistance,the research endeavors an analysis of spatial formations emerging from globally disseminated concepts of developmental and technical cooperation within two case study framework of social housing project and a road infrastructure network.Placed at the interface of political,economic,spatial practices and technical cooperation the research pursues an explorative bottom-up trajectory,which analyzes each case study along its specific ideologies,concepts and disseminations,applied typology with its correlated functions,design determinants,and spatial outcomes.These mechanisms have contributed to substantial deficits regarding spatial outcomes and thus have directly affected the citizens’ use of their everyday spaces: the investigated projects have fostered spatial and social segregation;nurtured dependency on foreign materials and technologies;adopted limited;promoted a steady commodification of public goods;and stimulated inflexible design procedures.Reflecting on the particular findings,many of these challenges can be identified as the result of a rather simplified distinction between foreign and local knowledge,a strikingly restricted selection of planning implementations,and a fairly narrow understanding of design as a universal procedural activity.In view of current and upcoming challenges of planning adoption and implementation in Ethiopia and other comparable contexts,the thesis concludes with first,to depart from simplistic universal solutions towards multifaceted and collective tactics;second,to move from linear deterministic models towards more flexible and contingent planning practice.