Browsing by Author "Tanyeh, John Paul"

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    The emergence of gated communities in Ghana and their implication for urban planning and management
    (2012-07-12) Tanyeh, John Paul
    In the last two decades, Ghana has become more urbanized and currently the rate of urbanization is estimated to be 53%. Accra, the capital city is experiencing an urban housing form known as gated communities. The emergence of gated communities in Ghana has contributed greatly to the housing supply of Ghana. It has also led to the construction of quality housing estates for people living in Ghana. The concept of gated communities is a multi facetted one where households indirectly pay for certain services and infrastructure to be provided to them when it is the duty of central government to provide those services. Gated communities are getting more common in Ghana that, they may soon pose a challenge to Ghana’s planning and urban strategies which aims at making Ghana’s cities sustainable and socially diverse. However, with gated communities, there is privatization of spaces which were otherwise considered public. The various planning institutions are faced with certain challenges in the planning and management of these urban forms as real estate developers provide the needed services and facilities in lieu of the state. The study used purposive sampling to select the relevant institutions for the study. The real estate developers and gated communities were sampled using the snowball method and respondents were selected using accidental sampling. Data was collected from respondents using a well structured questionnaire and observations. The study revealed that GREDA and the various planning institutions do not have appropriate data on the gated communities in Ghana. The planning institutions were not actively monitoring the activities of real estate developers and sometimes planners were even prevented from entering gated communities to monitor their activities. It was realized from the study that there is the need for a legal, regulatory, environmental and urban housing policy in Ghana.