Implication of urban poverty on physical planning: a case study of Katanga slum in Kawempe division, Kampala district

Abstract

Kampala city center is continuously experiencing rapid urban growth and increase in urban population which overrides the physical planning framework. This is due to high rates of rural urban migration into the city in search for expected better standards of living. Due to their low incomes, these populations tend to get confined into poor urban settlements in form of slums such as Katanga slum in Kampala city. Most of these people get involved in informal city activities such as street vending and other low paying informal businesses like chapatti making, kiosks and road side selling to sustain their livelihoods. This comprises of the urban poor population living in slums settlements and carrying out survival activities for their daily lives. This research therefore seeks to investigate the implication of urban poverty on physical planning, identifies the causes of urban poverty how it affects physical planning, and the characteristics of people living in urban poverty and through analyzing the various behaviors and characteristics of people leaving in urban poverty and the urban form and structure of Katanga through reviewing various literatures and information related to the topic of study. This study there for found out factors for urban poverty in Katanga using different research methods such as participatory observations, photography, interviews, and questionnaires. These methods were used to collect data from which findings showed that urban poverty affects physical planning due to low incomes levels of people. With this, people even relatively fail to raise money for construction of better houses, fail to acquire basic social services including medication, food, shelter, education, and protection as they may be provided and allocated in the physical development plans of Kampala city. Recommendations were drawn from the conclusions where measures to reduce urban poverty where provided.