Paper short abstract:

Drawing on a comparative analysis of public goods provision in Dar es Salaam, this presentation discusses the nexus between de-facto social regulations and infrastructural development in contexts of high climate change vulnerability and urban poverty.

Paper long abstract:

African cities face some of the harshest consequences of climate change and urban poverty. The under resourcing and fragmented powers of the state means that communities often self-provide and self-govern public goods, for instance by maintaining open spaces and roads, by supplying water, waste and other collective services. Social norms and de-facto regulations underpin these community provision systems, affecting how community produce and distribute access to public goods, with important consequences in terms of the efficiency and equality of urban life. However, despite their importance, social normative systems remain underexplored in the literature on urban informality and in the infrastructural turn of urban studies. This presentation will problematise the nexus between de-facto social regulations and public goods provision, discussing primary research conducted in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Specifically, I will discuss how social regulations supported communities in road repair and policing, provision and preservation of public space, while also enabling bridges between communities and utility companies for the provision of electricity. A comparative analysis of these diverse cases exemplifies a heterogeneity of social regulations, illuminating cross-cutting challenges and transferable lessons.