Monitoring land use change in an African tribal village on the rural-urban fringe

Urban land uses commonly compete favourably with rural land uses on the rural-urban fringe under the principal of land rents in a free market. Where a free market does not exist, complications in land use competition may develop and make it difficult to acquire land for the ever increasing demands of urban use. This study uses GIS to quantify and analyse patterns of land use change reflecting competition among various types of land use in the village of Tlokweng on the rural-urban fringe of the city of Gaborone, Botswana, over a 26-year period between 1963 and 1989. The villages in the tribal territories on the rural-urban fringe where Tlokweng is located practise communal land tenure under which individuals are allocated land parcels free of monetary cost. The city of Gaborone, on the other hand, has a free land market. Differences in the price of land have encouraged migrants to the city to attempt to acquire residential plots from the tribal territories on the city's rural-urban fringe. However, since there are no incentives for exchanging land, would-be purchasers have faced resistance in acquiring plots on the outskirts of the village. During the period of study there was no organized expansion of the village and patterns of land use change could only be analysed by monitoring the increase in the number of plots allocated to various uses and the aggregate area occupied by these plots. Results indicate that more and more allocations of residential plots are made from vacant land within the older part of the village, resulting in increased congestion. It is recommended that commercialization of the communal lands, already contemplated by the government, may partially reduce resistance to changes in land ownership and arrest further congestion in the villages on Gaborone's rural-urban fringe.