Benefits of urban land use planning in Ghana

The urban land use planning literature is rife with criticism of the deficiency of planning regimes in sub-Saharan Africa. Currently, little is known of the magnitude of the economic impact of these land use planning regimes, leading to a lack of clear evidence to direct policy reforms. This study examines the economic benefit of Ghana's land use planning regime to provide quantitative evidence of the magnitude of its benefits to contribute to the debate in the literature as well as aid policy formulation. This study found that land use planning in Ghana contributes considerable benefits in residential areas. A substantial portion of these benefits emanates from tarred roads and concrete drains, electricity, formalized titles and pipe-borne water, while worship centres generate no benefits. This implies that the former four attributes are central to generating maximum benefits from planning in residential areas in Ghana. The study recommends that Ghana's ongoing planning reforms should place the provision of these facilities at the heart of residential neighbourhood developments, while steps are taken to review the necessity of requirements (attributes) such as community parks, schools and worship centres in residential communities. To aid the assessment of the suitability of land use planning requirements, it is further suggested that the benefit of the planning regime should be evaluated in the context of the cost of compliance with its requirements and urban dwellers' socio-economic conditions. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd