Analysing the Causes and Challenges of Urban Spatial Expansion in Windhoek, Namibia: Towards Sustainable Urban Development Strategy

The global population has continued to increase over the past fifty years and many scholars believe that this trend will continue until the year 2050 or beyond. The challenge now lies with the ability of most cities especially those within the global south to develop and provide the most needed infrastructure and services. Namibia, with only 2.5 million people, with Windhoek, the capital city accounting for about 400 000 residents; is battling with the high rates of urbanisation since the influx of the people into Windhoek continues to be soaring. There have been massive spatial expansions as new arrivals settle on the urban fringes, consequently, over the years the city has been failing to keep pace in terms of basic service provision. Though there has been some research that have studied the spatial expansion of the city within its peri-urban areas. There is still a need for extensive research that unpacks the key causes of these urban transformations and the challenges of the uncontrolled urban spatial growth. Thus, this paper explores and unpacks the root causes of these spatial urban transformation. The increase of the urban population has led to urban sprawl which has negatively affected the efforts of the city of Windhoek to provide development infrastructures and services. Moreover, the demand for housing have also increased and those that cannot afford to rent in the formal housing sector are pushed into the informal settlements. Thus, the city of Windhoek faces a daunting task in the provision of basic services to its residents as this is exacerbated by the need to adopt a pro-poor planning approach, which in many instances places financial burden on the city. Thus, to address this challenge there is a need for the formulation and effective implementation of spatial planning tools such as the spatial development framework and policies that will specifically guide the urban spatial transformation in the peri-urban areas of Windhoek. A case study research design was adopted to investigate the uncontrolled urban spatial transformations in the peri-urban areas in city. The research employed qualitative data analysis that involved the extensive review of existing technical documents from the City of Windhoek and peer reviewed journals articles