Impact of trunk and ring road expansion on urban livelihoods: the case of Dar es Salaam city, Tanzania

The study assesses the impact of trunk and ring road expansion such as land take on urban livelihoods among the residents who live adjacent to the expanded trunk or ring roads. The land adjacent to trunk or ring roads has been a source of livelihoods to urban residents including youth and women. Thus the study has been carried out among the residents who lived adjacent to selected expanded trunk and ring roads in the city of Dar es Salaam through case studies and survey. A total of 270 households were picked through stratified random sampling. Data was collected through interviews using questionnaire as well as participatory rapid appraisal. Categorical data analysis of two-dimensional contingency tables was used to test the hypotheses. The findings show that the impact of trunk and ring road expansion such as land take has adversely income generation among the respondents. The t-test showed that there was a statistically significant difference in income between before and after trunk and ring road expansion. The result was significant at 001. In terms of renting out before and after trunk and ring road expansion based on land taken for trunk and ring road expansion, 55.3 percent of the respondents who were renting out before trunk road expansion could not rent out after trunk and ring road expansion. However, 4 percent of the respondents who were not renting out before, started renting out after expansion they took advantage of the opportunities created by trunk and ring road expansion. Furthermore using the regression model, it was found out that 56.8 percent of the income after trunk and ring road expansion was explained by five major factors namely income and rent received before trunk and ring road expansion, land take, water and electricity availability. Thus, light-of-way of road in urban centers should always be enforced in order to avoid adverse impact on livelihoods of household residents adjacent to such roads during road expansion. The right-of-way enforcement should involve the concerned residents because the government alone cannot manage to enforce it. Moreover fair compensation for land acquisition and house demolished would significantly minimize the impact of road expansion on urban livelihoods.