This paper seeks to understand the relationship between the provision
of public infrastructure and the demand for formal property
rights in the unplanned urban settlements of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
We analyze take-up patterns in two adjacent settlements where
residents were offered the opportunity to purchase formal land titles
at subsidized prices. Detailed plans for proposed infrastructure investments
were drawn up for both settlements, but these infrastructure
investments were only implemented in one of the two locations. We
exploit this quasi-experiment to show that proximity to actual, but
not hypothetical, infrastructure investment significantly increases demand
for property rights, and this effect appears to be driven by both
increased property values and a dramatically-higher perceived risk of
expropriation.