In postcolonial Africa the legal distinctions between tribal, private and state (or
municipal) land, which include differential rights of access to land, have become a
major contributor to the process of creating peri-urban settlement outside formal
regulatory control. Colonial policies of indirect rule and urban management,
consolidated under apartheid ideology, allocated land for Africans outside municipal
boundaries in ‘locations’, and in rural areas under tribal, communal or customary
tenure arrangements. Land for basic housing need can be obtained more easily and
cheaply where customary land comes close to urban areas, although such areas
generally lack the local government capacity to provide planning and infrastructure. A
case study of such a settlement outside Gaborone, the capital of Botswana, explores
some of the issues raised, and proposes more inclusive and pro-active approaches to
the management of urban growth, including techniques of land pooling and reapportionment.