Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-788cddb947-tr9hg Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-10-09T20:31:51.304Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

12 - The Impact of National Policy on Urban Settlement in Zimbabwe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2020

Get access

Summary

The evolution of settlement in Zimbabwe has been influenced by political, administrative and economic factors during both the colonial and postcolonial periods. Pre-colonial Zimbabwe was predominantly agrarian with scattered nuclear and village settlements spread across the country. The scattered settlements were largely located to service an agricultural economy with limited trade and manufacturing, except for limited barter of goods and home manufacture of implements such as hoes and spears. The levels of specialisation were few and therefore the settlements had limited physical and social infrastructure. Except for the Great Zimbabwe monument and other relics of early pre-colonial settlements, there is no evidence of urban development until the colonial period. The settlement system tended to be semi-permanent as the population practised shifting cultivation.

During the early period of colonialism, up to approximately 1890, new settlements were established largely to serve as military and administrative centres, for example. Fort Salisbury, Fort Charter and Fort Victoria. These settlements were part and parcel of the colonisation process. After the European conquest at the end of the nineteenth century, new permanent forms of settlement were developed, together with the establishment of physical infrastructure linking them: railways, roads, telegraph. This process was vital to the establishment of the spatial system which exists in Zimbabwe today. The process was elaborated through a massive process of land alienation which effectively divided the country into European and African areas through the Land Apportionment Act of 1930 and the Land Husbandry Act of 1952.

By the end of the Second World War, Zimbabwe had experienced a rapid process of urbanisation and industrialisation, which effectively consolidated the settlement system. The main urban settlements benefited from significant infrastructure investment from government through the establishment of all the major parastatal and utility companies. Indeed by the beginning of the 1960s, Zimbabwe had a relatively well-developed spatial system despite the prevailing racial segregation which created racial and economic imbalances in terms of overall development.

The colonial inheritance in 1980 was therefore clearly much more significant than some other African countries had inherited in the 1960s. There was a strong settler European imprint which has been difficult to restructure.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×