Spatial Planning in Islands States: conditions, constraints, and new challenges

Keywords: Local Government, Spatial Planning, Island States, Global South, Spatial Justice
Abstract Type: Virtual Paper Abstract

Abstract

Local government has in most countries a relevant role in the respective spatial planning system. Given the centrality of spatial planning in the overall urban policy, this engagement of local government in the planning system turns it one of the driving forces in the promotion of quality of life and spatial justice in human settlements, ultimately a powerful force for the promotion of more just geographies. In islands, in particular in small island states, this role of local government, and that of the spatial planning system more explicitly, has specificities that ought to be explored and discussed. Even more when the island state, as it happens in several countries in the Global South, is characterized by extensive areas of informal urbanization, by a relatively recent formal spatial planning systems, and by an under resourced and under staffed spatial planning system. These conditions raise additional constraints to the response capacity of local government to promote more just geographies when confronted with the new and complex challenges related to climate change, pandemic events, energy crisis, natural or human made disasters, among others. This paper examines and compares these conditions, constraints, and challenges in two island states in Africa - Cape Verde and Sao Tome and Principe - which became independent in 1975.