Open research questions in Urban and Rural Development Challenges

What the literature leaves open

• and https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ugj.2024.09.003 future for Kates, R., Colten, C., Laska, S., & Leatherman, S. (2006). Reconstruction of New Orleans After Hurricane Katrina: A Research Perspective. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 103, 14653–14660. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0605726103 Kozlowski, M., Wooi, L., Kamal, M., Ishak, S., & Zaharin, K. (2021). The impact of COVID-19 on the cities in 100 Malaysia: Creating a pandemic resilient urban environment. Architecture Malaysia, 4(33(4)). https://www.pam.org.my/images/publications/am2021/33-4/AM33.4.pdf Kufeoglu, Sinan. (2022). SDG-11: Sustainable Cities and Communities. 10.1007/978-3-031-07127-0_13. Kurniasari, Permata & Gabe, Rossa & Adianto, Joko. (2019). Spatial extension as a housing strategy in Kampung Kota: A case study from Kampung Kingkit, central Jakarta. IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering. 523. 012049. 10.1088/1757-899X/523/1/012049. Lak, A., Shakouri Asl, S., & Maher, A. (2020). Resilient urban form to pandemics: Lessons from COVID-19. Medical journal of the Islamic Republic of Iran, 34, 71. https://doi.org/10.34171/mjiri.34.71 Lang, R., & Roessl, D. (2013). The Governance of Co-operative Housing: Current Challenges and Future Perspectives. The International Journal of Co-Operative Management, 6, 8–12. Lin, B. C., & Lee, C. H. (2024).

  ADAPTIVE HOUSING PLANNING STRATEGIES FOR STRENGTHENING URBAN POOR COMMUNITIES IN POST-PANDEMIC CITIES · 2026 · DOI

• Based on the findings of the study, the following recommendations were proposed: - Environmental education programs should be intensified in rural communities surrounding forest reserves in order to improve awareness and knowledge of microplastic pollution and its environmental consequences. - Government agencies and environmental organizations should implement community- based waste management programs that promote proper disposal and recycling of plastic materials. - Agricultural extension services should pollution environmental incorporate awareness, microplastic particularly contamination, into their training programs for farmers and rural households.

  Assessment of Knowledge of Microplastic Pollution and its Environmental Effects among Rural Dwellers in the Idanre Forest Zones, Ondo State, Nigeria · 2026 · DOI

• Effective results and and the of SCIENTIFIC CULTURE, Vol. 12, No. 4, (2026), pp. 7143-7154 7145 COMPARATIVE STUDY OF RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN GDP AND AFFORDABLE HOUSING regulatory the availability of affordable housing, even though there is a lot of writing on urban development and housing policy. Most of the studies that are out there look at GDP growth and housing affordability as separate issues, looking at macroeconomic progress or urban housing shortages on their own. The connection between the economic growth on the state level and the housing price in the city has not been systematically investigated by many people. To find out whether the money created by raising the GDP really leads to the development of the quality of life, we have to close this gap. The difference in fiscal frameworks, and policy capacity, implementation can be compared in a relatively way and demonstrate how the differences in the mentioned aspects can influence housing equity in different cities in India (Agarwal et al., 2022). This research paper presents a comparative study of the correlation between GSDP and affordable housing in eight cities in India namely Mumbai, Nagpur, Chennai, Madurai, Bengaluru, Mysuru, Ahmedabad, and Rajkot. It is a four-state high-GDP framework representing an economic diversity balanced representation with similar governance situations. The study will assess the relationship between economic prosperity and better housing access or limiting inefficiencies improvements in housing access through the analysis of variables like the GDP contribution, population growth, policy implementation, budget allocation and affordability. It also provides a comparative evaluation of governance performance to identify structural barriers that hinder the translation of economic growth into equitable housing outcomes. The essence of the hypothesis of the study is that being in a better position in terms of higher GDP level of states imply a better financial capability and more investment in infrastructure, but it does not imply proportionate improvement in housing affordability of the low- and middle-income levels. Growth in the economy usually triggers speculative real estate construction resulting inflation and exclusion development of cities. On the contrary, the states with low GDP, though with a lesser inflation in involvement and the market, have few private administrative inhibit housing inefficiencies that supply (ESCAP, 2025). Thus, the cost of housing in India is determined not only by the rate of economic growth, but also by the quality of governance, fiscal decentralization the institutional processes. The comparative angle of the present research is very close to the intentions of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 11, in inclusiveness institutional into price and of balance that would which cities are to become inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable by incorporating social equity in urban development (Singh and Shankar, 2025). It is therefore important to understand how GDP and affordable housing operate to come up with policy frameworks economic modernization and distributive justice and human development. Lastly, the paper aims at creating an evidence-based the knowledge on macroeconomic inclusive governance and equitable urban planning in India. It contributes to the scholarly debate of the economic social nexus of development policy by implying that institutional reform, policy consistency, and spatial justice should follow the long-term growth. Only when economic development is linked with the development of appropriate governing system and social justice structures, the cities in India will become the place where dignity and opportunities, as well as affordable living, will be offered to both rural and urban citizens.

  COMPARATIVE STUDY OF RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN GDP AND AFFORDABLE HOUSING · 2026 · DOI

• The study projects that urban governance can be improved for city sustainability through the following recommendations, • Push for community led initiatives in areas where communities have records like in Lagos’s • waste-to-energy initiatives that is shown to have improved urban environment. Institute policies for accountability and transparency to greatly improve governance by allowing citizens follow progress of policies and make vital inputs in real time. • Create avenues that prioritize environmental justice in urban planning ensuring equitable accessibility to urban facilities to both wealthy and poor neighbourhoods. • Strengthen the collaboration of public-private and public-community partnerships in the provision and maintenance of basic facilities to increase their protection and lifespan. • Using smart planning techniques such as climate-smart planning that can integrate flood-risk • maps into urban designs for environmental protection (Nwokocha, 2026). Integrate proven global practices that can be replicated locally, removing dependence on governments, like Kenya’s Kisumu Informal Settlement Programme that provided 10,000 affordable housing units through community cooperatives (UN-Habitat, 2023). The Scale Journal 2026, Volume 5 Issue 1 24 The scale Journal Website: https://thescalejournal.com.ng/ An Interdisciplinary Journal of https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20278998 The ACADEMIC STAFF UNION OF POLYTECHNICS - ZONE D ISSN: 2992-3727 Published 30th May, 2026 • For land administration urban governments can use Geographic Information Systems (GIS) an important tool for land-use monitoring for effective management (Okafor et al., 2024). • Some decision-making authority can be transferred to local governments and communities, enabling for more responsive, closer and tailored service delivery (Adewoyin, 2018). • The World Bank (2018) calls for performance measurement that uses proven indicators and metrics to evaluate performance of urban services and hold governments accountable. • Market-oriented approaches that leverage private sector resources and expertise to deliver urban services and infrastructure has long been advocated by Osborne & Gaebler (1992).

  EFFECTIVE URBAN GOVERNANCE FOR CITY MANAGEMENT AND SUSTAINABILITY IN NIGERIA · 2026 · DOI

• Several recommendations are highlighted for the study and they include, • Credible actions should be taken by governments to fix the economy so as to improve the financial • • • situation of Nigerians especially those within low income. It is important rent regulation be put in place to curb arbitrary increases by landlords. Intensive awareness campaign on the workings of mortgage institutions especially public ones informs the grassroots and low-income groups about the benefits attributed to them. Interventions by government to help low-income groups mitigate psychological hindrances to housing loans caused by scarcity to foster equitable access to finance such as loan application simplification and tools geared towards payment reminders should be initiated. • Public mortgage institutions should be supported to have facilities that can accommodate very low- • income groups to encourage them benefit from government housing programmes. It is important that governments at all levels intensify development of low-cost housing projects and judicious allocation to low-income groups at considerable low interests and longer repayment periods.

  UNDERSTANDING HOUSING SITUATION OF LOW-INCOME GROUPS IN NIGERIA AND THEIR PERCEPTION TO MORTGAGE FINANCING · 2026 · DOI

• Based on the findings and framework presented, this study advances the following recommendations for policymakers, planning authorities, and professional bodies: State governments should enact enabling legislation that formally recognises digital permits, electronic signatures, and online submissions as legally valid instruments within their planning regulatory frameworks, closing the current legal vacuum that discourages institutional digitalisation. The Federal Government, through the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing and relevant planning agencies, should develop a National Digital Planning Standards Framework to ensure baseline interoperability, data exchange standards, and performance consistency across states. Planning authorities should prioritise systematic cadastral map digitisation and land registry database integration with digital permit systems as a precondition for GIS-based spatial verification — without which digital systems cannot achieve their potential accuracy or efficiency gains. The Nigerian Institute of Town Planners (NITP) and TOPREC should formally integrate digital planning competencies — including GIS operation, KPI monitoring, and digital workflow management — into their professional development programmes and continuing education curricula, ensuring that the profession evolves in step with governance technology. States with limited capital budgets should adopt the phased Starter Toolkit approach (QField + QGIS + KoboCollect) before progressing to more expensive enterprise platforms, demonstrating that meaningful digital transformation is not contingent on large initial capital investments. All planning authorities should implement the Executive KPI Scorecard proposed in this study — encompassing Approval Velocity, Departmental Throughput, Revenue Integrity, GIS Accuracy Rate, and Citizen Satisfaction — as the minimum operational standard for digital performance monitoring. Donor agencies and development finance institutions operating in Nigeria should establish dedicated funding windows for digital planning infrastructure investment, recognising that planning system efficiency is a foundational enabler of urban investment climate, housing market development, and sustainable city management. REFERENCES 1) Adeniran, A., & Mabogunje, A. (2022). Digital cadastral systems and spatial planning intelligence in land administration. Journal of African Planning Research, 14(2), 88–107. 2) Aribigbola, A. (2008). Improving urban land use planning and management in Nigeria: The case of Akure. Theoretical and Empirical Researches in Urban Management, 3(9), 1–14. 3) Holzer, M., & Schwester, R. W. (2011). Public administration: An introduction. M.E. Sharpe. 4) Nigerian Institute of Town Planners. (n.d.). Professional practice standards and planning administration guidelines. NITP. 5) Ogbonna, C., Nwafor, J. C., Okeke, D. C., & Udeh, S. N. (2022).

  Application of Digital Technology for Enhanced Physical Planning Services in Nigeria: E-Governance and the Digitalisation of Planning Applications, Procedures, And Approvals · 2026 · DOI

• Based on the findings, the study proposes that: 1. Akwa Ibom State Government should prioritise the completion and asphalting of key feeder roads in Itu LGA, starting with those linking major agricultural zones to the Calabar- Itu highway. 2. The government should expedite payment of compensation to property owners whose land and businesses have been destroyed or damaged. 3. Address the flooding crisis at Urua Ekpa Road through proper engineering and drainage systems, fulfilling promises made since 1999.

  Road Construction and Poverty Reduction in Nigeria: A Study of Itu Local Government Area, Akwa Ibom State · 2026 · DOI

• The scalability of the CIDCO lottery-based model to diverse state housing boards and regional contexts across India has not been empirically tested or validated.

  Micro Housing in India as a sustainable response to urban housing shortages · 2026 · DOI

• Reconnaissance research method, a qualitative research approach for exploring under-researched terrains, guided the interview of 104 slum healthcare stakeholders across eight purposively selected slums in Enugu and Onitsha cities, in southeastern-Nigeria.

  Informal–Formal Healthcare Services Delivery Nexus in Nigeria’s Urban Slums: A Reconnaissance Study · 2024 · DOI

• Empirical social-ecological system (SES) research on neighbourhoods’ common property is scarce, especially in unpacking the mediational effects of SES components on residents’ collective action performance.

  Exploring the Mediational Effects of Institutional-Social-Ecological Factors on Collective Action Performance: Applying SES Theory in Gated Communities · 2022 · DOI

• In the United States, almost 30 years of poverty deconcentration policy has had mixed results and offers cautions to other countries looking to confront urban segregation.

  Promoting a geography of opportunity in Accra, Ghana: Applying lessons from mixed-income development successes and shortcomings · 2022 · DOI

• While research frequently identifies institutional management failures as a foundational cause of the poor state of its UGI, it remains to be demonstrated whether residents’ knowledge on UGI reflects their attitudes toward their management.

  A city of contrasts: Binary position of residents’ knowledge and attitudes toward urban green infrastructure · 2022 · DOI

• Using mixed data and first-hand insights from multi-stakeholder forum premised on the theory of post-colonial state as our analytical framework, the study argued that community government grossly underperformed its development functions, arising from a lack of stakeholders’ supports and occasioned by state government interference in community government administration.

  Developing Nigerian communities through community government council: The Imo state experience · 2020 · DOI

• There is limited literature pertaining to planning in the Global South, in comparison to the literature base of planning in the global North, and some believe that much of the planning literature on the Global South comes from outside the continent, and does not reflect indigenous African-knowledge.

  Reflecting on Global South planning and planning literature · 2019 · DOI

• Context/Background: Although almost 25 percent of Ugandans live under the national poverty line, little is known about the residents of the Kampala slums, especially pertaining to how conditions compare to other global baselines and how existing conditions affect public policy and service delivery.

  A Baseline Analysis of the Katanga Slums: Informing Urban Public Policy In Kampala, Uganda · 2017 · DOI

• Thus, these may provide policy insights by encouraging public officials to consider reengineering the POS market via an adaptive property-rights re-alignment paradigm in the interest of addressing POS quality and sustainability issues, which warrant further…

  Do institutions matter in neighbourhood commons governance? A two-stage relationship between diverse property-rights structure and residential public open space (POS) quality: Kota Kinabalu and Penampang, Sabah, Malaysia · 2016 · DOI

• The authors conclude that the government’s ambitions to create socially viable neighbourhoods are limited by their homeowning residents’ concern with privacy in the context of wariness of intimacy, distrust, fear/ubiquity of crime and violence, fear of gossip and jealousy, and poor sense of identification with place.

  Homeownership, Privacy and Neighbourly Relations in Poor Urban Neighbourhoods in Cape Town, South Africa · 2012 · DOI

• Innovative, sustainable housing solutions such as tiny housing (TH) remain unexplored in Sri Lanka.

  Tiny houses for low-income communities in Sri Lanka: key stakeholder motivations · 2026 · DOI

• This suggests that economic growth alone is insufficient to address slum conditions, particularly in the absence of inclusive development and targeted urban policies.

  Beyond linear models: machine learning insights into the determinants of slum prevalence · 2026 · DOI

• The moderate correlation between intervention effectiveness and housing accessibility suggests that while government policies are directionally appropriate, their execution is insufficient to produce large-scale impact.

  A Systematic Review of Low-Income Earners' Housing Challenges and Government Interventions: A Quantitative Study in Nigeria. · 2026 · DOI

• It is recommended that PMAY dashboards and NHB reports should be continuously monitored to update the data beyond 2025-early 2026.

  Micro Housing in India as a sustainable response to urban housing shortages · 2026 · DOI

• 2, which aims to facilitate orderly, safe, regular, and responsible migration through implementing planned and well-managed migration policies at various government levels, this remains understudied at the local level.

  The integration of migration into municipal development planning in the city of uMhlathuze in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa · 2025 · DOI

• While considerable research has been done on urban spatial structure in North America, Europe, and China, cities in sub-Sharan Africa are chronically understudied.

  Comparing the spatial structure of cities in East Africa, Europe and North America · 2025 · DOI

• The effec­tiveness and sustainability of poverty reduction strate­gies implemented by countries in Southern Africa vary widely from country to country and within the country itself.

  Review of community development initiatives for poverty reduction in Southern Africa · 2024 · DOI

• Our findings fill an important gap in research evidence, addressing how communities and livelihoods change as low-income home builders seek to achieve scale, and how notions of community are generated and reconstituted through savings and homebuilding processes.

  Scaling low-income housing delivery in Kenya and the Philippines: community participation and livelihoods outcomes · 2024 · DOI

Most-cited papers in Urban and Rural Development Challenges

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• Definitions of “rural” and “urban” and understandings of economic transformation: Evidence from Tanzania · Journal of Rural Studies · 2020 · 70 citations
• Moving Unruly Contemporary Urbanism Toward Sustainable Urban Development in Ghana by 2030 · American Behavioral Scientist · 2014 · 66 citations

Most recent work

• Urban green infrastructure as community facilities: a stewardship framework for the Segoditshane river corridor in Gaborone, Botswana · Facilities · 2026
• Local experiences and perspectives of resilience and sustainability to climate and environmental hazards in two informal settlements in Accra, Ghana · International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development · 2026
• Commoning Public Spaces Towards Inclusive Urbanism in Ghana · International Journal of the Commons · 2026
• Micro Housing in India as a sustainable response to urban housing shortages · International Journal of Progressive Research in Engineering Management and Science · 2026
• From Survivalism to Entrepreneurship, Disclosure and Accountability: Rethinking African Urban Economies for Sustainability · Kuveza neKuumba: The Zimbabwe Ezekiel Guti University Journal of Design, Innovative Thinking and Practice · 2026
• Road Construction and Poverty Reduction in Nigeria: A Study of Itu Local Government Area, Akwa Ibom State · Afrischolar Discovery · 2026
• Application of Digital Technology for Enhanced Physical Planning Services in Nigeria: E-Governance and the Digitalisation of Planning Applications, Procedures, And Approvals · Global Journal of Engineering and Technology Research · 2026
• <b>Project Implementation Practices and Project Performance of the Integrated Housing Projects in Laikipia County, Kenya</b><b></b> · East African Finance Journal · 2026
• <b>Effect of Project Planning Practices on Project Performance of the Integrated Housing Project in Laikipia County, Kenya</b><b></b> · East African Finance Journal · 2026
• Urban demand management through citizen participation: a data-driven analysis from an urban facilities management perspective in São Paulo · Facilities · 2026

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