Institute for Development Studies, University of Nairobi

Urban housing, land allocation and planning policy is compared for Kenya and Tanzania for the post-Independence decade. In both countries, performance has fallen short of policy goals, especially in terms of the inability to shift development from the centre and the difficulty in effecting programmes for the lower income groups. Still, policy in Tanzania, while more innovative, and more focused on the needs of lower income groups, has been beset by more severe bureaucratic problems of implementation than has been the case in Kenya. The two countries' policies represent opposite dilemmas in the tension between equity and performance, these policy divergences are related more broadly to different elite political attitudes and structures, and to different patterns of urban income distribution.