CHAPTER ONE
1. Introduction
1.1.Background of The study
The process of urban expansion is a worldwide phenomenon, recorded in the history of all urban centres. It started with the earliest human civilization of Babylonians’ (Cemea, 1997).
Urbanization, the process of urban expansion, may involve both horizontal and vertical expansion of the physical structure of urban areas. And horizontal expansion of urban can result in loss of agricultural land, natural beauties, range lands, parks and sceneries (Minwuyelet, 2004).
For case in point, urban centers of countries like England and USA expanded horizontally with loss of agricultural land. Impacts of urban expansion include not only the loss of agricultural land but also displacement of peasants and change of their livelihood. To this effect,10 million peoples were displaced globally because of developmental activities per year. And among those displaced, 6 million are attributed to urban expansion, (Cemea, 1997).
Although multifaceted, the main cause of urban expansion is population pressure. The increase in African population is surprising. However, more surprisingly, their urban growth rate is higher than the growth rate of national population in almost all countries of the continent. Among other factors, the population pressure, as Berhanu (2005) argues, caused expansion of African cities. The expansion of cities is, however, at the expense of prime agricultural lands and agricultural productivity which of both are the main livelihoods of peripheral communities. Urbanization and urban growth are considered as a modern way of life manifesting economic growth and development. However, urbanization and urban development in Ethiopia faced a number of socio-economic problems (Tegenge, 2000).