Building Up, Not Out: Rethinking Urban Density in Mozambique

In Mozambique, low-density urban expansion can either enable inclusive livelihoods or entrench marginalisation, depending on how land is allocated, serviced and integrated with urban networks. Sara Márquez Martín and Mercilia Lombe show how new policies and participatory projects like Chamanculo C pave the way for inclusive and sustainable urban futures.

Urban Dreams, Sprawling Realities

Horizontal expansion, large plots, and a technocratic approach to planning rooted in colonial and post-independence ideologies continue to influence how cities grow today. For many municipal leaders, this kind of horizontal expansion is a point of pride, a visible sign that the city is expanding. However, this development comes at a cost: it generates long commutes, high infrastructure costs, and fragmented social fabrics that deepen inequality.

Maputo’s planning tools —Plano de Ordenamento Territorial (PEOT), Plano de Estrutura Urbana (PEU), Plano Parcial de Urbanização (PPU), and Plano de Pormenor (PP)— are key to urban management and are supposed to guide how the city develops. Yet, these plans take years to develop. As a result, they often become outdated before implementation and are rarely revised on time. Their complexity and lack of public participation reinforce a rigid top-down approach to planning — one that is ill-suited to keep pace with a rapidly urbanising society.

The Roots of Low Density: History, Culture and Policy

Low-density sprawl in Maputo stems not only from planning decisions: it is deeply rooted in the city’s history, culture, and policy landscape. The 2004 Constitution guarantees housing (Art. 91) and land access via DUATs (Art. 109), shaped by post-independence nationalisation under the Administração do Património do Estado (APIE). However, rapid urbanisation and migration outpaced housing supply, leading to informal, self-built expansion on the periphery. Initially limited to precarious materials, self-construction soon became common, driven by need and affordability, but often bypassing legal norms and lacking alignment with urban plans.

Culturally, access to land in Mozambique remains strongly tied to social status, inheritance, and survival. To have access to a plot with a yard is perceived not just as a home, but it also represents wealth, security, and identity. This view continues to shape urban aspirations, pushing families toward low-density forms. Even public institutions reinforce this model, promoting 20x40m plot sizes as standard and favouring isolated, one-family housing over vertical or collective solutions.

The Cost of Sprawl

This model has led to sprawling, low-density cities, especially on city edges, with major impacts: infrastructure becomes expensive to build and maintain, commutes grow longer, and reliance on cars increases.  Community ties weaken,  roads become less safe, public spaces are lost, and poorer residents are pushed out of central areas. Walking is stigmatised, while car ownership is seen as a status symbol. New housing developments tend to favour elites, pushing most residents farther from jobs and services.

Before and after image of Chamanculo’s Alleys. People now live the street, enjoy accessibility and livelihood. Habitat Chamanculo Project, Arquitectura Sin Fronteras © Júlio Marcos

Can Policy Shift the Tide?

Mozambique is currently revising key legal frameworks: the Politica Urbana, Lei de Terras, Lei de Ordenamento Territorial, and a new Lei de Urbanização. Yet the core question remains: Can these frameworks challenge deeply held aspirations and promote urban density?

Lasting change will need culturally sensitive, inclusive strategies that show the benefits of medium-density living through shared vision, strong leadership, and visible results.

A Model for Change: The Habitat Project in Chamanculo C

Chamanculo C is one of Maputo’s most densely populated informal neighbourhoods (360 pictures, maps, aerial picture), home to over 22,000 people across 140 hectares — about 157 people per hectare. Though it is considered dense by Mozambican standards (typically 20–40 per hectare), it remains modest when compared globally: Johannesburg has 250 per hectare, London 560, Lagos over 680, Brasília 40, and Shanghai even more than 1,000 per hectare.

The Habitat Project — supported by Arquitectura Sin Fronteras, WSUP, and the Municipality of Maputo — marked a turning point for the area. Using the PPARC methodology (Participatory Planning for Urban and Community Resilience), it reframed Chamanculo not as a problem, but as a space full of opportunity.

Despite its high density, the neighbourhood long lacked land titles, access roads, and infrastructure. The 2023 Detailed Plan of Chamanculo C now promotes inclusive, gender-based planning to transform the neighbourhood into a liveable, rights-based settlement.  Guided by the “9 Steps to the Right to the City” (PPARC, Article 84), the plan prioritised widening narrow alleyways to reach at least 3 meters — a requirement for securing land tenure. Thanks to accessible visual tools, almost every household took part: 899 of 900 households participated. The later steps of the plan encourage vertical housing, with two- and three-story pilot homes currently being designed, combining beauty, function, and community.

Chamanculo C is about more than infrastructure, it represents a mindset shift. Rather than relocating low-income families, it densifies in place, guiding families to build upward with dignity. It’s urban planning as a learning process done with people, not to them. As Dona Marieta says, “they’re shaping the city’s future by building up, not moving out”.

Site work volunteer of the Habitat Project. Arquitectura Sin Fronteras © Júlio Marcos

The Road Ahead: Rethinking How We Plan Cities

If the current moment teaches us anything, it is that Mozambique must ask: what kind of urban future do we want?

Mozambique’s urban future demands a shift not only in where and how we build — it requires a fundamental shift in how we think about urban development. The dominant logic of horizontal growth and peripheral development is no longer viable. It stretches resources thin, isolates the poor, and disconnects citizens from the full life of the city.

The role of the state is vital, and so is its vision. Yet, current laws and planning tools still reflect a rigid, top-down approach. They fail to adequately respond to the lived realities of cities that are already dense, informal, and evolving fast. State-led housing delivery, as seen through FFH through Public-Private-Partnerships, has not yet created a resilient, equitable housing system. Too often, these projects are supply-driven and disconnected from local needs. But initiatives like Chamanculo C demonstrate that urban density can be reimagined for the better.

Community mapping process, Hábitat Chamanculo C, Arquitectura Sin Fronteras ©Júlio Marcos

To move forward, we must stop seeing informal settlements as failures and start recognising their density as potential. Urban planning must operate on multiple scales. New urban policies should be implemented through shared knowledge, integrating participatory plans with formal tools, and by prioritising people, ecosystems, and accessibility over land speculation. Project Habitat points to a promising middle ground between top-down control and bottom-up participation.

Ultimately, to build up, not out, is not only a matter of height, it is a matter of rethinking power, knowledge, and inclusion in how we shape our cities. Only then can we create urban environments that are more liveable, equitable, and sustainable, so they guarantee the right to the city to all Mozambicans.