Publisher's Synopsis
The question of ethics in the planning and establishment of human settlements in Zimbabwe from pre-colonial times to date, has not been put to purposeful scholarly scrutiny and rigour. Such scholarship, being absent, is in its own right a challenge in many respects depending on the angle one decides to look at it. From colonial times, to date, and with increasing demographic pressure in urban centres, the way people choose to settle themselves and, sometimes, against set rules and regulations raise ethical issues. The way also the state response can be very drastic. This book looks into these and related matters towards contributing to the scholarship, policy and practice around human settlement establishments, constructions and maintenance. A settlement being a system that binds together aspects physical, natural, social, economic, philosophical, moral and political, to mention but a few, is a complex reality and artefact. Zimbabwe, as a country that has undergone various vicissitudes of political and economic pressures brings out interesting dimensions to the ethics of human settlement.