Metropolitan Councils

Although no traction in the envisioned direction has been observed since the adoption of the concept of “metropolitan councils” in the Constitution of Zimbabwe (Amendment No. 20 of 2013), there is much potential, scope, and sense in the idea to spur urban and regional development under the impact of urbanization in the country and beyond. In the Constitution of Zimbabwe, Section 269, Harare and Bulawayo Metropolitan are the only regions due for metropolitan councils. The present study seeks to unravel three critical aspects surrounding the concept metropolitan councils as a new paradigm for urban and regional planning and development in Zimbabwe. The study is based on archival methods, which make use of existing documents including the Constitution of Zimbabwe amendment No.20, media reports, reports and plans, by local authorities, among others. Textual and content analysis have been applied to decipher and pigeonhole into different issues towards clustering them into meaningful the...