Home-Grown Growth (Dataset), 1960-2021

This research investigated the relationship between self-build housing and urban economies in four cities in Africa: Dar es Salaam and Ifakara in Tanzania, and Accra and Techiman in Ghana. The collection includes a questionnaire survey across all four cities and interview notes from Accra and Techiman. Interview notes are not provided for Dar es Salaam and Ifakara because they are ethnographic fieldnotes.
The questionnaire survey captures information about the housing career histories of 76 individuals in Dar es Salaam; 45 individuals in Ifakara; 41 individuals in Techiman; and 80 individuals in Accra. The questionnaire focussed on the nature of housing that people had lived in and how they had moved through housing stages (e.g. from tenant to owner) over the course of their lives. The sample was structured by five age categories (18-30, 31-40, 41-50, 51-60, 61+).
The interview notes include supplementary material to the questionnaire survey for Accra and Techiman in Ghana. They include interviews with people who ran businesses from their homes (Home-Based Businsesses) as well as people who ran businesses that supply the self-build housing sector.