This article analyses the components of urban
household livelihoods in growing cities, using the city of Dodoma in Tanzania
as a case study. This article applied trend analysis, principal component
analysis and household vulnerability index to examine the trend of
urbanisation, vulnerability profile of urban livelihoods, value of livelihood
assets owned by urban households, as well as livelihood strategies and outcomes
in urban settings. The study was framed within the sustainable livelihoods
approach, in which data were collected from 215 households using both
probability and non-probability sampling approaches. The results indicate that
the average vulnerability profile of urban households is 2.06, which is
positive and moderate. About 72.09% of households had a vulnerability index
below the average. Wealth index scores revealed that 44% of households are
below average in the study area. Urban households’ livelihood strategies
employed by most households were urban street vending followed by motorcycle
taxi “bodaboda”. On the other hand, the results on livelihoods indicated that
51.6% fall below the middle quintile. The study concludes that the number of
urban plots owned, land for urban farming and diversification of income sources
had the most significant impact on reducing the impact of the vulnerability.
Thus, it is recommended that urban development interventions be more suited to
people’s livelihoods.
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