ABSTRACT
Social service provision and accessibility play a great role in ensuring city de-velopment in both developed and developing countries with emerging econo-mies, Tanzania inclusive. This paper provides a comparative study on the situation, arguments and criticisms of three planned neighborhoods, whereby in those cases, local communities were involved in settlement upgrading through land regularization in Tanzania. The discussion centered on comparing the social infrastructure service provision and the levels of accessibility of neighborhood residents to roads, waste disposal, water and electricity supply. Similarly, the paper highlights the role of neighborhood leaders in ensuring social service provision, accessibility levels, reasons for connections, and the correlation between source of water and electricity supply as well as inferential statistics for the effects of the land regularization on the access to social services. We find that local leadership determines provision and accessibility of infrastructures in an area where informal settlement upgrading project takes place. Location differences of neighborhoods and proximity to the infrastructure service influence business growth, home improvement, service payments, and residents’ mindset change in the neighborhood land development processes. We also found that conditions set for provision of social services include: availability of permanent building structure, land ownership, affordability level, household agreement, offering land for public use and freedom from the road reserve. Local Authority sets guidelines for service provision and helps meet with the local community and thus, shows the recognized role of community involvement in settlement upgrading projects. Furthermore, the role of planning institutions and differences is highlighted. The study concludes that community involvement and local leadership championship in informal settlement upgrading are vital elements for the success of the program and towards ensuring development control, coordination and sustainability once the project ends.