Situated urban political ecology of climate resilience planning: The land use planning conundrum in Ghana

The insufficient focus on power and equity in earlier resilience thinking prompted urban resilience planning scholars to explore urban political ecology for insights into the power dynamics that influence varying levels of vulnerability and resilience to urban environmental stressors. However, the predominance of neoliberal capitalist logic in Marxist urban political ecology attracted criticism and calls for a situated urban political ecology. This study employs a situated urban political ecology lens, drawing on postcolonial and strategic relational approaches to analyze how the situated knowledge of climate change among land custodians informs their land use planning practices through resilience-oriented land use planning. Using qualitative research methods in two secondary cities in Ghana, the findings show that strategic selectivity disrupts the influence of land custodians' situated knowledge in resilience-oriented land use planning. Urban poor residents suffer the negative consequences of the land use planning actions of the custodians. On the other hand, the main land use planning actors and powerholders (land custodians, private developers, and planning officials) benefit from the workings of the land use planning system. Diverse social, cultural and economic motives inform the strategic selectivity of powerholders in land use planning, contrary to the predominant neoliberal logic of Marxist urban political ecology. We recommend that efforts to enhance urban resilience through land use planning within the sub-Saharan African context should acknowledge the strategic selectivity of powerholders and simultaneously create provisions to prevent the abuse of power and mitigate negative impacts on the environment and the urban poor. • Climate change knowledge of land custodians does not translate into resilience-oriented land use planning practices. • Community mobilization, lobbying politicians and protecting climate-sensitive land uses constitute custodians’ responses. • Social, cultural and economic motives inform the strategic selectivity of land-use planning actors. • Accumulation by adaptation, acts of commission and acts of omission are the outcomes. • Land custodians, private developers, and planning officials are the winners, while poor residents are the losers.