The Nexus of Governance and Resilience: Confronting Social Problems in Urban Administration in Selected Cities of Southern Corridors

Abstract

Cities in developing countries have an influx of socio-economic challenges triggered by the dynamic urban growth that exhibits social crisis. Four cities from the southern corridor were selected, namely Butajera, Hossana, Yergalem, and Hawassa, to execute data collection. The research approach was exploratory, which used a mixed approach based on qualitative and quantitative data types. 1,489 households engaged in responses and semi-structured interviews conducted by city officials. The result reveals that a significant number of respondents reported that urban safety is under remarkable challenge, with 57% of inhabitants rating their cities' security as medium and low, and 55.8% supposed that crime is getting worse. The finding reveals that the imbalance between population growth and economic development paves the way for a change in rural-urban migration, unemployment, and unplanned urban growth attributed to the destabilized urban governance. Hence, 65.2% of respondents rated the predominance of streetism as rooted in the uncontrolled urban growth. The study concluded that the urban growth needs strategies that mitigate urban poverty and eradicate streetism and unemployment, and that the prevailing socio-economic growth of city dwellers is postulated, and policy and strategy implications imperatively support social resilience.