Abstract

An urban and regional growth pattern is shaped by purposeful, cooperative governance initiatives in any country through planning. Various planning strategies have been underway in Ethiopia since its inception. However, these plans for Gambella City felt short, as the current city development plan is challenged by the concentration of residents from the same ethnic group settled in spatial space. Ethnic federalism in Ethiopia, with a lot of ambiguities, failed the urban planning strategy. The planning was unsuccessful in accommodating the influx of ethnic groups armed with an ethnic sense of identity and attitudes. Resistance to structural plan execution, ethnic conflicts, high environmental pollution, robbery, and theft in Gambella City are all revealed as the result of unsuitable residential settlement policies, regulations, and planning models in place. We explore the planning model in use since the establishment of Gambella enclave and develop a new one that fits the city. Purposive sampling was employed for selecting the Gambella Urban Development and Construction Bureau, the Mayor's Office, the Gambella Speaker House, the Gambella Municipality, Urban planning Institue; and experts in all these sectors. All these participants are engaged and contacted through interviews, focus groups, the annual report, and certain reviews on policy documents were all visited. We found that the current urban planning model in Ethiopia failed to address the new patterns of ethnic enclave settlement in Gambella City. Therefore, we introduce an inclusive city planning model that is both spatialmagnified and non-spatial as the respective planning model for Gambella City. This planning has the potential to accommodate residents with diverse backgrounds, review the regulations in place, resolve conflicts through consensus, and develop new market strategies that can transform enclave settlements local business into modern that accomodates majority of residents and upgrade each potential for development. Some limitations addressed, cover the absence of consultation with higher officials in the region and at the federal level. The use of qualitative means of data collections and already collected land inventory data and reports in some instands may bias. As the right expertise on the subject area may be missing as political appointees in focus may not be technically knowledgeable and may not sound out their views well.