Survival Urbanism in the Neoliberal City: Coping with Urban Marginality among Homeless Adults in Dar es Salaam

Rapid urbanisation across the Global South has deepened spatial inequality, producing growing populations of urban residents who survive outside formal socioeconomic systems. While homelessness is often framed as an individual social problem, critical urban scholarship increasingly situates it within broader political–economic transformations that shape contemporary cities. This article examines homelessness and everyday survival strategies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, through the lens of urban political ecology and critical urban lens as “survival urbanism”. Drawing on qualitative fieldwork involving in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, and key informant interviews conducted in the commercial city of Dar es Salaam, this study analyses how structural forces such as neoliberal urban governance, labour precarity, and uneven development produce conditions that push individuals into homelessness while simultaneously shaping their strategies to navigate their everyday lives. The analysis demonstrates that homelessness is not simply a condition of shelter deprivation but rather a manifestation of broader processes of urban dispossession and marginalisation. The participants’ experiences reveal complex survival strategies, including informal labour, social networks, and spatial negotiation within the city’s public and semipublic spaces. These practices illustrate what can be understood as “insurgent urban survival,” in which marginalised residents continually negotiate their right to remain within the city. Situating these findings within wider debates on urban informality, precarity, and the right to the city, the article contributes to urban political ecology by highlighting how struggles over shelter, livelihood, and urban space intersect in the everyday lives of the urban poor. This paper argues that addressing homelessness requires moving beyond humanitarian responses toward structural transformations that confront the political economy of urban inequality in African cities.