The dynamism of the world economy has led people to trade all the goods at their disposal, including land. Thus, land is increasingly being inserted into the market economy, which is itself being dynamited by rapid urbanization. The phenomenon of commodification of land in sub-Saharan Africa, especially in rural, peri-urban and urban areas, does not date from today. It dates back visibly to the colonial era when the colonists acquired, either in freehold or in concession, huge tracts of agricultural, forest and residential land (Ayarma, 2019). This committed sales movement will no longer be able to stop and has even amplified with the global economic situation and the search for land by nonnatives and the haves of society in urban areas. From 1980 to 2022, in West Africa alone, the urban population has increased from 29.2% to 49.9%, and estimates are 65.7% by 2050 (UN-Habitat, 2017). The majority of this population resides in commercial and administrative cities with between 5,000 and 100,000 inhabitants (Satterthwhaite and Tacoli, 2003; Hilgers, 2012). That is, the urban fact is gradually replacing the rural fact in all countries. This urban and demographic growth contributes to increasing the demand for plots of land. Thanks to this growing demand, land has become the most coveted asset in West Africa (Bertrand, 2021). This desire is justified by the needs of individual housing construction, agricultural and mining exploitation, speculation and even money laundering. These multiple needs have meant that the land is now subject to the law of supply and demand (Kolani, 2008) and seems to be more accessible to the highest bidders, mostly urban dwellers.
Like other African countries, Togo is not on the sidelines of this commodification of land. This phenomenon of land sales began during the colonial period in small and medium-sized Togolese cities. Indeed, in the areas of small towns such as Missahohoe (Kpalime sector) and Kamina (Atakpame sector), estates from 1,000 to more than 5,000 ha have been acquired by Germans for residential and cultural needs. Thus, the character of the common and sacred land began to erode from this period in small urban centers. The land "whose importance boiled down to agricultural and pastoral practices for the survival of the community" (Dziwonou, 2003) has changed its status with the colonization that the African continent has experienced (Hetcheli et al., 2018). It has become a commercial and speculative asset (Djergou, 2015; Sondou et al., 2023). This phenomenon has been amplified over the years and has taken on critical proportions at the beginning of the twenty-first century with the phenomenon of unplanned and uncontrolled urbanization. Indeed, looking at the demographic axis, the results of the RGPH-5 give 43% of the Togolese population living in cities in 2022 compared to 37% in 2010. If trends continue, this rate will increase to 50% in 2030 and to 58% in 2050. This increase in the urban population has led some African countries to reclassify their urban boundaries by expanding outward into rural spaces (Manda, 2013; Tione & Holden, 2020). Faced with this strong urbanization poorly supported by the authorities, the demand for building land imposed by the desire of every citizen to live in his own house, what Guézéré (2011) calls "the obsession with home regardless of income", has greatly increased, and cities have not been able to help spread out. Thus, land becomes a major issue of this change. Once embedded in community relations, because of this urban and demographic pressure, it is turning into a commodity. Since then, the sacred, undivided and inalienable conceptions of the earth have radically given way to new challenges in the capitalist context that have consecrated the primacy of its market value (Hetcheli et al., 2018). In this new approach, land constitutes an object that several actors speculate in order to derive financial income. This practice is even more common in small and medium-sized cities where this resource, due to their urban dynamics, is increasingly entering the world economic system (Bernier, 1978). In these urban areas, the share of ancestral acquisition methods (inheritance, gift, leg, etc.) has decreased in favor of commercial transactions on the market (Colin & Ayouz, 2005; Durand-Lasserve & Le Roy, 2012). Certain authors see in this change a progressive disappearance of the indigenous matrix of land law in favor of the capitalist matrix (Barbier, 1986). This evolution is explained briefly by the monetization of society and the retreat of the collectivist spirit in favor of the individualist spirit and the transformation of the nature of transactions in the land field in the regions undergoing urbanization (Kola, 2003).
Urbanization is always accompanied by an increase in pressure on natural resources, including the earth. As a region becomes urbanized, land tenure regimes and practices relating to the use of agricultural land become practically uncertain and are besieged by new urban dwellers (Kuusaana & Eledi, 2015). Holden et al. (2009) comprehensively documented the evolution of land tenure institutions in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa, moving from customary land tenure systems, in which land was allocated by traditional authorities, to individualized forms of land ownership rights. The landowner must then adapt to the law of supply and demand dear to economists. However, by following multiple land supply chains (Durand-Lasserve et al., 2017), we realize the diversity of rights as well as the prices governing land for residential or economic uses in urban areas.
The small[1] town of Tohoun located in the prefecture of Moyen Mono knows this dynamic of land transactions with almost 40% monetized exchanges (Nyalewo et al., 2022). The value of land, the support of urbanization, continues to gain momentum due to urban dynamics, in favor of the sprawl of this city following the natural growth of its population and the positive net migration that it has experienced in recent years. Faced with the high demand for housing and the nonexistence of urban policies in this municipality, we are witnessing a proliferation of unregulated housing construction and nascent land hoarding. Indeed, the pressure of urbanization often favors land speculation. Landowners as well as purchasers compete for the acquisition of wealth: monetary for some, natural resources to be valued for others. Thus, the commodification of built or nonbuilt land creates an erasure of the use value in favor of the exchange value (Fijalkow, 2016; Aholou, 2016). The trend is then towards the complete disappearance of acquisitions by inheritance or donation. The expansion of urban land markets reflects more subtle changes in the institutions governing the allocation of land. However, in the absence of a regulation on land prices[2], the determinants of transactions become problematic. How are land prices built and fixed in the small town of Tohoun? What are the profiles and motives of the actors involved in fixing land prices in this city? Despite the existing literature, the mechanisms for fixing the prices of plots in cities in general and in small ones in particular have not received much attention. However, some authors have indicated that when land price data are available, the study of land prices can provide valuable information on land productivity, profitability, changes in demand and supply, urban development and overall economic growth (Coomes et al., 2018; Plantinga et al., 2002). The World Bank (2009) noted that the land market is important for facilitating the geographic agglomeration of labor and capital. Therefore, the objective of this research is to analyze the mechanisms of price fixing of plots in a small African town. We put forward the hypothesis according to which the formation of land prices is entangled in the social relations that bind buyers and sellers in the city and that urban land plots are not exchanged at identical prices but always have prices that are influenced by the characteristics of the resources specific to the household and the location, as well as the availability of urban infrastructure.
Physical framework of the study
Capital of the prefecture of Moyen Mono, urban canton of the commune Moyen Mono 1, Tohoun is a small town in southeastern Togo. It is located more than 120 km from the capital of the Plateau region. Its area is 4500 ha at an altitude of 105 to 290 m. It adjoins the official eastern border of the Republic of Benin. It is a mainly agricultural environment but with a strong presence of administrative services (Prefecture, Town Hall, Prefectural Departments of Agriculture, Environment, Social Action, Hospital) and urban infrastructure (Figure 1).
Fig. 1 shows us that the city of Tohoun is located between the East longitude 1 degree 32 minutes and the North latitude 7 degree 4 minutes. It points to us a concentration of urban equipment along the paved national n° 6, which comes from the west side to the east, and some equipment on the main road, which goes to Tado, the second urban pole of the municipality. The habitat is concentrated in the city center, but the human pockets are scattered throughout the lanes and interstices of the town.
Theoretical framework of the study
Within the framework of this work, the approach by the "hedonistic price method" (MPH) of Rosen (1974) and "the theory on the land market, reflection of collective representations" of Halbwachs (1970) served to confront the working hypothesis. The Hedonistic Price Method teaches us that the determination of the land price is not limited to the intrinsic characteristics of the property such as its area, its geographical location or even its center-periphery gradient and that other characteristics such as mobility, urban amenities (proximity to school, health center, roads), landscape, planning, urban function, etc. can also influence the price. Its mathematical function has been most often requested by researchers who work on the price fixing of goods, but for this work, its usefulness is linked to the fact that it expands the characteristics of price fixing on several elements. In a small town that is more rural than urban, even if the area and geographical location of the land will be directly taken into account in the determination, the fact remains that there is a social proximity that can also influence land prices.
The theory on "the land market, reflection of collective representations" evokes the value of opinion in fixing land prices. The question of opinion is interesting insofar as opinion covers the intention of the actors. This intention is based on social reflections. Opinion is formed from uses, certainties, and social know-how, and it makes it possible to question the way in which the social furnishes individual minds (L. Kaufmann, 2003, p. 259). Social relations are the foundation of African land, and a priori transactions cannot ignore the aggregation of individual opinions that constitutes collective representations in land transactions for M. Halbwachs.