Abstract
House‐based enterprises (HBEs) as well as small enterprises located in residential neighbourhoods are common to all urban areas of developing countries, especially low‐income residential neighbourhoods. In Accra, the capital city of Ghana, there is an increasing use of houses and residential neighbourhoods as places of work. A survey of small‐scale production and service‐oriented enterprises located in three low income residential areas in Accra examines three issues: space use, growth patterns, and health and environmental effects. The study found that although HBEs derived some advantages from being sited in houses and in residential neighbourhoods, half of the sampled operators would have preferred to locate their business outside the residential neighbourhood in order to attract more customers, overcome the problem of inadequate workspace and to expand their enterprises. Most of the sampled enterprises had no appreciable growth over time. Enterprises had unintended negative health and environmental consequences on the operators, their workers and also on the house and residential environment in general. These effects tended to compound the already serious household environmental conditions in low‐income residential neighbourhoods. The paper offers some suggestions to improve the accommodation of HBEs in order to promote business growth and ultimately to reduce the health and environmental impacts.
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