Analyzing Redevelopment-Induced Displacement in Ulaanbaatar’s Ger Areas, Mongolia

Mongolia’s land administration system entitles each citizen to 300–700 m² of land in the capital city (Law on Allocation of Land to Citizens of Mongolia, 2002). Accordingly, this entitlement applies equally to residents of Ger areas, indicating that what is often described as “urban sprawl” in Ulaanbaatar is in fact composed of legally owned residential plots rather than informal or irregular occupation. Despite their legal recognition through land privatization, these areas lack adequate infrastructure and contribute to environmental and social issues. Focusing on a Ger area neighborhood in the Bayankhoshuu sub-center, this study draws on document analysis and semi-structured interviews to examine how redevelopment policies reshape residents’ housing, livelihoods, and everyday life. Using the Impoverishment Risks and Livelihood Reconstruction (IRLR) framework (Cernea, 1997), the findings show that redevelopment produces interconnected forms of loss, including tenure-based exclusion, housing insecurity, disruption of access to infrastructure, and social disarticulation—particularly for renters and multi-household residents without formal land titles. While redevelopment is framed as a strategy for improving living conditions and environmental outcomes, its implementation often generates new vulnerabilities and reinforces existing inequalities. The study argues that Ger area redevelopment in Ulaanbaatar produces forms of state-led informality by formalizing land while overlooking the social, cultural, and relational infrastructures that sustain everyday life, highlighting the need for more inclusive and participatory planning approaches.