This paper looks at the relationship between the middle classes, land and housing in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’s largest city and one of the fastest growing cities on the continent. My aim is to think through two related questions: what is the relationship between the middle classes, land and housing; and, how is this relationship shaping the city? To answer these questions I start with the concept of ‘land grabbing’, since it has been so prominent in recent discussions about land in Africa. However, these discussions have been dominated by a concern with rural land. How useful is the concept of land grabbing to an understanding of what is happening in contemporary urban spaces? Drawing on recent research with house-builders in the city’s northern suburbs I argue that land and houses offer significant possibilities for middle class accumulation in the suburbs, giving rise to extensive urban growth. Yet these accumulation strategies are highly precarious.