In the past few years the issue of land invasion and government reposnses to landlessness in the Southern African region has been at the forefront of international attention. By confronting the the questions of exclusion and unlawful occupation this book examines the appropriateness of the informal settlement response in South Africa through a comparison with Brazil. This detailed comparison sets forth the difference in the approaches of both countries, with South Africa employing the individualised, standardised intervention and Brazil a more responsive one.
The UN's Millennium Development Target to improve the lives of 100 million 'slum' dwellers has been inappropriately communicated as a target to free cities of slums. ... [The book] traces the proliferation of this misunderstanding across several African countries, and explains how current urban policy ... encourages this interpretation. The cases it presents cover a range of conflicts between poor urban residents and the local and national authorities that seek to curtail their 'right to the city'."--Back cover.
The fragmentation of South Africa's cities persists despite the ending of apartheid. New forms of segregation are emerging in the context of globalisation and a largely neo-liberal policy environment. This poses an enormous challenge for policy-making, planning, and community activism. Although there has been an improvement in service infrastructure in certain parts of South African cities since 1994, the major structural changes required to alter the trajectory of urban change have not yet happened. This book provides a provocative, careful, analytical perspective on the problems of fragmentation, with particular reference to the provision of urban shelter. The cross-national nature of the author team reflects the fact that many of the issues facing South African cities are being experienced globally. This is a fascinating book. The text is both theoretical and practical. It will be of great value to policy-makers, planners, community leaders, and students in the field of development and the built environment.
After more than 20 years of freedom in South Africa we have to ask ourselves difficult questions: are we willing to perpetuate a lie, search for facts or think wishfully? Freedom has been enabled by apartheid’s end, but at the same time some of apartheid’s key institutions and social relations are reproduced under the guise of ‘democracy’. This collection of essays acknowledges the enormous expectations placed on the shoulders of the South African revolution to produce an alternative political regime in response to apartheid and global neo-liberalism. It does not lament the inability of South Africa’s democracy to provide deeper freedoms, or suggest that since it hasn't this is some form of betrayal. Freedom is made possible and/or limited by local political choices, contemporary global conditions and the complexities of social change. This book explores the multiplicity of spaces within which the dynamics of social change unfold, and the complex ways in which power is produced and reproduced. In this way, it seeks to understand the often non-linear practices through which alternative possibilities emerge, the lengthy and often indirect ways in which new communities are imagined and new solidarities are built. In this sense, this book is not a collection of hope or despair. Nor is it a book that seeks to situate itself between these two poles. Instead it aims to read the present historically, critically and politically, and to offer insights into the ongoing, iterative and often messy struggles for freedom.
In the past few years the issue of land invasion and government reposnses to landlessness in the Southern African region has been at the forefront of international attention. By confronting the the questions of exclusion and unlawful occupation this book examines the appropriateness of the informal settlement response in South Africa through a comparison with Brazil. This detailed comparison sets forth the difference in the approaches of both countries, with South Africa employing the individualised, standardised intervention and Brazil a more responsive one.
The fragmentation of South Africa's cities persists despite the ending of apartheid. New forms of segregation are emerging in the context of globalisation and a largely neo-liberal policy environment. This poses an enormous challenge for policy-making, planning, and community activism. Although there has been an improvement in service infrastructure in certain parts of South African cities since 1994, the major structural changes required to alter the trajectory of urban change have not yet happened. This book provides a provocative, careful, analytical perspective on the problems of fragmentation, with particular reference to the provision of urban shelter. The cross-national nature of the author team reflects the fact that many of the issues facing South African cities are being experienced globally. This is a fascinating book. The text is both theoretical and practical. It will be of great value to policy-makers, planners, community leaders, and students in the field of development and the built environment.
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