Research Outputs (Architecture and Planning)

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Local Councillors: scapegoats for a dysfunctional participatory democratic system? Lessons from practices of local democracy in Johannesburg.
(Critical Dialogue: Public Participation in Review., 208) Benit Gbaffou, Claire
This paper starts with the study of participation patterns in different neighbourhoods in Johannesburg, and demonstrates that institutional channels (be it representative democracy, or various participatory institutions and instruments) are currently not working in Johannesburg. Be it in low income or high-income areas, suburbs or townships, residents have to resort to other means, sidelining in particular their ward councillor, to be heard. We question the reasons for this lack of bottomup dialogue, focusing on the figure of the ward councillor as a supposedly key link between residents and local government, but however not able to play his/her role. We contest the dominant vision that the failure of participatory democracy in South Africa is the consequence of a lack of training, education or democratic culture, and we argue that both the limited power of ward councillors in Council, and the lack of incentive for fostering their accountability in front of voters, make local democracy institutions dysfunctional. More broadly, we question the lack of importance of participatory democracy in the ANC and in the government agenda, despite the political discourses claiming the contrary.
City of Johannesburg. Brief History of the Development of its system of Government
(Public Relations Officer, City Hall, P.O.Box 1049, Johannesburg, 1967) Public Relations Office, City Hall, Johannesburg
On 8th September, 1886, Paul Kruger, president of the Transvaal Republic, signed a proclamation declaring several farms, including Randjieslaagte, on the Witwatersrand ("Ridge of White Waters") public gold diggings. The biggest gold rush in history began to what was until then a piece of bare veld and rocky outcrop.
Carlton Centre Limited. Statistics and General Information Relating to Carlton Centre
(Johannesburg City Coucil, City Engineer., 1970-09-11) Johannesburg PD/MGS/GSF
The promotors of Carlton Centre are the Anglo American Corporation of South Africa, Limited and The South African Breweries Limited...The excavation necessary to permit the construction of the below ground levels was one of the largest ever undertaken anywhere in the world for a commercial building project.
Housing for the poor? Negotiated housing policy
(Elsevier, 2001) Huchzermeyer, Marie
Official discussion and negotiation on housing policy in South Africa was closed in 1994 with the launch of the new Housing White Paper. Contradictions in this policy between housing procedure and delivery target have limited its relevance to the poorest sector in society. The paper shows how these tensions between product and process are an outcome of negotiated policy-making, in which the attempt was to combine the dominant position of the private sector for the commodi"cation of housing, with people-centred housing procedures advocated by the democratic movement. In the second term of ANC government, the housing ministry, aware of some of the limitations of its policy, stated its intention to review the housing policy. This has led to renewed discussion. The paper traces shifts and continuities in recent positions on housing in South Africa. It traces their emergence from within the democratic movement including labour and community or civic organisation, the more recent Homeless People's Federation/People's Dialogue alliance, and the private sector with its in#uential Urban Foundation and subsequent policy research institutes. The paper argues that shifts in housing "nance have largely ignored the needs of the poorest sector in society. Further, the inadequately integrated location of subsidised development for the poorest remains unchallenged. The perception of local government merely as implementer in a centralised programme limits the ability to address local realities, also imposing bureaucratic constraints on community-based construction. In addition, an evasive discourse on squatting does not lend itself to the formulation of mechanism of intervention oriented around the needs of the poor. These limitations in addressing poverty through housing policy should inform future research on shelter in South Africa. 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Latter-day South African Spatial Planning And Problem Solving
(ISoCaRP Congress, 2003) Boshoff, Brian
The SA space economy and the striving for development has come a long way, but still faces great challenges. One of those challenges is to deal with globalisation -- a highly contested influence that has been shown by many authors to have myriad positive and negative effects and impacts. This paper has shown that globalisation has also influenced SA spatial frameworks and policies, in the context of competing, but related demands, as evidenced in GEAR and the RDP. I argue that there is a great danger of being simplistic and blinded by globalisation as a meta narrative and one should closely examine developmental goals and objectives, especially as they occur in a variety of contexts. For example, “just as Jhb’s citizens and managers must grapple with that city’s complexity, and devise creative ways of thinking about its future, and negotiating present dilemmas, so urban theorists need to move beyond globalisation and developmentalism, and embrace the ordinary, but dynamic complexity of urban life” (Robinson 2003: 278).
An Interpretation of Sustainable Development and Urban Sustainability in Low-Cost Housing and Settlements in South Africa
(University of Cape Town Press, 2003) Irurah, Daniel K; Boshoff, Brian
The sustainable development paradigm can be viewed as a convergence of two paradigms that initially evolved in an antagonistic manner, possibly as far back as the industrial revolution. The first one is the growth and development paradigm, which was strongly rooted in economic growth based on the economic output of an economy as measured by GDP (gross domestic product). Until the late 1900s, governments and communities had committed themselves to a vision of improved standards of living through increasing the GDP of their respective economies, while paying minimal attention to environmental and resource impacts. Then in the 1950s to 1970s the environmental movement coalesced after almost a century of isolated pronouncements on resource and environmental degradation arising from exponential population growth as well as increasing levels of production and consumption. The movement argued that unless humanity voluntarily controlled population and economic growth, environmental and resource degradation would put a limit on human survival. The strongest substantiation of the argument was presented in the Club of Rome Report, Limits to Growth (Meadows et al., 1972).
The Disaster Management Act 57 of 2002: part panacea or ready recipe for disaster?
(SA Public Law, 2003) Boshoff, Brian; Van Wyk, J
Floods, earthquakes, landslides, volcanic eruptions, explosions, runaway fires, and transportation and other accidents are all occurrences with which we are familiar, if only vicariously. These events can presumably all be categorised as ‘disasters’. But can the same be said for the dumping of hazardous waste, ships running aground, farm invasions and large-scale evictions, major traffic accidents and the issue of cross-border or internal refugees? When is an event considered a ‘disaster’, who determines that an event is a ‘disaster’, who can do what to prepare for the ‘disaster‘ and what can be done to alleviate the effects of the disaster after it has happened?
Housing Rights in South Africa: Invasions, Evictions, the Media, and the Courts in the Cases of Grootboom, Alexandra, and Bredell
(SpringerLink. Urban Forum, 2003) Huchzermeyer, Marie
Low-income residents in urban South Africa have made use of the courts to fight for what they perceive as their democratic right to a home in the city. Despite a democratic Constitution since 1996, with a Bill of Rights that includes socioeconomic rights, such as adequate housing (albeit with a proviso), there is little consistency in the outcome of the route of access to the city through the judiciary. Over the past two years, three eviction-related cases that involved court applications by illegal occupiers for short periods dominated the news in South Africa, and are frequently referred to in the media. Each had a different outcome, none of them satisfactory, highlighting the limitations of the judiciary as a route to democratic access to the city.The cases discussed in this paper raise the question as to the role of courts in a democratic, yet unequally developed country like South Africa.
From dominance to diversity in international cooperation: a view from South Africa
(NA-ERUS. Network-Association of European Researchers on Urbanisation in the South. http://www.naerus.net, 2003-05-17) Huchzermeyer, Marie
Critical research in the 1970s and 1980s in South Africa played an important role in exposing the implications of repressive and discriminatory urban policy and management. This critical urban research movement, which also engaged with approaches for a post-apartheid city, was subsequently replaced by a neo-liberal turn in urban research, largely informed by dominant international research thrusts. Within this context, what is the role of international cooperation? The paper takes a critical look at north-south urban research initiatives involving research in South Africa, to which the author has had direct exposure. The paper also examines the changing conditions under which local research funding is made available in South Africa, using the example of current restructuring of research funding at Wits University, Johannesburg. The paper argues that these conditions broadly follow the (neo-liberal) institutional trends set by the Anglophone northern counterparts. Should north-south cooperation reinforce this trend? The paper highlights the critical need for publication and dissemination in the south, of local as well as international research. Access in the south to academic literature, and the publication and dissemination of local research, are cruc ial in order for southern researchers to effectively cooperate. The paper points to the imbalance of facilities and resources in many north-south cooperations. Linked to this is the critical question as to where and by whom the research agenda is set. Far from assuming that research on South African urban issues is best initiated, conducted and funded locally, the paper argues that value is added when researchers from different regions apply different questions to the same problematic. Here the example is used of a group of young international and local PhD researchers addressing a similar urban problematic in South Africa, but with different theoretical approaches depending on the region of their academic home. The complexity of the unevenly developed urban south requires many different questions to be asked. The paper argues that ideally north-south cooperation should lead to enrichment in terms of the research questions and the theoretical approach, rather than imposing one dominant framework as is often the case.
Policy Aspects for Informal Settlements in South Africa
(Paper presented at the South African National Housing Summit, Gallagher Estate, 2003-11-19) Huchzermeyer, Marie
No doubt this conference will draw much attention to the important moment we’re approaching in South Africa, of having spent one decade building a new democracy. Indeed, various spheres of government are reviewing their achievements and evaluating the effects of their policies. While honoured on 6 October 2003 with a World Habitat award for its phenomenal housing delivery over this decade, national Department of Housing is also concerned about shortcomings in the delivery, which have come to the fore. The Department speaks of an emphasis on quality, which will mark the second decade of South African democracy, with a shift to a “demand-driven, supply-negotiated” policy (Vawda, 2003). In this paper I ask what this may mean in terms of a policy response to the informal settlement situation.
Gender and integrated area development projects: lessons from Cato Manor, Durban
(Cities, 2004) Todes, Alison; Beall, Jo
The paper examines whether integrated area development projects are particularly well placed to recognize the complexity and diversity of gender relations and provide important space for gender sensitive planning and practice. It recounts the case of the Cato Manor project in Durban, South Africa where, despite no explicit focus on gender in design, practices were remarkably consistent with the prescriptions of the urban gender planning literature. It is argued that a multi-sectoral and integrated approach offers space for innovation and close attention to local dynamics. Hence despite a disjuncture between planning and implementation, a nuanced gender aware approach emerged. There were also limitations and these are highlighted, recognizing feminist critiques of area-based development that show gender-aware practice is not automatic. In the case of Cato Manor, it depended on facilitative political and policy conditions, politically empowered and organized women and gender-aware professionals. Nevertheless, the area-based focus of the project was also helpful.
From ‘‘contravention of laws’’ to ‘‘lack of rights’’: redefining the problem of informal settlements in South Africa
(Elsevier, 2004) Huchzermeyer, Marie
Informal urban land occupation in South Africa is treated in a technocratic manner, consistent with the policy of orderly urbanisation introduced in the 1980s. This approach focusses on the contravention of laws governing property and land use, and accordingly results in most cases in evictions and relocations. A new mandate of the national Department of Housing is to eradicate the phenomenon of urban informal settlements in the next 15 years. This mandate gives new justification to the deterministic approach of eviction and relocation within the government’s standardised capital subsidy programme for housing delivery. Legislation has been tightened to enable the repression of new informal land occupations. The recent housing strategy proposal for Johannesburg, which advocates a zero tolerance approach to informal land occupations, remains largely undisputed. However, the media has often sided with the urban poor in recent cases of forceful eviction. This paper argues for a new paradigm, based on the recognition of the infringement of constitutional rights that is enabled by informality. Far from seeing informal settlements as a solution to the housing problem, it draws attention to the multiple levels of exploitation that are common to residents of informal land occupations. A socially compatible approachto intervention is suggested. This starts with mechanisms to protect residents against the infringement of their constitutional rights, rather than acting on their contravention of property laws.
Integrated Area Development Projects: Working Towards Innovation
(Transaction Publishers. Urban Forum., 2004-10) Todes, Alison; Odendaal, Nancy; Cameron, Jenny
There is growing interest in integrated area development projects as a way of responding to special problem areas, including ameliorating the geographic concentration of social and economic disadvantage. This is expressed through the move towards ‘joined up’ government and development ‘in the round’ at the local level; and new forms of area-based initiatives aimed at neighbourhood renewal and urban economic development. The growing influence of sustainability concepts and developmental approaches to housing and urban development is also leading to multi-faceted projects that incorporate economic, social and environmental dimensions. In the South African context, the interest in integrated area development manifests in the major urban renewal projects that are presently being mounted, and reflects a search for ways of achieving integrated development that are more grounded than the grand scale planning associated with Integrated Development Plans and Spatial Development Frameworks.
Policing Johannesburg wealthy neighborhoods: the uncertain ‘partnerships’ between police, communities and private security companies
(Trialog, 2006) Benit Gbaffou, Claire
The paper examines the challenges raised by “partnerships” between state and non-state security stakeholders, relying on two security experiments developed in Johannesburg wealthy neighborhoods. It raises the question of their monitoring by the police – understood as the police capacity to coordinate the multiple, non-state policing initiatives that otherwise remain fragmented “security networks”. The community initiatives seem easier to integrate within the local police strategies – since the private security sector has got its own, marketdriven logic. However, the formalisation of partnerships between police and communities have generally failed, due to their technical fragility (flexibility of community involvement, personalization of relationships leading to possible corruption and conflict) and their political difficulties (if the private sector can easily target the high income area, it is considered less legitimate for police to set up “elitist policing” thanks to the involvement of wealthy communities). Finally, abandoning these forms of partnerships might encourage a further privatization of the production of security – using more classical, easier-to-set “contracts” with the private sector that do not seem to lead to a real “partnership” with, nor a monitoring by, the police.
Challenges Facing People-Driven Development in the Context of a Strong, Delivery-Oriented State: Joe Slovo Village, Port Elizabeth
(Springerlink. Urban Forum, Vol. 17, No. 1, January-March 2006., 2006-01) Huchzermeyer, Marie
The Joe Slovo settlement process on the outskirts of Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape was, in the first instance, about securing land and housing for a large number of desperate people, living in intolerable conditions that are now internationally referred to as ‘slums’ (see UN-Habitat, 2003) (Figure 1). In the international context of the Millennium Development Goal 7 Task 11 to significantly improve the lives of 100 million ‘slum’ dwellers by 2020 (United Nations, 2000), and the South African response through a new human settlement plan (Department of Housing, 2004), the Joe Slovo case gives important insight into the complex interface between organised low-income households, in this case members of the Homeless People’s Federation, actively engaging in mproving their living conditions, and government’s housing delivery and urban governance machinery.
Decentralising voice: women’s participation in Integrated Development Planning processes in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
(Paper presented to Conference on the Place of Participation in a democratising South Africa, IFAS, HSRC and CUBES, Wits, 20-21st November, 2006., 2006-11-20) Williamson, Amanda; Sithole, Pearl; Todes, Alison
The appeal of decentralisation is based on the belief that it will foster participatory democracy, introduce more responsive service delivery and advance the rights of citizens. It is also assumed that decentralisation processes will promote gender equity and benefit women. International experience, however, has begun to show that social transformation does not necessarily follow decentralisation processes, and that the increased autonomy enjoyed by local government can roll back advances secured by national government as local elites entrench their power in ways that exclude and disempower marginalised and vulnerable groups. Against a backdrop of ambivalent evidence feminist scholars have cautioned against an uncritical acceptance of the supposed benefits of decentralisation for women.
Local Government, Gender and Integrated Development Planning
(HSRC Press, 2007) Todes, Alison; Williamson, Amanda; Sithole, Pearl
The South African Constitution is one of the most progressive in the world. It demonstrates a commitment to promoting equality for men and women, and entrenches women's rights. This commitment is carried through in several government policies, but there are debates about the extent of its implementation. Since 1994, local government has become a more important sphere than before. It is bigger than it once was, and has a larger mandate than before. \it has been described as the 'hands and feet' of the government, and is expected to play a key role in developing its local areas. Like national government, local government must carry through the commitment to women's empowerment and gender equity.
Book review: The Architecture of Demas Nwoko, by John Godwin and Gillian Hopwood
(Farafina, Lagos, 2007) le Roux, Hannah
Given the challenges of access and archives, it is hard to get down to detail in the documentation of modern African architecture. This architectural monograph by Nigerian based architects John Godwin and Gillian Hopwood is a moving and meticulous catalogue of the designed work of their friend, the artist Demas Nwoko, that is refreshingly full of both architectural and anecdotal details. It begins with two short essays on Nwoko’s creative background and an analysis of his approach to design, but for the most part describes, in drawings, text and photographs, his twelve built and five unexecuted works.
Comment on General Notice 1851 of 2006 - Prevention of Illegal Eviction from and Unlawful Occupation of Land Amendment Bill 2006
(http://abahlali.org/files/huchzermeyer%20PIE%20Act%20amendment-comment-16-02-07.pdf, 2007) Huchzermeyer, Marie
In 2006, she co-edited a book (UCT Press) titled ‘Informal Settlements: A Perpetual Challenge?’ which seeks to promote in situ upgrading of informal settlements in South Africa and to provide a wide understanding of the complexities involved in this, also in relation to housing rights. The book was welcomed by the Department of Housing. The comment below draws on this experience. While identifying positive aspects of the amendment, it also points out where the proposed amendment is a departure from spirit and principles of the Breaking New Ground programme which introduced informal settlement upgrading, embracing a tangible operationalisation of povery alleviation and of the right to housing for desperately poor and under-housed people in South Africa.
The Congress as Architecture: modernism and politics in post-war Transvaal
(Picasso, 2007-01) le Roux, Hannah
Two significant strands of South Africa’s history - the precocious modern movement architecture of the Transvaal Group, and the political resistance that led up the Congress of the People and the Rivonia trial - remain the research subjects of quite separate disciplinary fieldsb. One of the few pieces of writing to span between the two is Rusty Bernstein’s autobiography, Memory Against Forgetting (), which traces his involvement in the political events of the 1950’s, while alluding how the theory and practice of architecture helped to support him in both material and ideological ways. Despite the optimistic title of Bernstein’s book, there is a real threat of memory loss around the way in which the events of the postwar period related to the ideals of modernity that, in both its spatial and social manifestations, was to inspire South Africa’s political transformations as late as in the 1990’s. This article revisits memories of the earlier period in order to suggest some associations between the apparently diverse areas of architectural utopianism and practice, political theory and activism, and the specific events around the planning of the Congress of the People in 1955. These associations suggest that there is an imaginative vision at the heart of modern architecture that is quite elastic, conceptually: one capable of translation into diverse manifestations, some physical, some unrealisable, and some only to be realised at another time. The article is inspired by the stories of a handful of radicalised white architects in the 1950’s, whose early formation overlaps with the emergence of the Transvaal Group. These architects, including Rusty Bernstein, Ozzy Israel, Alan Lipman, Roy Kantorowich and Clive Chipkin, studied at the University of the Witwatersrand in the late 1930’s, or in the immediate post-war period. These architects are not remembered for their designs but for the influence of their political positions on events. They were drawn to opposition politics as a way of achieving conditions of freedom and equality,conditions that would be necessary in order to implement the progressive modern architecture in foreign journals and books, including discreetly acquired copies of Architektura CCCP , that inspired them. However these conditions were not to be met in their working careers, and political events - the Sharpeville Massacre in 1961 and the Treason Trial - led them variously into exile, imprisonment, writing work and practice within the very limited circle of private clients who shared their ideals. Their most significant building, according to Clive Chipkin, was the ephemeral infrastructure that they designed and built near Soweto with hessian and timber for a political rally, the Congress of the People, in 1955. This event launched the Freedom Charter, a list of fundamental social demands including access to housing, schools and freedom of association, and in turn, in the 1990’s, became the basis for the spatial ideals of the new nation of post-apartheid South Africa. Rusty Bernstein played central roles in organising both the space and the written text of the Freedom Charter. The Congress architects’ political activities contrast with mainstream architectural activity, which was largely supportive of the capitalist apartheid state. To trace this history, it was necessary to use personal narratives as evidence, in the absence of a drawn or built archive: indeed, this may be a rare case in architectural history where the paper archive was swallowed in the face of a police raid. In its motives, this article, as well as paying tribute to a generation whose political choices led to personal hardship, tries to broaden the limits of architectural discourse to include not only built products but also their rebus, their exclusions. It suggests that what is not able to be realised does not necessarily disappear, but rather, might be translated into some other mode. Seeing the Congress as architecture draws attention to the other modernisms of the imagination that cross between transnational boundaries, between conditions of the built and the unbuildable.

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