The inner city property scheme (ICPS) and the world class African City in Johannesburg: a social justice perspective

Abstract

Johannesburg serves as an entry point and a city of choice for the migrants who come from other parts of the country, the continent and the rest of the world in search of better economic opportunities. The World Class African City vision benchmarks Johannesburg with the rest of the affluent cities in the world, and as thus it has to adopt policies of urban renewal, regeneration, and reinvestment to accommodate economic reforms so as to lay the foundation of the modern city planning. Accommodation becomes the first need of anyone who enters the city, and the City of Johannesburg has devised housing policies and strategies to deal with this basic need. In the recent years since the new political dispensation, housing strategies such as the Bad Buildings Programme, the Inner City Property Scheme and recently the Inner City Housing Implementation Plan, have been put down by the CoJ as attempted solution to the housing backlog and the rejuvenation of the abandoned buildings, illegally occupied and the bad buildings. The research investigates whether in the quest to the building of a world class African city, in which Johannesburg wants to compare itself with your typical New York or Tokyo, those who cannot afford exorbitant rentals or are not fitting into this vision are afforded space to exist in the inner city of Johannesburg, and whether the CoJ includes social justice within its housing strategies and policies in order to make Johannesburg a home for all kinds of income groups.