LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
CHAPTER 5: URBANISATION, SLUMS AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
5.5 Urbanisation and slums in Africa
5.5.1 Urbanisation and slums in South Africa
5.5.1.1 The challenge of housing crisis in South Africa
Statistics provided in 2005 by the South African Minister of Housing illustrates an alarming housing crisis faCing South Africa. In fact,
"A total of approximately 2,4 million households live in informal housing structures. From census data we know that of these households about 400,000 are living in some form of structure in the backyard of a property owned by someone else. About another 1 million live in a shack or informal structure on their 'own' stand - rented. About 740,000 of these 1, 4 million households are renting their dwelling - suggesting that of the 1 million or so living on their 'own' stand in informal settlements; about one third are renting the land and/or the dwelling. Of the 2, 4 million informally housed households; about 800,000 are on the approved housing subsidy list and still waiting for their homes. This suggests that there is about 1, 6 million households who are in some way not formally part of the programmes to access subsidies to obtain formal housing" (Sisulu, 2005)
Although the South African government has initiated a low-cost housing programme to overcome the legacy of the Apartheid regime, more specifically poor housing conditions of the majority of urban black poor people, the data provided by the Minister of Housing reveals that to date the housing crisis still persists. Rapid urban population growth has been pointed out by the Housing Minister to be the main obstacle for a successful low-cost housing delivery.
South Africa's democratic elections and other reforms have driven the process of urban migration and urbanisation at an extraordinary pace, creating post Apartheid spatial and social urban landscapes. Rural migrants and blacks from the low-income sector of the population, being virtually excluded from the urban housing market, are forced to
seek accommodation through a self-help approach producing various types of squatter settlements, which were almost absent in pre-reform South Africa. These informal settlements are generally perceived, from the policy-makers point of view as undesirable in terms of urban planning and governance because of their association with unsuitable land use, poor housing construction, severe infrastructure deficiencies, intensified social disorder and deterioration of the urban environment. The emergence of these post Apartheid spatial and social landscapes within South African cities, forming a controversial migrant shelter/community, has given rise to policy concerns as South Africa moves to promote urbanisation in an orderly fashion. The slum clearance program as well as the in-situ upgrading programme introduced by the government has extended the opportunity for the settlement dwellers to obtain a subsidy of R38 984 from the government.
Informal settlements in South Africa are seen as an unlawful or illegal occupation of land, or an unauthorised development (Huchzermeyer, 2004a). The self-help housing, more specifically the autonomous or the spontaneous form, which led to informal and squatter settlements, is seen by many authors such as Rodell (1983) as the inability of a given government to supply adequate and affordable housing for its citizens through housing programmes. The issue of informal or squatter settlements that South Africa is faCing embodies the effort of poor people to solve their housing needs themselves, as a means of survival.
The positive approach to autonomous or anonymous form of self-help housing has been given by Obudo et ai, (1988), who argues that it is the manifestation of urban growth to which government should react. Two possible reactions of government may be identified: either the government may legalise and upgrade informal and squatter settlements; or it can seek sites and services schemes in order to relocate existing residents and to create post Apartheid settlements. The former focuses on institutional and infrastructural development and social improvements for existing squatter areas and the latter aims at the relocation of squatter areas under current municipal regulations and planning controls. International experience has shown that the first strategy has achieved considerable success and the second has increasingly lost its viability (Payne, 1989; Linden, 1994; Aldrich & Sandhu, 1995).
The first strategy is structured within an informal system and effectively enhances people's initiatives and neighbourhood spirit. These are perceived as vital in dealing with low-income shelter problems. By contrast, the second strategy entails more inappropriate government intervention in such matters as site selection, land supply,
housing standards and community administration. It has also been recognised, through case studies, that non-governmental forces have generally performed better than government organisations, in facilitating suitable ways to meet the housing demand of the urban poor (Sen, 1992).
In South Africa, the first ten years of housing delivery was characterised by scant attention on in-situ upgrading and the focus on the second strategy or relocation into post Apartheid sites, as a solution to overcome informal settlements issue. Only after severe criticisms regarding relocation (Baumann, 2003 & Khan, 2003) the South African Housing Department (2004) adopted an ISUP with a dedicated subsidy mechanism, as part of a larger refinement of the South African NHP in the form of a document called Breaking Post Apartheid Ground, A Comprehensive Plan for the Development of Sustainable Human Settlements.
Informal housing even if based on the illegal occupation of land, is recognised by some authors, such as Baumann (2003) and Huchzermeyer et al (2004) as a more affordable and more immediately accessible solution to the housing deficit and is preferable to relocation, as it supports poor households' livelihood strategies. These settlements, therefore, require technical and socio-economic intervention and in-situ upgrading programme should be envisaged in the global perspective of empowering urban poor people residing in informal settlements, instead of a simple replacement of shacks by habitable shelters.
Although the South African Housing Department has adopted informal settlements upgrading as a solution to deal with housing inadequacies and housing backlog, it has been observed that the dominant approach among government is to react to post Apartheid land invasions by deliberately ignoring them, or by repressing them through an approach of 'zero tolerance' as in several South African municipal housing strategies, for example: the city of Johannesburg's, 2000 Housing Strategy (Spadework Consortium, 2000, citied in Huchzermeyer, 2004a). This approach tends to avoid questions regarding the socio-economic and legal exclusion that causes people to invade land, and instead labels the invaders as greedy and criminal 'land grabbers'. The more 'transformative' policy approach is to recognise the larger pressures and desperations that lead to land invasions, and also to recognise that informal settlements, as embarrassing as they may be inherently have a role to play in ameliorating the housing backlog.