Housing for the poor? Negotiated housing policy in South Africa (original) (raw)
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The Case of Housing Policy in the ‘New’ South Africa (circa 1992–2003)
Public Policymaking in a Globalized World
Why and how is it that a left-of-centre government not hobbled by heavy external leverage, with (previous) developmental state precedents, potentially positive macroeconomic fundamentals, and well-developed alternative policies for housing and urban reconstruction, came to settle on a conservative housing policy founded on ‘precepts of the pre- democratic period’? Arguably, this policy is even more conservative than World Bank strictures and paradigms, whose advice the incoming democratic government ‘normally ignored’ and ‘tacitly rejected’. The paper proposes an answer residing in the mechanics and modalities of knowledge production in the shelter sector; the filtering of this knowledge through the workings and logics of post-apartheid state construction; and the (associated) state technologies of societal penetration and regime legitimization. The absence of a map and compass to guide, direct and assist post-Cold War statecraft; the weight of history and legacy; strategic blundering, and the blunt (government-engineered) techniques of consulting and advising, collectively contribute to the inherited and present defects and deformities of our two decade-old developmentalism, writ large in our dysfunctional human settlements. Alternatives to the technocratic market developmentalism of current housing praxis spotlights empowering shelter outcomes which strategically wrestle with the dynamics and dislocations of land, property and financial markets; urbanization and the wider spatial economy; and, a reconstruction and transformation project that affirms and strengthens citizenship and basic human rights. The role and contribution of planners, the rhetorical and argumentative framing of development/policy discourse, and the rewiring of the relationship between the elite and poor, are central and pivotal to democratically empowering and socially responsive housing praxis. Public policy teaching, in this context, must be alert and awake to the limitations and machinations of autopoiesis, rhetoric and agnotology.
2017
The aim of this thesis is to provide an integrated epistemological analysis of the theoretical discourse on housing policy and research implementation relevant to the South African context. Chapter 1 comprises the rationale for the thesis by emphasising that there is as yet no comprehensive study that encapsulates the theoretical foundations of housing policy research in South Africa. It is further highlighted that three decades of contemporary theoretical developments on housing in Western Europe have largely gone unnoticed in the South African scholarly environment. By drawing on the traditions of post-structuralism, social constructionism and critical discourse analysis, methodological ways of addressing inadequate theory development on housing in post-apartheid South Africa are further explored. Chapter 2 is devoted to an overview of housing theory and housing discourses in developing countries. The theoretical concepts and approaches discussed in Chapter 2 are related to the Marxist and the neo-Marxist schools of thought, neo-liberalism, development theories and to the notion of political economy. Chapter 3 is an assessment of housing theory and discourse in Western Europe and contains an extensive overview of the development of theory in the European context. Specific focus falls on welfare state theoretical developments, while the value of comparative and historical methodologies in interpreting welfare state theories is expounded. In Chapter 4, the historical development of housing policies both in Western Europe and in developing countries is outlined. Conceptual themes in this chapter centre on the dualities between formal and informal housing discourses, the application of welfare state intervention in providing housing for the poor and for the low-wage working class, and mention is made of the contested, multidimensional ideologies that feature in ownership discourses. Chapter 5 deals with the relevance of the different theoretical frameworks in re-interpreting the historical narrative and the ideological underpinnings of housing policy development in South Africa. The presence of welfare state theories within the current South African housing policy is illuminated, thereby paving the way for expansion on these theories in future scholarly discourses on housing in the post-apartheid era. In Chapter 6, social constructivism is employed to indicate how theoretical concepts on housing policy may be applied in implementation projects at grassroots level. The case studies endeavour to provide a platform conducive to the evolvement of housing policies that will be more socially and culturally responsive than were those prior to the completion of this thesis. The outputs and contribution of this thesis aim to encourage dialogues about the value of theory, research and implementation. The thesis has generated both academic and creative outputs. The academic outputs include two accredited publications and the creative outputs comprise buildings either completed or in the process of completion. The thesis highlights the relevance of evolving indigenous cultural practices in spawning housing policy discourses for the future. By specifically embracing principles of informality, both self-help building technologies and skills transfer have significant contributions to make as regards addressing housing shortages in the country in geographical locations like the Free State Province and other rural areas.
Housing the Urban Poor in South Africa: Towards a New Typology
2012
South Africa urgently needs new strategies to alleviate poverty and an associated reassessment of its problematic housing policy. Its poorer citizens live in either state-sponsored houses or in shacks, both types being seriously deficient, but in different ways. It is claimed that only China and India have built more low-cost houses than South Africa has since 1994 – an astonishing 2.8 million, identical, small, freestanding, box-like houses rolled-out as vast dormitory townships on the fringes of cities – cruel parodies of Western suburbia. They are given away for free, fostering a culture of entitlement, while their remoteness and lack of employment opportunities perpetuate social and economic marginalisation. Because of this factor, as well as boredom and low self-esteem, many young men turn to crime, obviously an untenable situation. Most of their occupants previously lived in shantytowns, which government promised to eradicate, equating shack-living with homelessness. These, ho...
Reinterpreting South African Housing Policy through Welfare State Theory
Conventional wisdom holds that South African housing policy is mainly based on neoliberal principles although some scholars have noted the hybrid nature of welfare programmes. This is because most authors interpret the country’s housing landscape within the dichotomous framework of political economic theory (neoliberalism vs. critical lenses). These analyses do not consider welfare state theories, and most authors end up applying a neoliberal label to South African housing policy and practice. In contrast, this study takes a welfare state perspective. It starts off with a description of Esping-Andersen’s welfare state theory and Hoekstra’s application of this theory to the field of housing, resulting in a housing system typology that distinguishes between social democratic, corporatist and liberal housing systems. In the second part of the study, the post-apartheid development of South African housing policy is reinterpreted through the lens of this housing system typology. Our conclusion is that the South African housing system is of a hybrid nature and that the social democratic, corporatist and liberal welfare state ideologies have all helped to shape the country’s approach to housing.
SERI Resource Guide, 2011
This resource guide provides an overview of housing legislation, jurisprudence, policy, programmes and practice in South Africa since 1994. As with other socio-economic rights, the legislative and policy framework created by national government around housing is in fact quite progressive. However, implementation to date has been skewed and unable to address the land, housing and basic services needs of millions of poor South Africans who still lack adequate housing and access to water, sanitation and electricity. The report explicitly focuses on access to housing in the urban context. It provides a simplified yet comprehensive guide to policies, legislation, jurisprudence and practice in relation to urban housing in South Africa, which will hopefully be useful to a wide audience that includes social movements, CBOs, NGOs, lawyers, development practitioners, planners, government officials, academics, scholars etc.
Waiting for the state: a politics of housing in South Africa
Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 2015
Although specified in the South African Bill of Rights, for the majority of South African citizens the right to access housing translates in practice to the experience of waiting. In this paper we reflect on the micropolitics of waiting, practices of quiet encroachment, exploring how and where citizens wait and make do, and their encounters with the state in these processes. We argue that waiting for homes shapes a politics of finding shelter in the meanwhile partially visible yet precarious, the grey spaces of informality and illegality that constitute South African cities. At the same time, waiting generates a politics of encounter between citizen and state, practices immersed in shifting policy approaches and techniques, the contingent and often-opaque practices of governance. In sum, the politics of waiting for housing in South Africa proves paradoxical: citizens are marked as legitimate wards of the state. Yet, to live in the meanwhile and in the long term requires subversion, ...
Africa’s Public Service Delivery and Performance Review
Background: The transition from apartheid to democracy in South Africa inadvertently wrought significant changes particularly on the housing arena. The remnants of the apartheid housing system posed a daunting challenge to the present government’s efforts to deliver affordable housing.Aim: This article sought to analyse the role played by apartheid in the present housing delivery challenges encountered in South Africa.Setting: The study was conducted in Johannesburg, South Africa and the population comprised of a variety of stakeholders throughout the country with a vested interest in housing.Method: The study is exploratory in nature and used the qualitative methodology. In addition, literature review and documentary review – including reviews of policies pertaining to housing, particularly in South Africa – were performed to assist in providing an overview of areas in which the paper is disparate and interdisciplinary.Results: Key findings suggest that the apartheid government pla...
Low-income housing in the post-apartheid era: towards a policy framework for the Free State
1950 2.1 LOW-INCOME HOUSING POLICY IN LDCs DURING 1950-1970 2.2 AN OVERVIEW OF THE THINKING OF JFC TURNER 2.2.1 The low-income housing views of JFC Turner 2.2.2 An assessment of Turner's ideas 2.3 THE LOW-INCOME HOUSING POLICY OF THE WORLD BANK, 1970s-1990s 2.3.1 Low-income housing policy during the 1970s 2.3.2 Low-income housing policy during the 1980s 2.3.3 Low-income housing policy during the 1990s 2.3.4 An assessment of World Bank low-income housing policy 2.4 WHOLE SECTOR HOUSING DEVELOPMENT AND THE NEED FOR SUSTAINABLE SETTLEMENTS: 1990 ONWARDS 2.4.1 Towards sustainable settlements 2.4.2 The Rio de Janeiro Conference and Local Agenda 21 2.4.3 Habitat II 2.4.4 Assessing the value of the sustainable settlement debate and whole sector housing development for low-income housing policy 2.5 CONCLUSION
Precarious Welfare States: Urban Struggles over Housing Delivery in Post-Apartheid South Africa
International Sociology , 2017
This article demonstrates how popular struggles over housing distribution lead to the transformation of the welfare state. In post-apartheid South Africa, municipal governments distribute free, formal housing to recipients registered on waiting lists. But as formally rational distribution fails to keep pace with growing demand, residents begin to organize mass land occupations. Municipalities respond to these land struggles by either organizing repression, making clientelistic exceptions, or providing transitional housing in temporary relocation areas (TRAs). The growth of TRAs – a direct response to land occupations – signals the institution of a new form of housing distribution alongside the old: substantively rational delivery. This argument engages recent work on the rise of new welfare states in the global South, demonstrating the limits of viewing social expenditure in narrowly quantitative terms. Instead, drawing on 15 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Cape Town, it interrogates the emergence of qualitatively novel logics of distribution.