Posted: October 10th, 2007 | Author: Rob Goodspeed | Filed under: Historic Preservation, McGregor, Slums, South Africa, Urban Development | 3 Comments »
This summer I spent one month in South Africa completing a planning study in McGregor, a small town roughly two hours from Cape Town. (See it on Google Maps)
This post summarizes the contents of our report, which we presented today to students and faculty in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at the University of Maryland.
The research was conducted by a team comprised of myself, Jocelyn Harris, and Brooke Taylor from University of Maryland, Matt Monroe from Rutgers University, and Iris Patten from the University of Florida. Our faculty advisor Prof. Sidney Brower. The report contains a survey of the housing and economic conditions of McGregor, and proposals for how community members might address problems in these areas. Like many towns and cities in South Africa, many residents of McGregor are living in substandard housing. We argue the solution to this problem must include not only well-designed new government housing, but also strategies to address the underlying cause: the social and economic inequality that exists in the town. The report is divided into four parts. We conducted extensive research with young residents of the town who have been working with the South Africa Heritage Resources Agency to document the town’s heritage.
Team members talking with local residents during the planning process:
Part One contains a summary of the system of local governance, population, private sector groups, and previous plans for McGregor. It also includes a summary of the broader provincial and national policy context for housing production. Proposals to adopt design review for new buildings and subdivision zoning to maintain the historical character have been adopted, however proposals to provide assistance to low income residents to maintain their homes have not been enacted. I described the country’s national housing policies last summer in a post titled “Government-Built Sprawl.”
Part Two contains a summary of the existing housing in McGregor. The town contains a collection of distinctive thatch-roofed cottages. Combined with the natural setting, the architecture has made the town highly desirable for vacationers who stay at several small inns, vacationers who have purchased or build vacation homes in the town, and retirees who have chosen to reside there. However, housing in the colored community, who make up the majority of the population, is generally substandard.
The wealthy upper town:
And lower town:
Part Three contains a discussion of new housing for the community. It contains an analysis of each potential site discussed for new housing including site plans obtained from the municipality, and a proposal for a site selection criteria and committee. It also includes a discussion of alternative designs for government housing and a proposal for a home renovation fund for the poor.
Lastly, Part Four contains a discussion of both the economy of McGregor and its region, and a consideration of the relationship between the economy and housing provision. The report argues a successful housing strategy must address the town’s poverty through diversification and policies that result in greater direct participation in the local economy.
While there are no easy answers to the problems the town is facing, we were inspired by the vision and dedication to self-improvement among town residents. Graced with world-class natural amenities and a unique building tradition, the town’s heritage itself is a rich resource. We hope the citizens are able to use our report to accommodate more equitable housing and economic opportunities for all residents.
> Download a PDF of our full report (scroll to bottom)
> See all my photos from McGregor
The project team and McGregor heritage workers.
Posted: July 20th, 2007 | Author: Rob Goodspeed | Filed under: Housing, Slums, South Africa, Urban Development | 6 Comments »
Part 5 of my South Africa series.
To begin this week’s final post on South Africa, let’s consider this satellite image of most of metropolitan Cape Town, population roughly 2.9 million. This map depicts an area some 40 miles across.
Next, this map of the economic geography of the city from a city planning document shows the economic patterns of the city. The area shaded light yellow the planners have labeled “market avoidance.” Here, joblessness and drug use are high, and many residents are living in substandard conditions.
Like most cities in the developing world, Cape Town has squatter settlements, known in the country as informal settlements, where the poor have erected shacks on vacant land. In Cape Town most of them are along the N2 freeway, adjacent existing poor areas, although some communities have been established in desirable neighborhoods with sea views. I made this map using city data, but I do not know exactly the definitions or accuracy of the data. The small scale of the map and the high density of these communities should be taken into consideration.
According to a government report (PDF), about 3.5 million people in the country live in such settlements, or 7% of the total population. As shown in the table, the government considers their government building program a direct response to informal settlements.
Many of the residents of the informal settlements and also poverty area would qualify under the United Nation’s definition of a “slum household,” which they define as “a group of individuals living under the same roof in an urban area who lack one or more of the following: durable housing, sufficient living area, secure tenure and access to clean water and sanitation.” South Africa is relatively well-off by African standards, as experts estimate 72 percent of sub-Saharan Africans live in slum conditions. Experts also estimated that for the first time in human history, a majority of the world’s population now lives in cities. One-third of these city dwellers live in a slum.
The 2003 UN report “The Challenge of Slums” for the first time marshaled reliable data on cities from around the world. The report estimated 928 million people living in slum conditions, and world urbanization was occurring at a rapid pace. In his book Planet of Slums, Mike Davis compared the report with those produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: “If the reports of the [IPCC] represents an unprecedented scientific consensus on the dangers of global warming, then The Challenge of Slums sounds an equally authoritative warning about the worldwide catastrophe of urban poverty.” He concludes that “The cities of the future, rather than being made out of glass and steel as envisioned by earlier generations of urbanists, are instead largely constructed out of crude brick, straw, recycled plastic, cement blocks, and scrap wood … surrounded by pollution, excrement, and decay.”
In June, United Nations experts reported global shanty towns are growing by more than a million people every week, and estimate they will reach two billion people by 2030. Davis and others have long argued this enormous population of the impoverished will be vulnerable to religious fundamentalism and fear their political repercussions. The intellectual world is only beginning to catch up with enormous urbanization, and in English at least there are few books on the topic. The two usually discussed are Davis’ Planet of Slums and Robert Neuwirth’s Shadow Cities. Davis’ book makes clear there exists a tremendous potential for researching and understanding these places, a task that has only just begun. The relevance of urban planning to global slums will remain to be seen: what is the meaning of a regulatory discipline in a context where regulations do not exist or are not enforced? The biggest role for planners, it seems, will be overseeing upgrading of basic infrastructure and also the legal processes of documenting property and tenure necessary if these places are ever to participate in the formal economy.
More
> Forbes: “Two Billion Slum Dwellers”
> The Independent: “Planet of slums: UN warns urban populations set to double”
> UN-HABITAT: The Challenge of Slums
> UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs: World Urbanization Prospects
> Robert Neuwirth’s Squattercity blog