Informal housing in Cape Town : delivery, formalization and stakeholder viewpoints
Date
2009-03
Authors
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Publisher
Stellenbosch : University of Stellenbosch
Abstract
The City of Cape Town is estimated to host approximately three million people. Of those
three million, it is also estimated that 22 percent are living in what could be considered
informal dwellings. In 2000, one of the United Nations Millennium Development Declaration
goals for 2020 was ‘to have achieved a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100
million slum dwellers as proposed in the Cities without slums initiative.’ The South African
government took this initiative on board and has set a goal of eradicating all informal
settlements in South Africa by 2014. There is thus a process of formalization currently taking
place in South Africa. In Cape Town however, there is currently a backlog of between
300 000 to 400 000 households and this number is growing
The issue of housing delivery, not only in Cape Town, but world-wide, is an aspect that
attracts lots of discussion. The viewpoints on how to approach formal urban housing delivery
vary from a state-led approach, to a more participatory process, to rental options, or even that
informal settlements should be left as they are, as part of a city’s social fabric. But why do
these viewpoints differ? And how do these divergent viewpoints influence approaches to
housing delivery? In this study I will answer, ‘How stakeholders in the housing delivery
process view informal settlements, and when there are divergent viewpoints, why do they
differ’? Four groups of stakeholders in Cape Town were identified, namely government
officials, contractors/developers, researchers and residents of informal settlements. Interviews
were conducted with the stakeholders on an individual level except for the residents of
informal settlements where focus groups where held in two informal settlements.
Description
Thesis (MPhil (Sociology and Social Anthropology))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009.