scholarly journals Lessons Learned from Applying an Integrated Land Use Transport Planning Model to Address Issues of Social and Economic Exclusion of Marginalised Groups: The Case of Cape Town, South Africa

Urban Science ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 10
Author(s):  
Hazvinei Tsitsi Tamuka Moyo ◽  
Mark Zuidgeest ◽  
Hedwig van Delden

The Group Areas Act of 1950 has resulted in post-apartheid South African cities being characterised by spatial patterns with limited access to social and economic opportunities for the black and coloured population. Typically, high-density low-income housing is located peripherally, while low density high-income housing is located in accessible central areas. With increased rural-to-urban migration, the demand for formal housing has historically surpassed supply, which has increased the growth of informal settlements. Current discourse within South African land use policy suggests that in-situ upgrading of informal housing is a viable response to integrate informal settlements into the formal city. In parallel, it is proposed that new low-income residential areas and employment-generating land uses should be located along transport corridors to improve access to transport, its infrastructure and the opportunities it provides for previously marginalised groups. This study uses Cape Town as a case city to explore two land-use driven development strategies directed at informal settlements and low-income housing. A dynamic land use transport model based on a cellular automata land use model and a four-stage transport model was used to simulate land use and transport changes. Specifically, in-situ upgrading of informal settlements and strategically locating new low-income residential and employment generating land uses along transport corridors were considered. The results from the analysis suggest that in-situ upgrading is a viable option only if new informal settlements are in areas with easy access to economic centres. With regards to low-income housing, targeted interventions aimed at ‘unlocking’ low-income housing activities along transport corridors were found to be useful. However, it was also observed that middle-income residential development and employment generating activities were also attracted to the same corridors, thus, resulting in mixed land uses, which is beneficial but can potentially result in rental bids between low and middle-income earners thus displacing low-income earners away from these areas.

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 2202
Author(s):  
Reshma Shrestha ◽  
Jaap Zevenbergen ◽  
Fahria Masum ◽  
Mahesh Banskota

2016 ◽  
Vol 371 (1703) ◽  
pp. 20150437 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicola Stevens ◽  
B. F. N. Erasmus ◽  
S. Archibald ◽  
W. J. Bond

Woody encroachment in ‘open’ biomes like grasslands and savannahs is occurring globally. Both local and global drivers, including elevated CO 2 , have been implicated in these increases. The relative importance of different processes is unresolved as there are few multi-site, multi-land-use evaluations of woody plant encroachment. We measured 70 years of woody cover changes over a 1020 km 2 area covering four land uses (commercial ranching, conservation with elephants, conservation without elephants and communal rangelands) across a rainfall gradient in South African savannahs. Different directions of woody cover change would be expected for each different land use, unless a global factor is causing the increases. Woody cover change was measured between 1940 and 2010 using the aerial photo record. Detection of woody cover from each aerial photograph was automated using eCognitions' Object-based image analysis (OBIA). Woody cover doubled in all land uses across the rainfall gradient, except in conservation areas with elephants in low-rainfall savannahs. Woody cover in 2010 in low-rainfall savannahs frequently exceeded the maximum woody cover threshold predicted for African savannahs. The results indicate that a global factor, of which elevated CO 2 is the likely candidate, may be driving encroachment. Elephants in low-rainfall savannahs prevent encroachment and localized megafaunal extinction is a probable additional cause of encroachment. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Tropical grassy biomes: linking ecology, human use and conservation’.


Author(s):  
David Satterthwaite ◽  
Alice Sverdlik

Most cities in low- and middle-income countries have substantial proportions of their population living in informal settlements—sometimes up to 60% or more. These also house much of the city’s low-income workforce; many informal settlements also concentrate informal economic activities. These settlements usually lack good provision for water, sanitation, and other essential services. The conventional government responses were to bulldoze them or ignore them. But from the 1960s, another approach became common—upgrading settlements to provide missing infrastructure (e.g., water pipes, sewers, drains). In the last 20 years, community-driven upgrading has become increasingly common. Upgrading initiatives are very diverse. At their best, they produce high-quality and healthy living conditions and services that would be expected to greatly reduce illness, injury or disablement, and premature death. But at their worst, upgrading schemes provide a limited range of improvements do nothing to reduce the inhabitants’ exclusion from public services. There is surprisingly little research on upgrading’s impact on health. One reason is the very large number of health determinants at play. Another is the lack of data on informal settlement populations. Much of the innovation in upgrading is in partnerships between local governments and organizations formed by informal settlement residents, including slum/shack dweller federations that are active in over 30 nations. Community-driven processes can deal with issues that are more difficult for professionals to resolve—including mapping and enumerations. Meanwhile, local government can provide the connections to all-weather roads, water mains, sewers, and storm drains into which communities can connect.


2021 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 23-52
Author(s):  
Kgashane Stephen Nyakala ◽  
◽  
Sekou Dolly Ramoroka ◽  
Kemlall Ramdass

Recent South African and international evidence highlights the broad and lasting impacts of households, particularly those on low income, when unable to afford higher income counterparts to live in apartments, maintained public housing, and other high-quality houses. A broad range of low-income houses recently built in South African local municipalities are reportedly defective, due to poor building and construction quality. This study aims to assess and determine the factors influencing high-quality housing positively impacting on the lives of a significant proportion of low-income housing projects. Reasons for and obstacles to quality design, construction quality and the development of low-income housing projects were identified. To assess the research questions, a quantitative survey (n=103) was carried out, simple random and purposive sampling techniques were used to select contractors who were active in low-income housing projects within the Polokwane Municipality. The quantitative data gathered were analysed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) to determine a combination of descriptive and non-parametric statistics of the data computing the frequencies, mean scores and standard deviations. Selected results show that poor-quality and low-income housing projects are perceived to be related to the contractors, builders and construction practitioners not complying with the standards, variously because of insufficient training or accountability to public authorities and end users of low-income houses, i.e., the beneficiaries. The respondents were of the view that house builders and local government authorities could use five factors, namely quality standards, management, involvement of people, process design and process, planning and scheduling to assess non-conformance to quality requirements in low-income housing projects in South Africa. The finding of this study provides a platform for improving the quality of housing design, construction projects, sustainability and an opportunity for local and international design and construction professionals to rethink design in the context of low-income housing projects.


Author(s):  
Helena Barnard ◽  
Theresa Onaji-Benson

The categories “emerging” and “advanced” multinationals gloss over the “middleness” of multinationals from and even in middle-income countries. Middle-income countries face weaker institutions and smaller markets than high-income countries, but conditions are better than in low-income, typically least developed countries. Similarly, skills levels and wages are higher than in low-income countries, but lower than in high-income countries. We argue that this “middleness” matters. Emerging multinationals leverage their position in the global economic hierarchy as brokers working with lead firms, local optimizers operating only downstream, specialist niche providers working only upstream, and sometimes global consolidators operating across the hierarchy. Advanced multinationals use the global economic hierarchy to expand as lead firms in global value chains or pecking order exploiters that enter low-income countries through middle-income countries. Our research, using evidence from South African multinationals, expands our understanding of multinationals’ operations, especially in Africa.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document