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Living on the Edge: Housing Challenges of the Urban Poor in Port Elizabeth, South Africa

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Globalization, Marginalization and Conflict

Part of the book series: Perspectives on Geographical Marginality ((PGEO,volume 6))

Abstract

The South African Government made great strides in delivering a record number of subsidized houses to the millions of previously disadvantaged people of South Africa. However, this great effort does not appeal to the principles that policies have set out in terms of equality. Along with the delivery of this high number of state funded housing, many of these home dwellers feel as though they have been marginalized and forced out of the areas of various opportunities, to peripheral spaces of marginality. Many researchers believe that the current South African low-cost housing patterns delivery pattern resembles that of Apartheid segregationist planning, which exacerbated the social inequalities in the country. The issue of social development needs to be placed back on the housing agenda, making the sense of place as important a requirement as that of civil infrastructure. It is, after all, a statutory requirement of the latest Housing Act of South Africa.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In South Africa, the terms township and location usually refer to the mostly underdeveloped segregated urban areas, often located on the periphery of towns and cities. These areas were reserved for non-whites during the Apartheid era.

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Correspondence to Leizel Williams-Bruinders .

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Williams-Bruinders, L., de Wit, A. (2020). Living on the Edge: Housing Challenges of the Urban Poor in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. In: Fuerst-Bjeliš, B., Leimgruber, W. (eds) Globalization, Marginalization and Conflict. Perspectives on Geographical Marginality, vol 6. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53218-5_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53218-5_9

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