Abstract
Few would argue with the proposition that land-use management is one of the most powerful tools in the context of planning, both in South Africa and internationally, with the potential to transform the urban landscape. Yet despite its potential, it has been neglected both in terms of academic enquiry and legislative reform. This has resulted in land-use management functioning as an undesirable and unwieldy tool that perpetuates the modernist ideals of land-use separation and sprawling suburbia, and most worryingly, the perpetuation of an urban form that is essentially anti-poor. This paper initiates a search for the appropriate criteria for a land-use management system in South Africa’s urban areas. We argue for a land-use management system that moves away from the traditional exclusive emphasis on zoning towards a more flexible system based on a tiered set of plans. This system must take into account and respond to the dynamics of the urban land market, both its formal and informal dimensions, and directly address the poor and their needs as the central focus of land-use management.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
For example, the intent is clearly visible in the Reconstruction and Development Plan, Development Facilitation Act, Urban Development Framework, and White Papers on Local Government and Housing to mention but a few.
See also Payne (2005) for a similar concept around the idea of regulatory audits.
It needs to be noted that it is not clear to what extent these proposed interventions were actually implemented.
“If urban regulations were supportive rather than exclusive, more achievable by poor people, and developed in consultation with communities, it may also be easier to achieve compliance and hence basic health and safety levels, and social protection of the vulnerable” (Watson 2009a: 179).
For example, “[t]he best figures available indicate that less than 30 % of the land in developing countries is titled. In many countries of Sub-Saharan Africa, this drops to 1 %” (Augustinus, Lemmen and van Oosterom 2006: 1).
Recently driven by Hernando de Soto’s The Mystery of Capital (for a thorough South African critique see Kingwill, Cousins, Cousins, Hornby, Royston and Smit 2006).
This is not to say the Villa El Salvador is without problems: 40 years on a large number of the households are still living in substandard housing, lack of basic services and there is evidence in recent years that parts of the settlement are starting to deviate from the model proposed here.
References
Abahlali baseMjondolo, (2008). A big devil in the jondolos: The politics of shack fires. Unpublished report prepared by Matt Birkinshaw.
Abbott, J. (2002). A method-based planning framework for informal settlement upgrading. Habitat International, 26(3), 317–333.
Berrisford, S. (2010). Why it is difficult to change urban planning laws in African countries? Urban Forum, 22(3), 209–222.
Berrisford, S., & Kihato, M. (2008). Local government planning, legal frameworks and regulatory tools: Vital signs? In M. van Donk, M. Swilling, S. Parnell, & E. Pieterse (Eds.), Consolidating Developmental Local Government: Lessons from the South African Experience (pp. 377–405). Cape Town: UCT Press.
Brueckner, J.K., (2007). Government land-use interventions: An economic analysis. Presentation at the 4th Urban Research Symposium, World Bank, Washington, D.C.
Budny, D. (2007). Democracy and the city: assessing urban policy in Brazil. Conference report. hosted by the Comparative Urban Studies Project and the Brazil Institute of the Woodrow Wilson Centre. 17 May 17, 2007.
Charlton, S., & Kihato, C. (2006). Reaching the poor? An analysis of the influences on the evolution of South Africa’s housing programme. In U. Pillay, R. Tomlinson, & J. du Toit (Eds.), Democracy and delivery: Urban policy in South Africa (pp. 252–282). Cape Town: HSRC Press.
City of Cape Town (2010). City of Cape Town zoning scheme regulations. Final Draft, Department: Planning and Building Development Management, Directorate: Strategy and Planning.
Deininger, K., & Enemark, S. (2010). Introduction: Land governance and the millennium development goals. In K. Deininger, C. Augustinus, S. Enemark, & P. Munro-Faure (Eds.), Innovations in land rights recognition, administration, and governance (pp. 1–12). Washington: The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/The World Bank.
Doak, J., & Parker, G. (2005). Networked space? The challenge of meaningful participation in England. Planning Practice and Research, 20(1), 23–40.
Dowall, D.E., (1995). The urban land market assessment: A new tool for urban management. Urban Management Programme Paper 7. World Bank/UNDP Urban Management Programme.
Dowall, D.E., and Clarke, G. (1996). A framework for reforming urban land policies in developing countries. Urban Management Programme Paper 7. World Bank/UNDP Urban Management Programme.
Durant-Lesserve, A. (2006). Market-driven evictions and displacement: Implications for the perpetuation of informal settlements in developing cities. In M. Huchzermeyer & A. Karam (Eds.), Informal settlements: A perpetual challenge? (pp. 206–225). Cape Town: UCT Press.
G:ensis (2008) The dynamics of the formal urban land market in South Africa. Unpublished, Report prepared for Urban Landmark.
Gorgens, T. (2010). Making urban land and space matter: A critique of the South African approach to urban transformation. Isandla Institute Position Paper. Available at: http://isandla.org.za/publications/139/ (accessed 12 January 2012).
Harrison, P., Todes, A., & Watson, V. (2008). Planning and transformation: Learning from the post-apartheid experience. London: Routledge.
Huchzermeyer, M. (2009). The struggle for in situ upgrading of informal settlements: Case studies from Gauteng. Development Southern Africa, 26(1), 59–73.
Imparto, I., & Ruster, J. (2003). Slum upgrading and participation: Lessons from Latin America. Washington D.C: The World Bank.
Lemmen, C. (2010). The social tenure domain model – A pro-poor land tool. Copenhagen, Denmark: International Federation of Surveyors (FIG).
Maricato, E. (2010). The statute of the Peripheral City. In The City Statute: A commentary (pp. 5–23). São Paulo: Cities Alliance and Ministry of Cities – Brazil.
Marx, C. and Royston, L. (2007). How the poor access, hold and trade land. Booklet based on research done by Isandla Institute and Stephen Berrisford Consulting, commissioned by Urban LandMark.
Mathivet, C. (2010). The right to the city: Keys to understanding the proposal for “another city is possible”. In A. Sugranyes & C. Mathivet (Eds.), Cities for all: Proposals and experiences towards the Right to the City (pp. 21–27). Santiago: Habitat International Coalition (HIC).
Mitlin, D. (2008). With and beyond the state: Co-production as the route to political influence, power and transformation for grassroots organizations. Environment and Urbanisation, 20, 339–60.
Napier, M. (2008). Competing for urban land: Improving the bidding power of the poor. Pretoria: Urban LandMark (a discussion paper).
Napier, M. (2009). Making urban land markets work better in South African cities and towns: Arguing the Basis for Access by the Poor. In S. Lall, B. Yuen, & J. Helluin (Eds.), Urban land markets: Improving land management for successful urbanization (pp. 71–97). New York: World Bank.
Ovens, W., Kitchin, F., Parnell, S., and Williams, A. (2007). Land management and democratic governance in Johannesburg: Overview report. Commissioned by Urban LandMark, Planact and CUBES, with Ford Foundation Funding.
Parnell, S., and Pieterse, E. (2010). The ‘Right to the City’: Institutional imperatives of a developmental state. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 34(1), 146–162.
Payne, G. (2005). Getting ahead of the game: A twin-track approach to improving existing slums and reducing the need for future slums. Environment and Urbanization, 17(1), 135–145.
Pieterse, E. (2007). Tracing the ‘integration’ thread in the South African urban development policy tapestry. Urban Forum, 18(1), 1–30.
Pieterse, E. (2009). Post-apartheid geographies in South Africa: Why are urban divides so persistent? Paper presented at Interdisciplinary Debates on Development and Cultures: Cities in Development—Spaces, Conflicts and Agency. Leuven University, 15 December 2009.
Pieterse, E., Parnell, S., Swilling, M., & van Donk, M. (2008). Consolidating developmental local development. In M. van Donk, M. Swilling, S. Parnell, & E. Pieterse (Eds.), Consolidating developmental local government: Lessons from the South African experience (pp. 1–25). Cape Town: UCT Press.
Pillay, U. (2008). Urban policy in post-apartheid South Africa: Context, evolution and future directions. Urban Forum, 19(2), 109–132.
Pithouse, R. (2009). A progressive policy without progressive politics: Lessons from the failure to implement ‘breaking new ground’. Town Planning Journal, 54, 1–14.
Republic of South Africa. (2000). Municipal Systems Act, No 32 of 2000. Pretoria: Government Gazette.
Rolnik, R., Cymbalista, R., & Nakano, K. (2008). Urban land and social housing in Brazil: The issue of land in participatory master plans. In R. Cymbalista (Ed.), The challenges of democratic management in Brazil: The right to the city (pp. 83–119). São Paulo: Instituto Pólis, Ford Foundation.
Roy, A. (2005). Urban informality: Toward an epistemology of planning. Journal of the American Planning Association, 71(2), 147–158.
Roy, A. (2009). Strangely familiar: Planning and the worlds of insurgence and informality. Planning Theory, 8(1), 7–12.
Rubin, M. (2008). Land management and democratic governance in Johannesburg: Synthesis report. Commissioned by Urban LandMark, Planact and CUBES, with Ford Foundation funding.
Swilling, M. (2008). Local governance and the politics of sustainability. In M. Van Donk, M. Swilling, S. Parnell, & E. Pieterse (Eds.), Consolidating developmental local government: Lessons from the South African experience (pp. 77–109). Cape Town: UCT Press.
Todes, A., and Mngadi, N. (2007). City planners. Report for the Human Science Research Council Study on Scarce Skills for the Department of Labour.
Todes, et al. (2010). Beyond master planning? New approaches to spatial planning in Ekurhuleni, South Africa. Habitat International, 34(4), 414–420.
Townsend, S. (2009). Land matters: The need for planning law to help bring about integrated and sustainable cities. Monograph 20: Development Dialogues. Cape Town: Isandla Institute/ Open Society Foundation.
Turok, I., & Parnell, S. (2009). Reshaping cities, rebuilding nations: The role of national urban policies. Urban Forum, 20(2), 157–174.
United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat). (2009). Planning sustainable cities: Global report on human settlements 2009. London: Earthscan.
University of Pretoria, (2008). Voices of developers and municipalities: Creating more inclusive cities through cooperation, unpublished, study commissioned by Urban Landmark.
Watson, V. (2003). Conflicting rationalities: Implications for planning theory and ethics. Planning Theory & Practise, 4(4), 395–407.
Watson, V. (2009a). The planned city sweeps the poor away: Urban planning and 21st century urbanisation. Progress in Planning, 72, 151–193.
Watson, V. (2009b). Seeing from the South: Refocusing urban planning on the globe’s central urban issues. Urban Studies, 46(11), 2259–2275.
Yiftachel, O., & Yacobi, H. (2004). Control, resistance and informality: Urban ethnocracy in Beer-Sheva Israel. In N. Al-Sayyad & A. Roy (Eds.), Urban informality: Transnational perspectives from the Middle East, Latin America and South Asia (pp. 155–184). Boulder: Lexington Books.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Stuart Denoon-Stevens collaborated with Isandla Institute on this piece of work but writes in his personal capacity.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Görgens, T., Denoon-Stevens, S. Towards Facilitative and Pro-poor Land-Use Management in South African Urban Areas: Learning from International Experience. Urban Forum 24, 85–103 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12132-012-9161-1
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12132-012-9161-1