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Governing Low-Income Housing Delivery in Mangaung

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Housing in African Cities

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Abstract

The principle of cooperative governance directs intergovernmental relations in South Africa. Friendly relations, mutual support, information-sharing, coordination and avoiding legal action within the government lie at the core of cooperative governance. This paper investigates housing governance and the accompanying intergovernmental relations in one of South Africa’s metropolitan areas, Mangaung. We use evolutionary governance theory to show how the provincial government dominates the city’s housing governance and impedes changing the historical spatial patterns. Despite building larger houses the location of these houses and infrastructure access were inadequate and the dominant provincial process depleted the municipality’s housing development fund. Mangaung could not counter the provincial government’s power, while the provincial government disregarded city processes and finances for three decades.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The first author has been an employee in Mangaung’s housing department since 2003.

  2. 2.

    An annual Act which sets the distribution of national government funds to provinces and municipalities.

  3. 3.

    This decision was taken at the National Housing Forum (1992–1994), which developed a post-apartheid housing policy.

  4. 4.

    The national government approved a minimum house size of 30 m2 only in 1999.

  5. 5.

    The Bloemfontein TLC (Transitional Local Council) made large-scale sites available from 1994 by trying to plan for urbanisation. A revolving fund helped to finance these developments.

  6. 6.

    Directly translated, it means attack. The provincial government introduced the programme to improve basic service delivery in the province.

  7. 7.

    The initial intention of the geotechnical allowance was to pay for servicing stands in uneven areas like the coastal cities. It was not supposed to be used in Mangaung.

  8. 8.

    Before 2001 these allocations were made to the various TLCs (Transitional Local Councils) that the National Demarcation Board amalgamated into Mangaung in 2001.

  9. 9.

    The Mangaung Housing Sector Plan is part of the municipality’s Integrated Development Plan (IDP).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa

    Malefetsane Mokoena, Lochner Marais & Anita Venter

  2. Mangaung Municipality, Bloemfontein, South Africa

    Nepo Masithela

Authors
  1. Malefetsane Mokoena
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  2. Lochner Marais
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  3. Nepo Masithela
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  4. Anita Venter
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lochner Marais .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Geography and Planning, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK

    Margot Rubin

  2. School of Architecture and Planning, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

    Sarah Charlton

  3. School of Architecture and Planning, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

    Neil Klug

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Mokoena, M., Marais, L., Masithela, N., Venter, A. (2023). Governing Low-Income Housing Delivery in Mangaung. In: Rubin, M., Charlton, S., Klug, N. (eds) Housing in African Cities. GeoJournal Library(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37408-1_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37408-1_9

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