The South African Civil Society Information Service
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
Richard Pithouse -
In 2005, early in her in her first term as Minister of Housing, Lindiwe Sisulu announced that the state had resolved to ‘eradicate slums’ by 2014. This was a time when the technocratic ideal had more credibility than it does now and officials and politicians often spoke, with genuine conviction, as if it were an established fact that this aspiration would translate into reality. It was not unusual for people trying to engage the state around questions of urban land and housing to...
Urban land is of symbolic significance in South Africa because it is land that people of colour were historically denied access to. But the historically privileged still own, occupy and enjoy the best urban land.
The question is, why hasn’t our government been able to unlock well-located land in urban areas to provide housing for the people who need it most?
The historically disadvantaged continue to live on marginal land on the peripheries of South Africa’s cities and the...
Richard Pithouse -
Urban land is acutely contested in contemporary South Africa. There are regular land occupations, some taking the form of quiet encroachment and some taking the form of overtly political acts. At the same time most municipalities have armed units that, often acting violently, and more or less invariably acting illegally, try to sustain the duopoly of the state and the market over the allocation and zoning of urban land. When land occupations are presented as simple acts of criminality,...
'Stayin Alive in Joburg' is a gritty take on inner-city life in Johannesburg. It examines the changing landscape of South Africa's biggest post-apartheid city, providing an eye opening account of the trials and tribulations of Johannesburg's poorest inhabitants engaged in a daily struggle for survival, as they get overlooked by authorities and development agencies fixated on elite projects, including, but not limited to the 2010 soccer world cup. The film is informative, exposing a...
