timeslive.co.za. September 2014. In the past few months there have been violent demonstrations in Ekurhuleni by people demanding housing. The metro has 119 “informal settlements”.
The member of the Ekurhuleni mayoral committee responsible for settlements, Queen Duba, said the metro was changing the way it was dealing with demand for housing.
“We must cater for people with their different needs. You cannot assume that, just because a person is in an informal settlement, he wants an RDP house.
“You might find that the person in the informal settlement has money to build a house and the only thing they need is access to land,” Duba said.
There were currently 52 housing projects in the pipeline at different phases of development in Ekurhuleni, she said.

Read more: http://www.timeslive.co.za/informal-settlements

Photo: futurecapetown.com

futurecapetown.com. September 2014. Launched in 2011, the Johannesburg 2040 Growth and Development Strategy (Joburg 2040 GDS) defines Johannesburg’s vision for the next 30 years, toward a vibrant, equitable, diverse, “World Class African City of the Future.” It consolidates various other City strategies, and included a wide-reaching engagement and feedback process (GDS outreach).

 Joburg 2040 responds to two contexts: continued transformation of the inherited Apartheid City, and the uncertainties of present and future challenges such as migration, globalisation, climate change, natural resource scarcity, and financial markets. Understanding these and other challenges of modern cites as resulting from complex and inter-related factors, key to the Joburg 2040 strategy is its cross-cutting nature, moving away from a narrow sectoral approach toward a more thematic approach to which all targeted City interventions can aim. To this end, three concepts were devised: resilience (the capacity to change and adapt), sustainability (development that does not destroy natural ecology) and livability (quality of life). The City has similarly also defined four inter-related drivers to achieve this: social, environmental, economic and institutional/political change.

Read more: http://futurecapetown.com/johannesburgs-2040-vision

E. (Earl) Ray Hutchison Encyclopedia of Urban Studies)
Sage Publications, Inc | 2009 | ISBN: 1412914329 | 1080 pages | File type: PDF | 16 mb

The United Nations estimates that by 2030, more than two-thirds of the total world population will live in urban areas. Most of this increase will take place not in Europe or in the United States but in the megacities and newly emerging urban regions of what used to be called the developing world.
Urban studies is an expansive and growing field, covering many disciplines and professional fields, each with its own schedule of conferences, journals, and publication series. These two volumes address the specific theories, key studies, and important figures that have influenced not just the individual discipline but also the field of urban studies more generally. The Encyclopedia of Urban Studies is intended to present an overview of current work in the field and to serve as a guide for further reading in the field.

Go to: http://www.ebook3000.com/Encyclopedia-of-Urban-Studies

Photo: www.rand.org

Public housing projects have been controversial for decades in countries around the world. They have been seen as a potential remedy to housing inequality, providing a guaranteed minimum standard of living. While some developments have achieved a degree of success, others have earned bad reputations for worsening segregation, social tension, unemployment, violence, and drug use. A common complaint against even the more successful projects is that residents get little effective say about their design.

A close look at an informal settlement in Cape Town, South Africa, could serve as a guide for other countries experimenting with community-driven development, an alternative approach to public housing.

Community-driven development (PDF), which has gained traction since the 1990s, has largely abandoned the housing aims of equality and standardization. Under this approach, control over development decisions and resources goes directly to the people who potentially will be living in the housing. These citizens identify community priorities. They organize to address local problems as partners with local governments and other organizations. Such projects are emerging in Cape Verde, Ghana, Mali, Mauritania, Senegal, Brazil, Indonesia, Azerbaijan, Benin, and Morocco. The result is considerable variety, as community-driven housing becomes as diverse as the personalities of those driving them. The hope, of course, is that the best developments will be scaled up and their recipes for success will be shared, serving as useful guides for other communities.

Read more: http://www.rand.org/community-driven-development

AlJazeera. September 2014. Millions of people from Mexico’s countryside come to the capital to build settlements and slums, adding to the ongoing expansion of one of the world’s biggest cities. In Mexico, the poor have largely settled in shantytowns on the edge of Mexico City. Despite the danger, the hardship, the lack of hygiene, many families are using it as a chance to build a better life.

As part of our ongoing My Home series, Al Jazeera’s Adam Raney reports from Mexico City.

From the top of the hill in Ixtapaluca, Mexico City looks attractive: the metropolis of 22 million seats on a valley surrounded by two beautiful volcanoes and mountains. The city still has a shrinking lake, Xochimilco, a legacy from pre Hispanic times, one of the few remaining natural reserves.
New human settlements keep devouring nature by the day, mostly on the hills, as the flat surfaces are mostly occupied or unaffordable.
To kids here airplanes are an attraction, as they fly over one every minute in the afternoons; so is to look at the city’s historic center to identify some of its many landmarks, typically monuments, office towers and Chapultepec Park, the largest green spot inside the concrete jungle.
But going to see the city’s zoo at Chapultepec is a luxury families living here can rarely afford.

Read & see more: http://www.aljazeera.com/slums-mexico

cityfix.com. September 2014. The NYU Stern Urbanization Project has created a number of fascinating time-lapse videos showing urban land use in different cities from the 1800s through to 2000. These videos strikingly depict the well-evidenced trend of urban growth, both in population and land area. By 2050, 66% of the world’s population is expected to live in urban areas. While urbanization can have a number of benefits, if not controlled, it can also lead to costly urban sprawl. In some expanding cities, land use is expected to grow at about double the rate of the population. The Urbanization Project’s visualizations give context to the challenge of urbanization and land use as cities plan for the next century of growth and development.

Read & see more: http://thecityfix.com/watch-urban-growth