University Of Amsterdam – Centre For Urban Studies – 13 Dissertations 2013

The Centre for Urban Studies houses one of 15 “Research Priority Areas” at the University of Amsterdam, combining longstanding expertise across departments in the social sciences and humanities.

The link to 13 dissertations completed in 2013:
http://urbanstudies.uva.nl/completed-dissertations-2013.html

Sam Forbes ~ My life In London’s Houseboat Slums

theguardian.com. Febr.23, 2014. Where do you live if you cannot afford London’s soaring rents? I took the only home I could find: a tiny, mouldy room in a freezing barge on the Thames. And there are many desperate people in the same situation.
Most Londoners will know someone suffering from the extortionate expense of finding a place to live. For those trapped in the rental market, the outlook is particularly bleak. In 2011 the Resolution Foundation reported that the price of securing a tenancy can be over £2,000 in upfront costs, while other figures have shown that one in three tenants now spend half their takehome pay on rent. As more and more areas of London become unaffordable to anyone but wealthy professionals, where will essential workers go to live: the people who clean the streets, and cook the food and keep the city ticking over? They can stay at home with relatives, or sublet from people with existing tenancies, but some do not have these options. When I found myself in this position, I went to the only place I could: the slums of the Thames.

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/london-houseboat-slum-rents-barge?

Unesco Database – Publications In Open Access

You are encouraged to download, copy, translate any publication below and use it free of charge, as long as the original author is given credit for the original creation. No prior permission is required to do so.

Go to: http://www.unesco.org/resources/online-materials/

Beacon Of The World’s Urban Poor Nominated For Nobel Peace Prize 2014

us6.campaign-archive2.com. Febr. 2014.  Jockin Arputham and Shack/Slum Dwellers International (SDI), the largest urban slum dweller movement in the world, have been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014. The nomination of the network of pavement dwellers, landless and homeless, in 33 countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, is an unprecedented step in the life of a man who has risen from the streets of Mumbai to global prominence as the beacon of people-led approaches to urban development. The bid was put forth by Swedish Minister for Public Administration and Housing Stefan Attefall. The bid also has high level political support from Norway and South Africa, including Derek Hanekom, South African Minister of Science and Technology and former Minister of Land, who has also announced his support of this nomination. In his nomination letter Minister Attefall chose the warning of the Greek philosopher Plato to the Athenians as the basis of supporting Mr. Arphutham’s candidacy: “the income of the rich should not exceed the income of the poor by more than five times. Any more would create economic inefficiency and generate “the greatest social risk”: civil war”.

Read more: http://us6.campaign-archive2.com/

The African Centre For Cities

The African Centre for Cities (ACC) is an interdisciplinary research and teaching programme focussed on quality scholarship regarding the dynamics of unsustainable urbanization processes in Africa, with an eye on identifying systemic responses.

Mission
The ACC seeks to facilitate critical urban research and policy discourses for the promotion of vibrant, democratic and sustainable urban development in the global South from an African perspective.

Background
In mid 2007, UCT Signature Theme funding was awarded to the Cities in Africa Project, which was a collaborative venture between the Faculties of Engineering and the Built Environment (EBE), Science and Humanities. The initiative is located within the EBE Faculty. The Signature Theme builds on an interdisciplinary network of academics across these three faculties, which emerged during 2005 and 2006, and which was supported in 2006 by EBE funding. This network in turn, had emerged as a result of an initiative by the Ove Arup Foundation, which had committed funds towards the establishment of an interdisciplinary masters programme in EBE (Urban Infrastructure Design and Management) in 2005, on the understanding that faculty staff would raise further funding for a related research initiative. In 2007, the proposed new director of the Theme was also granted an NRF Research Chair in Urban Policy, allowing the alignment of these two initiatives. Professor Edgar Pieterse was appointed to lead the Theme and take up the Chair, and he took up office in August 2007. Since then, there has been a process to rename the initiative as the African Centre for Cities to denote the focus on urban research in the global South but from an African perspective. The ACC is a response to the growing recognition world-wide of the importance of cities, and particularly cities in the developing world. In South Africa this is reflected in the increasingly urban emphasis in policy documents at both national and provincial level. The sense is one of impending crisis, with the realisation that rapid urbanisation also raises issues of adequate food supply, affordable shelter, employment opportunities, water and waste management, public transportation, crime and disease, and environmental degradation and climate change.

Read more: http://www.africancentreforcities.net/about/
&
http://www.africancentreforcities.net/programme-type/publishing/

SERI ~ Housing and Evictions

About SERI ~ SERI is a section 21 not-for-profit organisation providing professional, dedicated and expert socio-economic rights assistance to individuals, communities and social movements in the form of rigorous applied research, engagement with government, policy/legal advocacy and reform, civil society coordination/mobilisation and public interest litigation. Our thematic areas are: housing and evictions; access to basic services (water, sanitation, electricity); and political space.

Research: http://www.seri-sa.org/index.php/2013-03-07-10-16-20/housing-and-evictions

List of housing/evictions-related legislation and policy: http://www.seri-sa.org/housing-and-evictions/policy-and-legislation/