Jenny Morgan – A Place In The City (2008)

Journeyman Pictures: Place in the City (2008): Inside the struggle of South Africa’s post-apartheid shack dwellers. The South African Shack Dwellers Trying to Find a Voice.

Richard Jimoh – Strategies For Sustainable Housing Co-Operatives In South Africa – PhD Thesis

ABSTRACT
An increasing number of people are in need of housing that would improve long-term tenure for them. Private ownership is a well-known incentive for peoples’ participation in housing programmes. The current difficulties in obtaining credit for housing, following the global economic crisis, show that private individual home-ownership is not effective enough in addressing the housing needs of the low and middle income groups. As a result of this, the need to find an option that will solve the housing needs of the people became intense. However, the implementation of the co-operative housing delivery option in South Africa has not been successfully implemented as a result of the actions or the inactions of the role players. The study sought answer to the causes of the inability to successfully implement the co-operative housing approach through the use of ‘triad model’ that has to do with the ideology of co-operatives, the praxis and the organisational structures of the various housing co-operatives.

The study was domiciled in a pragmatic paradigm, using the mixed methods research approach by conducting a three-stage research whereby convergent parallel design was adopted as the methodology. Questionnaires were administered to the chairpersons of the housing co-operatives identified in this stage one of the study. Stage two consisted of conducting interviews with chairpersons of six housing co-operatives using the purposive non-probability sampling method.
The final stage was the survey among the members of the housing co-operatives interviewed.

Read full text (PDF): http://construction.nmmu.ac.za/Strategies-for-sustainable-housing-co-operatives-in-South-Africa.pdf

Mira Bar Hillel – What Even Is Affordable Housing?

Independent.co.uk. December 4, 2013. “The definition of this vanishing resource slips all over the place.”

A friend of mine, who used to be a very senior civil servant in what was, in the 1980s, the department now known as Communities and Local Government, had a recurrent nightmare.
“I used to wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat”, he told me. “In my dream someone is demanding that I define the term ‘affordable housing’…”

The poor chap, who was tasked with devising and producing housing policies, used the term endlessly. It was a political buzzword, like “sustainable” used to be until the Government decided that green was becoming an expensive colour. Decades later, the worse the housing crisis becomes, the more the word “affordable” is used – but still with no definition attached.

So what IS affordable housing?

Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/

Carvalho, Regiane – Slums And Cities In Brazil: Comparison For Belo Horizonte And Rio De Janeiro

iussp.org. 2013

Abstract
This paper compares slums (subnormal clusters) with formal city to identify similarities and differences between these populations. The exercise is done for two Brazilian cities: Rio de Janeiro and Belo Horizonte, both with over 2 million inhabitants. In Rio de Janeiro 22% of population lives in 763 slums while in Belo Horizonte 13% of population lives in 211 slums spread throughout the city territory. The analysis consists of comparing the formal city with slums regarding individual demographic characteristics of the population such as age structure, composition by race / color as well as characteristics of households like access to basic sanitation, including access to potable water and waste disposal. Using data from the 2010 National Demographic Census, the results indicate that, in fact, there isn’t a great disparity between slums and rest of the city with regard to the differences in attendance to basic services, being this difference was more pronounced with regard to the age structure of the population and social inequalities understood as differences in income and
race/color. Finally, some recommendations are made for public policies aimed at the population living in slums.

Read more:  http://www.iussp.org//Carvalh.pdf

How Has Economic Growth Affected Poverty And Inequality In Ghana And South Africa?

Samuel Kobina Annim, University of Cape Coast; David Lam, University of Michigan; and Murray Leibbrandt, University of Cape Town

Established in 2008, the African Studies Center (ASC) supports the exchange of scholars, faculty, knowledge, and resources between the University of Michigan.
Youtubechanel: umichASC

Ekhaya – An Affordable Informal Housing Solution: Johnny Anderton At TEDxCapeTown

Johnny works to develop and disseminate simple, cost-effective ideas to improve the lives of those living in informal settlements.
In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)