Reusing Urban Spaces and Places

By Rashiq Fataar. futurecapetown.com – March, 4, 2013.

The #builtheritage chat, which focuses on heritage and preservation issues, is celebrating its two-year anniversary in March. The chat started with an idea, some twitter conversation and finally e-mails between the National Trust for Historic Preservation in the USA, and myself, a heritage consultant in Ontario, Canada.

The spirit of the chat has always been communication and collaboration. We’ve had several chats focused on partner’s programs, such as one with Habitat for Humanity on their rehabilitation projects. So to celebrate our second anniversary, we’re partnering with our twitter chat neighbour – #citytalk, which focuses on broad urban issues and sustainability. Since this is a special chat both because of our anniversary and our amazing partner, we’ve decided to revisit our 1st topic – adaptive reuse.

Surili Sheth – Understanding Slum Dwellers: Part 1 – “Slum Dweller”

ahigloval.wordpress.com. March, 2013 – I use the term “slum dweller” as a descriptive phrase – and I choose to use it because it is how people living in slums refer to themselves, it describes the place they live (which is the subject of this post), and it acknowledges the existence of the type of informal settlement that a billion people in the world live in today – slums.

Slum policy
In developing an understanding of slum development policy, institutions have often failed to take services, environment, and community, and how these are linked to the physical structures and productivity of the people living in the slum, into consideration.

There are three major, interconnected aspects to slums that policymakers are generally concerned about:
1)     The unused or underutilized economic worth – market/productive capacity – of the people living in the slum.
2)     What part the slum (both the physical infrastructure and the people within it) plays in the larger context of the city, state, or country.
3)     The deprivations and poverty the people living in a slum face.

Often, the connections between these three aspects go unrecognized and they are treated as separate issues in policies that attempt to address the informal settlements. I argue that a true inclusive development policymaker must possess an adequate understanding of all three, using India as an example.

Read more: http://ahiglobal.wordpress.com/understanding-slum-dwellers-part-1-slum-dweller/

See also:
http://ahiglobal.wordpress.com/understanding-slum-dwellers-part-2-observations-of-an-indian-slum/
http://ahiglobal.wordpress.com/understanding-slum-dwellers-part-3-capabilities-and-informality/
http://ahiglobal.wordpress.com/understanding-slum-dwellers-part-4-some-promising-models/

Andy Bagley – Achieving Greater Social Impact

supportsolutions.co.uk – March 4, 2013.  Social impact has always been at the heart of what housing providers do. The social housing business is about building communities and enhancing lives, not just the physical structures of housing. Not surprisingly, the sector continues to seek ways to measure this social impact, in order to manage it better and achieve more.

Several ways of measuring this impact have been developed over the years, Social Return on Investment being a prominent example. To date however, most studies have focused on community development activities or aspects of personal support, rather than the core business of housing itself.

The recently released report by HACT, The Social Impact of Housing Providers, is an exception to this in that it looks at the value people place on the accommodation they live in. This takes account of factors such as space, garden, neighbour noise, damp and others, and attributes a financial value to these. Its author, Daniel Fujiwara, is widely recognised for this type of evaluation, and has written other studies including HM Treasury guidance.

The approach he focuses on is Wellbeing Valuation. Essentially, this uses research (principally from the British Household Panel Survey) to understand the value people place on various factors that affect their lives. One way of looking at this is to ask what level of compensation someone might expect in respect of a problem such as damp, in order to give them the same overall level of life satisfaction as someone without that problem. Based on this analysis the top three housing problems come out neighbour noise, damp, and poor lighting.

Read more: http://www.supportsolutions.co.uk/achieving_greater_social_impact.html

Life in Mathare Slums- A documentary On Life In A Kenyan Slum

Raveena Aulikah – Climate Change Forcing Thousands in Bangladesh into Slums of Dhaka

thestar.com – February 16, 2013 -Raveena Aulakh

Read more: http://www.thestar.com/climatechangebangladeshslumsdhaka.html

High-Tech Shack Brings Solar Power To Slums In South Africa

solarpanelreviewhw.com – From a distance, it is its shiny exterior that first catches the eye.
As you step closer, a rooftop solar panel, an outdoor security light and a roof overhang make Nosango Plaatjie’s shack stand out amid the sprawling cluster of makeshift wooden structures and rusty corrugated iron dwellings where her neighbors live.

Welcome to the iShack, or improved shack, an innovative approach to housing that’s being tested in the windswept slum of Enkanini, just outside Stellenbosch, South Africa.
The dwelling, developed by researchers at the University of Stellenbosch, is intended to raise the living standards of slum residents while improving their access to electricity and protecting them from extreme temperatures in an environmentally friendly way.
The iShack prototype is occupied by Plaatje and her three young children. It is fully equipped with a photovoltaic panel capable of producing enough electricity to power three lights, a mobile phone charger and an outdoor motion detector spotlight.
Its windows are strategically placed to achieve better air circulation and sunlight heating, while the roof is sloped so that rainwater can be harvested during the winter months.

Read more: high-tech-shack-brings-solar-power-to-slums-in-south-africa/