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Publications
Griffith University and the Department of the Environment, Sport & Territories, 1997
Alistair and Glynis Clacherty
Clacherty and Associates
South Africa
In most developing countries there is a major urbanisation trend as rural people migrate to the cities. However, access to formal housing is usually extremely limited and the development of usually large and high density informal settlements in urban areas is common. In addition, many residents in informal urban settlements have moved there from more formal high density residential areas where land and suitable housing are not available.
Many myths exist about residents of informal urban settlements, for example, that such communities are poorly structured, that social problems are rife, that they are hotbeds of crime and are dangerous, that the people live degraded and hopeless lives, and that informal urban settlements should be eradicated at all cost. While there are elements of truth in most of these perceptions, in fact the picture is usually rather different. For example, there is often a very strong social structure in which people co-operate in order to improve their circumstances in these settlements. Although small and constructed of materials such as old corrugated iron, cardboard, or poles covered with sheets of plastic or sheets of metal beaten from large oil drums, such homes reflect a desire and ability to live in dignity and cleanliness, in spite of the extremely difficult circumstances that people find themselves in.
This workshop will examine:
This workshop aims to help students:
The workshop consists of eight activities:
The introduction identifies key themes as used as the objectives of the workshop.
Participants analyse some urbanisation data from which the facilitator collates the key points identified.
An extract written from the perspective of informal urban settlements as 'environments of poverty' is read, discussed and reflected upon.
This activity asks participants to review ten commonly held perceptions about informal urban settlements and to rate them. The exercise challenges many of the myths about such settlements.
Orange Farm is a major informal urban settlement south of Johannesburg in South Africa. Four stories from Orange Farm are presented, read and discussed. The Stories from Orange Farm reveal the strategies that people and groups in informal urban settlements adopt to survive and to live their lives in dignity and hope.
Participants imagine that they are members of a team of urban planners in a developing city and prepare a range of principles and projects to help ensure that patterns of sustainable living can be achieved in informal settlements.
Groups re-examine their perceptions of informal settlements by repeating Activity 3 and explaining any changes in their perceptions after completing the various activities in this workshop.
Participants develop the outline for a teaching unit which would assist students they teach understand the concepts developed in this workshop.
Overhead Transparency Masters
OHT 1: Objectives of the Workshop
OHT 2: Questions for Activity 3
OHT 3: Urban Planning Exercise
Resources
Resource 1A: The World's Top 10 Cities
Resource 1B: Perspectives on Cities in the Developing World
Resource 2: Environments of Poverty
Resource 3: So They Say: Common Statements about Informal Urban Settlements
Resource 4: Stories from Orange Farm
Resource 5: Getting It Right: Planning from a Sustainable Development Perspective
Resource 6: Three Ways to Use $20 Million to Improve Conditions in a City of 1Million People
Ashton, J. (ed.) (1992) Healthy Cities, Open University Press, Milton, Keynes.
Atlas of the Environment, WWF, London, 1992.
Berg, P. (1989) A Green City Program, Planet Drum Foundation, San Francisco.
Dogan, M. and Kasarda, J.D. (eds.) (1988) The Metropolis Era, Volume 2, Mega-cities, Sage, London.
Gilbert, A. and Gugler, J. (1989) Cities, Poverty and Development, 2nd edition, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Hardoy, J.E. and Satterthwaite, D. (1986) Shelter, Infrastructure and Services in Third World Cities, Habitat International, 10 (4).
Mantell, M.A., Harper, S.F. and Propst, L. (1990) Creating Successful Communities, Island Press, San Francisco.
New Ground, Winter 1993.
Ryn, S. and Calthorpe, P. (1986) Sustainable Communities, Sierra Club, San Francisco.
Skinner, R.J. and Rodell, M.J. (1983) People, Poverty and Shelter: Problems of Self Help Housing in the Third World, Methuen, New York.
World Commission on Environment and Development (1987) Our Common Future, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
A. Focusing Activity
Explain to participants that the main differences between formal and informal housing are:
In the case of formal housing, the roads, plots of land, electricity, water, sewerage, gas, telephones, public transport, etc. are usually planned or provided by a relevant authority, and this is generally done before people are allowed to move into the area. In an informal settlement, the reverse is usually true - people occupy an area and erect homes themselves in the absence of most of the services and infrastructure that people living in formal residential areas take for granted. If they have some sort of permission to live on the land it makes their lot a little easier. However, in many cases such people simply occupy the land without permission. In such cases of illegal occupation of land, the derogatory term 'squatters' is often applied to the people concerned.
Ask the participants to work in pairs. One partner (who pretends he/she lives in an informal urban settlement) should tell the other (who pretends he/she lives in a formal urban settlement) what life in the informal settlement is like. For example, he/she can describe how/where they get water, where they wash and iron their clothes, what sanitation they use, how they get their mail (there are often no street addresses in an informal urban settlement), etc.
This activity should not go on for more than about three minutes. If you wish, although it is not necessary, the 'formal residents' can now go through a similar description of life where they live.
B. Overview of Workshop
Ask the participants to form groups of about six people. These groups will report back to the main group. Each group should organise a rotating spokesperson for each activity. (Before commencing with the activity, the group members should introduce themselves to each other -unless it is clear they know each other.)
Present the information contained in Resource 1A and Resource 1B. Resource 1A is a table of statistics on the world's ten largest cities. Resource 1B contains quotations about cities in the developing world.
Ask participants what this information tells them about urbanisation. Before they start, inform them that they will have to report back the key points that the group identified. Allow 5-10 minutes of discussion.
The report back should be structured so that each group reports one key point at a time in rotation until most of the important issues are captured on a large piece of chart or poster paper.
This activity relates to the negative perceptions commonly held about informal urban settlements. The activity presents these negative perceptions without challenging them; and provides a 'stopping point' where these perceptions are summarised by the groups.
Give each group a copy of Resource 2. Each group should read through the extract presented in Resource 2. After having read the extract, ask each group to answer the questions on OHT 2 (do not reveal question 4).
1. What sort of person wrote this passage?
2. What sort of job does this person do?
3. What was the purpose of writing? (i.e. what is the hidden agenda?)
Reflection: Reveal Question 4 on OHT 2. In order to answer this question, ask each group to summarise the information presented so far in about three key points. They will then be given an opportunity to report these points back to the main group.
4. What perceptions of informal urban settlements have been created or supported by Activities 2 and 3?
Activity 3 dealt with commonly held negative perceptions of informal urban settlements. Activity 4 is designed as a way of getting participants to start thinking more deeply about the issues. They will hopefully have some of their preconceptions about informal urban settlements challenged.
Orange Farm is a very rapidly growing informal urban informal settlement south of Johannesburg in South Africa. It presently has about 35,000 homes, most of which are informally constructed. The total population is about 120,000 people from different backgrounds. Most of the people are evicted farm labourers from nearby districts and far away districts, e.g. Frankfort in the Free State and King William's Town in the Eastern Cape. Even people from former Bantustans and former tenants from many townships have discovered Orange Farm to be a sanctuary of the people who were homeless.
Resource 4 consists of four stories from Orange Farm. Divide participants into four groups and give one of these stories to each group.
Ask them to read that story and discuss it amongst themselves. The group should identify:
Hear group reports and summarise the key points from these discussions. This activity will set up thinking for the next activity.
Participants should work in groups. The following instructions should be given to the groups.
Write up your core guiding principles on chart or poster paper in legible writing.
This activity goes back to Resource 3 and asks participants, in their groups, to review their ratings in the light of what they have learnt from Activity 5 and Activity 6. This activity also serves as an evaluation of the workshop. As facilitator you could extend the 'why' part of the discussion into a more detailed evaluation if you wish.
It is not important to ask for comment about this review, but the group (and you as facilitator) may find it interesting to comment on how perceptions have or have not changed and why.
This activity puts the participant on centre stage and serves to pull the main arguments of this module together.
While this may not be true everywhere, most conventional geography or social science syllabus will generally deal with issues of urbanisation and the lives of poor, homeless or oppressed people unsympathetically. In this activity participants are required to develop an outline for a teaching unit on sustainable living in informal urban settlements in response to the syllabus topic 'Urban Problems: Urbanisation and City Growth'.
The teaching unit should address the following points:
As a follow-up activity - or if time permits - participants could develop this outline into a more substantial set of curriculum resources.
1. What sort of person wrote this passage?
2. What sort of job does this person do?
3. What was the purpose of writing? (i.e. what is the hidden agenda?)
4. What perceptions of informal urban settlements have been created or supported by Activities 2 and 3?
Imagine that your group is a team of urban planners in a developing city. Informal settlements are mushrooming in and around your city. The people establishing these settlements are from rural areas as well as from formal, but grossly overcrowded, high density residential areas.
Your task is to develop a set of five core principles that will guide your urban and regional planning department over the next 20 years. You should consider national, regional and local levels as well as economic and environmental perspectives in developing your principles.
Write up your core guiding principles on chart or poster paper in legible writing.
Source: Compiled from New Ground, 12, 1993; and Atlas of the Environment, WWF, London, 1992.
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1. The population of many of sub-Saharan Africa's larger cities increased more than sevenfold between 1950 and 1980 - Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, Nouakchott, Lusaka, Lagos and Kinshasa among them.1
2. It took London 130 years to go from 1 million to 8 million inhabitants; by contrast, Mexico city zoomed from 1 million to 20 million in less than 50 years.2
3. About a third of the people of the Third World's cities now live in desperately overcrowded slum and squatter settlements. Many are unemployed, uneducated, undernourished and chronically sick. In Bombay and Rio de Janeiro, over 3 million people are squeezed into slums and shantytowns; 60% of the entire population of Bogota and Kinshasa - and 79% of the people of Addis Ababa live in slums.3
4. City Reports4
Nairobi, Kenya: In 1975, Nairobi had 57% of all Kenya's manufacturing employment and two-thirds of its industrial plants. In 1979, Nairobi contained around 5% of the national population.
Manila, Philippines: Metropolitan Manila produces one-third of the nation's gross national product, handles 70% of all imports, and contains 60% of the manufacturing establishments. In 1981, it contained around 13% of the national population.
Lima, Peru: The metropolitan area of Lima accounts for 43% of gross domestic product, for four-fifths of bank credit and consumer goods production, and for more than nine-tenths of capital goods production in Peru. In 1981, it was home to around 27% of Peruvians.
Lagos, Nigeria: In 1978, Lagos' metropolitan area handled over 40% of the nation's external trade, accounted for over 57% of total value added in manufacturing, and contained over 40% of Nigeria's highly skilled workers. It contains only some 5% of the national population.
Mexico City, Mexico: In 1970, with some 24% of Mexicans living there, the capital contained 30% of the manufacturing jobs, 28% of employment in commerce, 38% of jobs in services, 69% of employment in national government, 62% of national investment in higher education, and 80% of research activities. In 1965, it contained 44% of national bank deposits and 61% of national credits.
Sao Paulo, Brazil: Greater Sao Paulo, with around one-tenth of Brazil's national population in 1980, contributed one-quarter of the net national product and over 40% of Brazil's industrial value-added.
References
1. World Commission on Environment and Development (1987) Our Common Future, Oxford University Press, Oxford, p. 236
2 .Atlas of the Environment, WWF, London, 1992, p. 21.
3. Atlas of the Environment, WWF, London, 1992, p. 21.
4 .Hardoy, J.E. and Satterthwaite, D. (1986) Shelter, infrastructure and services in Third World Cities, Habitat International, 10(4).
Source: New Ground, Winter 1993.
For millions of people, these environments of poverty (informal urban settlements) pose a far more urgent threat than global climate change. Even a First World institution like the World Bank acknowledges the main environmental priorities for the urban poor of the Third World are not questions of global warming or ozone holes but simple matters of improved housing and affordable basic water and sanitation services. The following points shed some light on the circumstances behind these concerns of the poor in the cities of the developing world:
Mounting pressure on land in rapidly growing Third World cities has resulted in the residential occupation by the poor of so-called 'marginal urban environments': the worst areas in terms of physical stability, areas that might have been avoided in the past by populations because of the threat posed to human life. Areas occupied by many informal settlements are prone to environmental disasters.
Work in groups of about five participants each and rate these statements from 1 to 5 where:
1 = Blatantly false;
2 = False, but has elements of truth in it;
3 = 'Ambiguous' or you are 'not sure';
4 = Mostly true, but something in it is not quite right; and
5 = Indisputably true.
Circle the number that matches your group's opinion.
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1. Overcrowding and slum developments are typically 'Developing World' problems.
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2. Rural people would be better off staying in their villages than moving into shack settlements near cities.
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3. Squatter settlements pose a serious health risk to city residents.
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4. Unemployment gives rise to poverty, poverty gives rise to crime, and the major source of crime is to be found amongst shack dwellers.
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5. Given land security, people living in informal urban settlements will quickly be able to stabilise their communities and merge into mainstream life in urban areas.
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6. Squatter settlements spring up so rapidly that they have a very poor social structure. Consequently social problems are rife and people live degraded and hopeless lives.
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7. The government should promote rural development schemes so that people do not come to the cities.
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8. People in informal urban settlements are unskilled and unschooled. What hope have they of succeeding by coming to the city?
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9. If urban planners had proper urbanisation strategies then the problems of shack settlements would not happen.
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10. The majority of shack dwellers live in small but clean homes. The shacks are usually decorated inside and sometimes even have flowers growing outside.
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This resource contains stories from Orange Farm. Orange Farm is a very rapidly growing informal urban settlement south of Johannesburg in South Africa. It presently has about 35,000 homes, most of which are informally constructed. The total population is about 120,000 people from different backgrounds. Most of the people are evicted farm labourers from nearby districts and far away districts, for example, Frankfort in the Free State and King William's Town in the Eastern Cape. Even people from former Bantustans and former tenants from many townships have discovered Orange Farm to be a sanctuary of the people who were homeless.
Connie Mofokeng is a single mother living in Orange Farm. She is an active member of the community-based organisation called 'Orange Farm Environmental and Agricultural Projects' OFEAPRO). Here she tells her story.
I grew up in Soweto with my parents. As I grew up and my baby grew bigger I needed to find a place of my own. Many younger people were in the same position. Many people rent back rooms or even put up shacks in the yard of someone's house, but the rent is very high. We are sick and tired of lodging in backyards. There was a place where we could put up shacks. It was called Mofolo Park. But conditions there were not good, and the nearby residents treated us badly. They said we stole things from them and we were dirty. Mr Tshabalala (a community leader) organised for us to go and see some land on Orange Farm where we could move to.
Now in Orange Farm we are free. This place is ours and we can live our own lives. I paid 500 Rand (approximately $US200) for this plot and soon we will be getting title deeds. But we are far from town and there is still not much here. I have to travel far to sell the things I make. Life is hard. We don't have money and we can't buy food and bricks.
To make a living I knit jerseys. I got this knitting machine from my mother and she taught me. I am lucky - I own my machine, but most people have to buy on HP (hire purchase). If they can't pay they come and take the machine the same month. It's not right.
I also buy bundles of second-hand clothes that they send from Europe. I take them and sell them in Vanderbyl Park (35 km away). We spread them out on the pavement next to the shops and people buy from us.
My dreams are to start a creche here for my people and also I want to become a foster mother. I can get money from the government for support. I also dream of having a small plot for cows and chickens and fresh vegetables. These are things I can do to help me get some money and to help my community.
Socially life is good. It's quiet and safe. Most of us around here are from the struggle in Mofolo Park, so we support each other. My sister lives in that house over there and we help each other. The schools are also good. There are many community-based organisations. Women's Voice is very active and projects like gardens, brick-making, tailoring. There are also literary classes. Some people run shebeens (informal pubs).
But what can we do when we are so far from town? Transport is expensive. There are no proper jobs here. But we try. Somehow it's painful, but it's part of life.
Mrs Annekie Pepeza and her neighbour, Mrs Bessie Bela, live in Orange Farm in simple iron shacks that they, their husbands and other neighbourhood helpers built. Their houses have internal structures of wooden poles set in the ground. These structures are covered with corrugated iron sheeting. Even obtaining the corrugated iron is a struggle. How do poor people transport such materials from a demolition site in Johannesburg 45 km south to Orange Farm? This, and the need to build simply, means that the houses are small - two rooms, each about 3 m square, one serving as the living room and the other as the bedroom. The roof is slightly sloping and is less than 2 m above the concrete floor. The living area is furnished with basic cupboards, a fridge (the whole area was recently electrified on a pre-paid metering system), kitchen table and chairs. The walls are decorated with old calendars and numerous copies of a wall map of Pretoria.
These conversations with Annekie and Bessie were conducted in Sesotho and translated into English for me by a field assistant. They reflect, therefore, a competent use of language which is not the picture officialdom would normally see.
Annekie
I came here from Soweto. My husband came from the rural farms. We came here because people could get their own land, but we need to be sure that we will get this land. How do we know it is really ours until we have papers? Also, these plots are too small, and we have no services like dustbins and removals.
We are struggling to live here. We get piece jobs with white people - kitchen work, washing, ironing, but people don't pay us enough. My husband is visiting friends in another section of Orange Farm. They are discussing ways to get work. They meet like this so that if any one of them knows about work they all hear about it soon and can go and get the work. Maybe he will be working on a building site for a few weeks. My husband made this concrete floor.
Bessie
I was staying with my parents and then I wanted to have my own place. I was a single parent. I heard about the opportunity to get a place in Orange Farm. People can have their own land. We can be free here and have a safe place for our children to feel relaxed and not supervised under a landlord. We also felt owned by the municipality (black land ownership in South Africa was not permitted - all homes were rented from a local authority). We wanted a new spirit. This land is mine. I feel attached to it. I can freely sell it. There are no land restrictions and we expect better houses to be built.
To earn a living we need to do odd jobs and I share work with my neighbour. We bring people's washing here and do it together. But the water supply is very unreliable. It is very depressing - we can't even guarantee our work on time.
The toilets (free standing units behind the houses) don't work well. They use water, but are not flush toilets. There is a small tank behind them that has to be emptied. But we don't have 30 Rand ($US12) to pay the municipality to empty them. The provincial administration supplied them without consultation. They brought them here only to get money out of our shit. We suspect the supply contract was given to somebody's brother.
Child care is done by neighbours. We share our work and our problems. There is a strong collective spirit here. We are forced by need to have solidarity. We swap clothing for our children. That's how we live here.
Ms Olga Lutu is a powerful community leader and initiator of numerous community-based development projects. She recently received an award in recognition of her services. We asked Olga what it was that made Orange Farm a successful community.
It is the history of oppression and struggle as well as pride of ownership.
The negative things that have happened have given us vision and purpose. We are being chased off land under Section 10 (of the pre-1994 South African Government). This gave us a dream for land of our own. We can now call this land ours. There was no formal structure here so it forced us to get organised for ourselves. In the face of many difficulties we just did it. That gave us a very strong community spirit. We organised a taxi association, people started their own shops (usually in street-side shelters) and saw the opportunity for business. This allowed us all to look at Orange Farm through positive eyes. It has taught us self-reliance. The new government has been promoting Community Development Forums, etc. For us these are not a new thing.
We organised ourselves according to interest groups that were generated informally out of needs. Schools were started - in shacks - the big one is still in the long buildings of a chicken farm where it was started by a resident. There are now 101 Community Based Organisations (CBOs) that we are aware of. These include 25 vegetable clubs linked to Dig for Victory.
The key issue had been land. We call this land our own. We are now negotiating for direct land ownership. (This has since been achieved). We are talking of homes, not houses.
Mr Dae Molapo (he finds it amusing that his parents gave him a Welsh name and no African name) has training and experience in community development work. He was requested by residents of Orange Farm to go and live with them in order to help them. He co-ordinated the Orange Farm Environmental and Agricultural Projects (OFEAPRO).
Orange Farm is now formalising because people had no other place to go. They had to make a plan. At first most people came from other townships, mostly Soweto and Alexandra (see Connie's Story) but in the newer areas that have sprung up (see Annekie's story), most of the people have come from the farms. Many farm workers were evicted from the farms before the new land reform laws gave the white farmers problems.
This place is their own. That is a very important thing. We are very attached to the place. We will live here for the rest of our lives so we must make it comfortable and it must provide for the needs of the people. Orange Farm will be a model township. We are proud to prove to outside people that people who struggle do it as a reality that affects their lives. We have been denied ownership of land. Now we have what we have been dreaming for. Ownership is still being negotiated, but we have boldly taken ownership even before the new government was elected. We even want the mineral rights. We will struggle on until we have even the mineral rights. Not even a mining company is going to move us now. This makes us unique - we are very land conscious.
When we say 'The people shall govern' we do not mean to embarrass our new government. It is for the good of the people. All we need is for the government to recognise the legitimacy of land occupation.
Source: Developed from World Commission on Environment and Development (1987) Our Common Future, Oxford University Press, Oxford; and New Ground, Winter 1993.
Here are some principles for urban planning from a development perspective.
A. A successful long term urban development policy must:
B. Authorities should:
Source: Adapted from World Commission on Environment and Development (1987) Our Common Future, Oxford University Press, Oxford, p. 252.
Option 1
Build 2,000 public housing units for poor families (with an average of six family members), each costing $10,000. Conditions are improved for 12,000 people, but little cost recovery is possible for poor families. If the city's population grows at 5% annually, 630,000 new inhabitants will be added over 10 years, so only a tiny fraction of total population will have benefited.
Option 2
Establish a 'site-and-service scheme', whereby poor families are responsible for building their houses on an allocated site supplied with piped water, connection to a sewer system, and electricity, roads and drainage. At $2,000 per plot, this means housing for some 60,000 people - about 10% of the city's population growth over 10 years.
Option 3
Allocate $100, 000 to a neighbourhood organisation representing 1, 000 poor households (6,000 people) in an existing low income settlement. It chooses to improve drainage and roads, build a health clinic, establish a co-operative to produce inexpensive building materials and components, and reblock the settlement (i.e. establish a street grid pattern) to improve access roads and provide 50 new plots. With $10 million, 100 such community initiatives are supported, reaching 600,000 people and providing 5,000 new housing plots. Many new jobs are stimulated. The remaining $10 million is spent on installing piped water; at $100 per household, all 600,000 people reached.
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