THE RECONSTRUCTION OF ENVIRONMENTAL RIGHTS IN URBAN SOUTH-AFRICA

Rapid and spatially concentrated urbanization in South Africa has brou ght with it significant health and safety hazards. These hazards are d escribed and analyzed through two optics: environmental lights and com munity participation. The lights perspective suggests that the system of apartheid led to a collapse of rural livelihoods, driving people to the cities, while apartheid's tight control over African residential location and employment ensured that high density settlement and unemp loyment would follow. The resulting urban environmental degradation an d health and safety hazards are a violation of the human rights of the African residents of townships and informal settlements. The communit y participation perspective suggests that reconstruction can be linked to development and that community-based hazard identification and mit igation can be a vehicle for kick-starting urban revitalization.