HOUSING POLICY IN SOUTH-AFRICA

Authors
Citation
P. Wilkinson, HOUSING POLICY IN SOUTH-AFRICA, Habitat international, 22(3), 1998, pp. 215-229
Citations number
21
Categorie Soggetti
Urban Studies","Environmental Studies","Planning & Development
Journal title
ISSN journal
01973975
Volume
22
Issue
3
Year of publication
1998
Pages
215 - 229
Database
ISI
SICI code
0197-3975(1998)22:3<215:HPIS>2.0.ZU;2-8
Abstract
This paper traces the development of housing policy in South Africa fr om its emergence in the 1920s as a response to social and public healt h problems associated with accelerated urbanisation to its current dep loyment as a vehicle of 'reconstruction and development' in the post-a partheid order. The account focuses on the implication of housing poli cy in the successive socio-political projects of 'segregation' and 'ap artheid' between the 1930s and the mid-1970s, as well as protracted at tempts at policy reform during the late 1970s and 1980s in the afterma th of the 'township revolt'. It deals primarily with changing response s to what remained, until quite recently, a central concern of housing policy in South Africa - the attempt to 'contain' urbanisation within the African population. From this retrospective view, the paper moves to an examination of the key difficulties embedded in current housing policy. These are bound up with efforts to overcome the continuing ho using 'backlog' in ways which, on the one hand, remain wedded to a sim plistic, 'supply side' approach and, on the other, fail to address the social and spatial legacy of aprtheid 'social engineering' in South A frican cities. The paper concludes with a brief review of the prospect s for developing a more effective policy framework in the future. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.