Making Land ‘Developable’ for Market-Driven Affordable Housing in Gauteng, South Africa

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter

Abstract

This chapter excavates affordable housing’s pre-history through exploring mundane, bureaucratic practices and instruments of land use management. From officials and developers’ perspectives on township establishment processes in Gauteng, we learn how multi-actor governance of land development in South African cities shapes housing delivery long before houses are actually constructed. In this context, sprawling, distant housing developments for a growing middle class are reproduced by way of a routinised, negotiated, slowly changing land use planning process that privileges large developers’ capacities and depends on the state’s ability to manage those capacities (or not). I also highlight frictions within this development process: between equity and efficiency in new land use management policy; between the state and developers over timing; and within the state itself over managing its contracts. These together with new policies and new spaces of formal contestation may shape Gauteng’s affordable housing development differently in the future, but the operating logics of urban land rent and new public management are strong at present.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationGeoJournal Library
PublisherSpringer
Pages65-84
Number of pages20
DOIs
StatePublished - 2023

Publication series

NameGeoJournal Library
VolumePart F1806
ISSN (Print)0924-5499
ISSN (Electronic)2215-0072

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Geography, Planning and Development
  • Urban Studies

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Making Land ‘Developable’ for Market-Driven Affordable Housing in Gauteng, South Africa'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this