Urban LandMark Position Paper 7 Paper prepared for the Urban Land Seminar, November 2006 Muldersdrift, South Africa www.urbanlandmark.org.za Opening up spaces for the poor in the urban form: trends, challenges and their implications for access to urban land Karina Landman and Nana Ntombela CSIR Built Environment November 2006 Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank Sharon Biermann for the insightful comments to an earlier draft of the paper. Contents INTRODUCTION....................................................................................................... 2 CONTEXTUAL ISSUES – CHANGES AFTER 1994 ......................................................... 3 THE URBAN POOR AND ACCESS TO LAND AND HOUSING ......................................... 5 AN EMERGING POST-APARTHEID CITY IN SOUTH AFRICA .......................................... 7 THE RISE OF ‘GATED’ COMMUNITIES IN SOUTH AFRICA ............................................ 9 INTERNATIONAL TREND – PRIVATISATION OF PUBLIC SPACES ................................ 12 WHY IS THE SPATIAL EXCLUSION OF THE POOR A PROBLEM IN SOUTH AFRICA? ...... 14 Restricted or prohibited access to gated enclaves .............................................. 15 Access to property or land ................................................................................. 17 Institutional challenges ...................................................................................... 18 Privatised governance ..................................................................................... 18 Inefficient state intervention ........................................................................... 19 Access to well developed land and quality places ............................................... 20 CONCLUSIONS AND WAY FORWARD....................................................................... 21 REFERENCES .......................................................................................................... 25