The Studio ‘IV’ Module – Kigali, Rwanda

Lead Applicant

Dr Josephine Malonza Mwongeli

Overview

The project was part of an Architectural Design studio iv module, titled ‘Cultural Contexts’ based on the evident urban informality and the pressing housing challenges in Kigali, while at the same time reflecting on 2020’s world Habitat day theme ‘Housing for all: A Better Urban Future.” In line with SDG 11.1 on Adequate Housing, the module designed to inspire students how cultural values can be prioritized to better support and guide sustainable housing design decisions. Students had the chance to involve real clients- a selected community in Kigali - through a participatory design process.

  1. Community interaction: Students were given the opportunity to interact with a real site and its community. With this they were able to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the houses, as well as better understand the daily needs of the community members.
  2. Developing design interventions: Students synthesized their findings from the community and in an iterative design process, developed new housing designs based on the community’s needs.

  3. Testing community engagement tools: Throughout the community workshop, various community engagement tools were tested (such as surveys, a street café, etc.).

Outcomes

Students were exposed to context-sensitive housing design, which is a key to alleviating the risks of urbanization. They were able to suggest innovative interventions for; nature-based solutions, mitigation strategy against natural risks such as flooding, effective urban planning aimed to promote healthy communities, improving the overall quality of urban living, and to accommodate growing urban populations in a n inclusive way.

The workshop, which took place in the Akabahizi cell of Gitega sector, Nyarugenge district, showcased the need for improved Housing development and management practices in unplanned settlements towards a more people-centred approach. In total, there were 185 participants. These consisted of 150 community members, two community leaders, 25, Year 3 students, four Year 5 thesis students, two field assistants and a studio coordinator. The workshop ran from 9:00am to 02:00pm.

It also made an inspiring case for enhancing public participation and fostering the co- production of knowledge with all stakeholders in the policy and national planning processes. It was the first large gathering during the COVID-19 period, and was granted permission by the government due its educational value to both the students and the local community.

The workshop provided students with a pedagogical experience in which they were granted the opportunity to interact, learn, and utilise their skills in the community. The assessment of the final trimester examination was graded based on the responsiveness of the students’ design interventions to context-specific challenges.

Project Outputs

Students were able to meet 150 community members where they reside (Akabahizi cell),  helping them to unpack cultural and contextual values in informal/unplanned housing. In this way, they were able to better interpret community needs and propose efficient design interventions, with and for the community. 

Being on the site physically allowed students to visually locate context-specific challenges and opportunities for sustainable housing in the selected site. They were able to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats for future housing. Some of the identified points were:

Strengths & opportunities:

  • Strategic location (proximity to city centre, Mpazi river, Nyabugogo main bus terminals, and the Kimisagara marker and commercial centre, ultimately lowering the cost of transportation for community members)
  • Presence of growing informal businesses
  • Availability of basic utilities such as water and electricity.

Weaknesses & threats:

  • Informality of plots (plots are small, irregular, and not in compliance with the city masterplan).
  • Poor hygiene; inadequate water and waste management.
  • High petty crime rates
  • Accessibility challenges due to the lack of proper paths and roads.

Following the workshop, students were encouraged to apply their thoughts on the communities’ health and wellbeing, which is believed to be a significant building block of resilience in African cities. 

Stationary left over from the workshop was used by the students throughout the academic year. The workshop inspired a practice-relevant syllabus for the module, which will be applied in upcoming years.

Future Activities

The university would like to repeat this engagement annually, subject to funding. We would like to involve different groups of students and possibility varied categories of neighbourhoods from urban to rural, as well as formally planned, mixed abd unplanned settlements. We would also plan to conduct a similar community workshop in the secondary city of Huye to have a comparative analysis between living in large and small cities.

Capacity Strengthening

Researchers involved were able to learn new tools for community engagement such as the usage of surveys, street Cafés, speech bubble posters, and group discussions. 

An academic paper (Formalising the informal:  Community-based housing solutions in Kigali) and policy brief (Community-based housing solutions in Kigali) will be published, with co-authorship of the two research assistants. This was a great opportunity for them to dig into and expand their research and writing skills.

Students were able to benefit from the pedagogy and learning directly from the community. The workshop activity not only gave them an opportunity to learn more about the different weaknesses and opportunities for informal housing here in Kigali in correlation with the community’s needs, but it also gave them skills and experience for any similar projects in which they may engage in the future. 

Community members feel appreciated and integrated in decision making around housing interventions. Some testimonies from members of the community as well as our team were collected. 

  1. Akabahizi cell Executive Secretary "Community members have grass root knowledge that city planners may not have, and hearing their opinions, worries, and suggestions can help the city to identify problems and identify solutions that will better satisfy the residents' housing needs."
  2. Module instructor " It is not an option (out of choice) but mandatory for any planner/developer to use inclusive community participation strategies to guarantee inclusivity and ownership of communities, as end users, in not only the planning process but also the implementation phase"
  3. Woman 40 year old "Before this meeting with the university students, we thought that we did not need playgrounds for our children as they have those facilities at school, but we are now convinced that we need children playgrounds in our neighbourhood"
  4. Woman 35 years old "My focus group discussion does not agree with the university students' proposal for shared kitchens... this will cause conflicts in the community; for example if I am cooking meat and my neighbour is cooking beans, there will be some jealousy that can lead to hatred and conflict"
  5. Man 38 years old "I like the fact that university students are thinking about solid waste management along the slope. This is really a big issue in our neighbourhood. some people don't pay waste collection fees and are used to dumping their waste in the river Mpazi .. it is not always their fault, sometimes they don't have money"

The university’s engagement with this community will be ensured, going forward.


City Report: Neighbourhood Characteristics and Inequality in the City of Kigali

Overview

This report presents the city of Kigali’s neighbourhood characteristics and identified inequalities among the rich and poor neighbourhoods. The indicators of the study include housing and amenities, income, migration, education, health, neighbourhood safety and satisfaction, as well as impact of Covid-19 on families. Data are derived from the survey conducted in the city of Kigali from May 2021 to July 2021 as part of the SHLC research programme.

Authors: Vincent Manirakiza, Jonas Kato Njunwa, Leon Mugabe, Pierre Claver Rutayisire, Manasse Nzayirambaho, Gilbert Nduwayezu, Josephine Malonza, Aimable Nsabimana

Abstract

Remarkable differences and inequalities were evident in the neighbourhoods studied in Kigali. The majority of residents from the middle- and high-income neighbourhoods live in their own flats and detached houses, whereas residents in the lower income group neighbourhoods dwell in cluster houses in complexes with a high population density. The main explanation for this disparity is that mortgage finance is still limited and not affordable to many urban residents. As such, mostly low-income earners use their own family savings to build their homes, usually in an unplanned fashion. Consequently, such unplanned neighbourhoods have crowded living conditions with shared toilet facilities, usually associated with communicable disease transmission. Disparities between neighbourhood categories illustrate that there are aspects of life where the well to do are at an advantage; and that in matters of education and healthcare, services are available to all despite variation in their quality where for the rich it is mainly private and for the others public. This study helps to understand the living conditions of the city residents from the bottom to the top of the economic spectrum. In particular, it permitted not only the analysis of the progress made by the city of Kigali in improving the livelihoods of people, but also in depicting the inequalities among the various strata of urban residents. Income inequality is a common urbanisation evil in the world, from which Kigali is not exempted. Despite the disparity, in terms of dwelling categories, the high rate of housing ownership and predominantly detached houses, can be an indicator of relative liveability and quality of life. However, this is a threat to sustainable urban planning as it is the cause of rapid spatial expansion which is related to high rate of mobility.


India: Handbook of Urban Statistics 2022

Overview

SHLC India team at the National Institute of Urban Affairs has published a Handbook of Urban Statistics 2022. It includes summary statistics for each State and Union Territory (UT) on the following topics:

  • Urban Demography
  • Access to Housing
  • Access to Basic Amenities
  • Public Expenditure on Urban Development
  • Employment

Team Leader: 
Debolina Kundu
Advisor:
Hitesh Vaidya
Research:
Tania Debnath
Biswajit Kar
Devarupa Gupta
Sayak Dutta
Management:
Pragya Sharma


SHLC Event Group Picture

Urban Neighbourhood Sustainability and Impacts from Covid-19 Workshop 15th-16th of February 2023

SHLC Event Group Picture

The University of Glasgow hosted a two-day long workshop as part of the Centre for Sustainable, Healthy and Learning Cities and Neighbourhoods (SHLC).

SHLC was set up in 2017 as a GCRF-funded international collaborative research project to address global urban challenges and grow research capacity in Africa and Asia.

The workshop, on the 15th and 16th of February 2023, focused on Urban Neighbourhood Sustainability and Impacts from Covid-19, had two aims:

  • To share SHLC research findings with partner teams, University of Glasgow researchers and wider international research communities
  • To identify future research directions and facilitate further research collaboration between current SHLC team members and other international and University of Glasgow researchers.

SHLC Event Opened by Sara Carter

The event was opened by Professor Sara Carter OBE FRSE, Vice-Principal and Head of the College of Social Sciences, at the University of Glasgow.

Professor Debolina Kundu, Co-investigator for the SHLC project, shared her thoughts about the event:

“It was a great experience to participate in the two-day SHLC event among colleagues from three schools of the University of Glasgow – Social and Political Sciences, Education and Health and Wellbeing and the international partner teams of SHLC, which many a times we refer to as the extended family of SHLC.

This meeting was the first in-person meeting after COVID 19 pandemic, and probably the last one under the current funding, which made the event even more important for all of us. It was a learning experience for me to listen to the presentations, especially those based on the primary research of 14 cities and interact with scholars from so many countries.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Professor Ya Ping for his excellent leadership and Professor Keith, Professor Osborne, Professor Michell and other colleagues for engaging in this project. The session on ‘future research and collaboration’ was very insightful. I look forward to engaging with the University in the future collaborations.”

SHLC interactive workshop session

Professor Shilpi Roy, Co-investigator for the SHLC project, also reflected on the event:

“This long-awaited international workshop showcased fascinating findings from our large-scale neighbourhood studies in Asia and Africa. Through this event, SHLC created an excellent opportunity to learn from leading urban researchers in the field. We hope new insights on neighbourhood inequality, health, and well-being will inform contextual knowledge and targeted policies and interventions. Possible future collaboration between the global north and global south would also contribute to tackling pressing urban challenges.”

Download content from the event

Click here to see the full programme and further details about the event.


The Urban Century: Trends and Patterns of Urbanisation in Asia and Africa

Overview

The dawn of the twenty-first century unfolded with the world entering the ‘urban age’ with more than half of the global population living in urban areas. It is believed that this century is going to be an ‘urban century’ as more people will be living in cities compared to rural areas. The period is also marked by a southward shift in the mean latitude of the world’s urban population. The current century will be characterised by Asia and Africa accounting for a mammoth share of the global urban population in the present century. As per the UN population estimates, in 2020 Asia and Africa accounted for around 70 per cent of the global urban population. The figure is estimated to increase to 75 per cent by the middle of the twenty-first century. This report brings fresh understanding the macro scenario of urbanisation in Asia and Africa with a special focus on India. It also highlights the regional differences and determining factors behind the process of urbanisation in this region.

Authors: Debolina Kundu, Tania Debnath, Swastika Chakravorty, Pragya Sharma and Biswajit Kar (all are members of the SHLC India team at National Institute of Urban Affairs India)

Executive Summary

The dawn of the twenty-first century marked the world entering the ‘urban century’, which was accompanied by a southward shift of the mean latitude of urbanisation. In contrast to Europe and North America, which had a long history of urbanisation starting soon after the industrial revolution in the 1800s, countries in the global South started urbanising mainly in the second half of the twentieth century. Among the regions in the global South, Latin America started much earlier and has already become predominantly urban. On the contrary, Asia and Africa are the two least urbanised continents. However, in absolute terms, 2.4 billion people lived in the urban settlements of Asia in 2020, which is estimated to rise to 3.5 billion by 2050. It is projected that they are going to have around 90 per cent of the additional urban population in the next three decades (till 2050), which brings them to the centre stage of the global urbanisation trajectory. Asia alone is projected to contribute an additional 1.1 billion urban population in the next three decades, and Africa is likely to contribute 0.9 billion in the next three decades. Unlike Africa, where high fertility rates is driving urbanisation, Asia’s urbanisation is predominantly fuelled by rural-urban migration, in-situ urbanisation and expansion of urban areas.

The demographic weight of these two continents, especially Asia, is expected to have an overwhelming effect on the changing dynamics of planetary urbanisation, with Africa continuing to urbanise at a faster pace as compared to Asia. Growth rate of urban population in Africa is projected to be 3.1% and 2.8% in 2030s and 2040s compared to Asia’s figures of 1.3% and 0.9%, respectively. Moreover, the two least urbanised regions in these two continents, i.e. Eastern Africa and Southern Asia, are expected to experience the highest urban growth and rural-urban transition in the next three decades.

Although both the continents are expected to play a crucial role in promoting urbanisation in the coming decades, the Asian trajectory will be very different from that of Africa. Whereas Asian urbanisation is characterised by population concentration in megacities, African cities are yet to experience such urban concentration. Asian urbanisation, which has been top-heavy with population concentration in big cities, will continue to be so even after the slowdown in urban growth in this region. By 2035, six of the ten most populated megacities of the world will be in Asia, and Delhi will be the most populated urban agglomeration with 43.3 million people. The expected sluggish growth of megacities could be attributed to the lack of growth of unskilled or semi-skilled jobs in these cities. Unlike East Asian Tigers, which have reaped the benefits of its demographic dividend, many Asian countries, particularly South Asia, would urbanise without harnessing the economic benefits of their demographic dividend. South Asia is going through a rapid decline in fertility and projects to reach the peak of youth bulge in 2028, before regions like Southeast Asia, West Asia and Central Asia, which indicates the urgency of a balanced regional development policy for this region.

On the other hand, African countries will experience urbanisation associated with persistently high fertility rates, distress-driven rural-urban migration and a lack of economic vibrancy in cities. Africa will continue to have an increasing size of its working-age population (15-64 years) and add 2.1 billion working-age population by the end of this century. Urbanisation in Africa, currently with few megacities, will follow the Asian experience with the rise in the number and population of megacities. However, contrary to the Asian counterparts, most of the new megacities of the continent will be ‘places of consumption’ in place of ‘growth engines’. In short, rapid-paced urbanisation in Africa in the coming decades will be
distress-driven.

Furthermore, Asia and Africa are poised to be the epicentres of urbanisation, without a corresponding increase in their income levels. Much of the urban growth will be concentrated in the countries with very low urbanisation and income levels and poor infrastructural base. As overcrowded Asian megacities have crossed the threshold of reaping the benefits of agglomeration economies, Asian countries need to focus on the development of secondary cities to take benefit of their demographic dividend. On the other hand, African countries need to focus on infrastructure investment and developing high-value-added manufacturing activities to interlink the process of urbanisation with growth. India is expected to become the most populated country in the world by 2023. However, the country is currently experiencing a slow but steady pace of rural-urban transition. However, it is projected that India’s pace of urbanisation will speed up in the coming decades, owing to sectoral diversification resulting in in-situ urbanisation.

Also, Indian urbanisation will continue to be top-heavy. Also, the country is going through a demographically favourable phase with a bulging economically active population. By the year 2025, India will peak its youth bulge. This demands immediate creation of jobs to stop demographic dividend transforming into demographic disaster. Also, the big city bias is going to affect the growth of the secondary cities, which have a high potential for employment generation. To take advantage of India’s demographic dividend, India should focus on education and health, skill development, infrastructural development and the creation of a regionally balanced urban system.


Conceptualizing Economic Inclusion for Street Vendors

This blog was authored by Dr Graeme Young.

Our project, “Promoting Inclusive Governance for Informal Workers in Cali, Colombia,” was built on a simple assumption: that inclusive economics requires inclusive politics. This, in some ways, might seem rather obvious. But it can have profound implications for how we think about informality and urban governance as it suggests that if informal workers are to benefit from development, they must be able to participate in making decisions about the policies that have a direct impact on their livelihoods. Exclusion, at its core, is a political issue. Inclusion therefore is as well.

It is important not to be too prescriptive about what, exactly, political inclusion will lead to in practice. This is precisely what should emerge from the political processes that informal workers participate in, and must be specific to the needs, desires, and values of those participating. Still, as our new report discusses, it is possible to outline some core components of what might constitute economic inclusion for street vendors, a key segment of informal workers in cities in the Global South. Six are particularly notable, and these can broadly be classified in three categories.

The first of these categories encompasses essential livelihood requirements. Most fundamentally, economic inclusion means having sufficient income to meet household needs. Informal workers often live in conditions of poverty, and street vending is no guarantee of economic security, particularly when the earnings derived from it must support multiple people. An important complement to adequate income is access to social programs that provide vital public services and forms of public support. These can take many forms, including, but by no means limited to, employment insurance, housing provision and subsidies, and high-quality and publicly funded education and healthcare.

The next category relates to the ability of street vendors to conduct their activities. This means three things in particular: being able to rely on supportive, fair, and consistently applied laws and regulations; having access to space in cities to conduct trade; and having access to financial resources, such as loans and grants, on terms that are fair and reasonable. Informal workers’ activities, by definition, fall in at least some ways outside of legal and regulatory structures, a fact that makes them vulnerable to various forms of harassment, repression, coercion, exploitation, and neglect. They must be able to enjoy basic protections and benefits to be able to work in decent conditions.

But economic inclusion means more than simply allowing street vendors to engage in their activities in more favourable circumstances. It also means providing access to opportunities for formal employment. Many people who engage in informal economic activity do so out of necessity rather than by choice, and while it would be wrong to assume that all informal workers would prefer a formal job, adequate opportunities must be available for those who would wish to take advantage of them. Accommodating or even supporting informal workers is no substitute to the pursuit of full employment under decent conditions.

Such a multidimensional understanding of economic inclusion suggests that there is considerable scope for the state to improve the lives of street vendors. Again, what exactly a state should do to promote economic inclusion should come out of a political process, but whatever the specifics might be, it is likely that a new social contract will need to be established between informal workers and the state, one that rests on a foundation of a concrete and enforceable set of rights that ensure that informal workers can live and conduct their livelihood activities in dignity, free from poverty, and unencumbered by a hostile or indifferent state. None of this should be taken to suggest that politics should be removed from the governance of informal economic activity; in fact, this governance needs to be re-politicized, providing space for diverging, sometimes conflicting, interests to be addressed and more sustainable, just, and inclusive policies to emerge through processes of dialogue and debate. Divisions—between vendors and the state, between vendors and formal businesses, even between vendors themselves—are unlikely to disappear, as political allegiances, class, competition, values, individual or group interests, and personal circumstances will inform understandings of justice and views of how social, economic, and political life can and should be structured. But a better future is still possible. That is the promise of democracy.


Acknowledgements

We are particularly grateful to our colleagues in Colombia for the great efforts that they put into this work, which was funded through SHLC’s Capacity Development Acceleration Fund. SHLC has been funded within the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) grant ES/PO11020/1.


Promoting Inclusion for Street Vendors: Reflections on Our CDAF Project in Cali

This blog was authored by Dr Graeme Young.

International projects that seek to address complex problems can, unsurprisingly, encounter unexpected challenges. Adaptability is often a virtue in efforts to effect positive change, particularly when prospects for success are, despite one’s best efforts, so dependent on external circumstances. One should expect one’s best-laid plans to be disrupted, and for events to unfold in a way that is confounding, sometimes profoundly so. Progress has never been easy. It would be naïve to expect otherwise. 

Our project, “Promoting Inclusive Governance for Informal Workers in Cali, Colombia,” provided ample opportunities to reflect on the significance of circumstance in international development work. As the title suggests, what our project aimed to do is to find ways to allow informal street vendors in Cali to be involved in making decisions about the policies that shape their livelihoods. Street vendors, in Cali and in cities around the world, are a uniquely marginalized group, and a lack of political power often compounds economic vulnerability by denying opportunities for representation and voice, leading to policies that are inappropriate, inadequate, negligent, or even harmful that vendors have little ability to change. The key to addressing economic vulnerability, we therefore believe, is political empowerment, and the way we decided to put this into practice in Cali was to try to set up a participatory policymaking process that would be inclusive, sustainable, and, we hoped, replicable beyond the city. That the extent to which it would be possible to facilitate the political and economic inclusion of street vendors would always depend on the right political conditions is, in theory, unsurprising; that these conditions could change so significantly is, in practice, more remarkable. Yet for all of the practical challenges that this posed, it helped to highlight important theoretical points about the conditions that must be present to allow for political—and thereby economic—inclusion in the informal economy. We have explored these in detail in our new report, but they perhaps deserve further comment here.

First, and most fundamentally, open, democratic structures and processes must be in place for any meaningful form of inclusion to take place. These must not be taken for granted. Colombia, where our project was based, is a democracy, if an imperfect one. The processes that could possibly facilitate meaningful forms of inclusion for informal workers are evidently absent, but the broad institutional structures that exist are more conducive to allowing these to emerge than they are in more authoritarian states. Democracy is not a binary concept; it can always be improved, in Colombia and elsewhere. Such improvements are essential for the empowerment of informal workers.

Basic state capacity is also essential. If political inclusion is to lead to economic inclusion, the state must be able to implement the policies that arise out of political processes. But while the ability of the state to effectively govern informal economic activity should not be assumed, it should also not be assumed that poor governance is always the result of incapacity. The absence of a well funded, well functioning social safety net can certainly limit effective governance, but it might also be the consequence of poor governance itself. And some forms of improved governance, such as ending the punitive use of force against informal workers, have nothing to do with state capacity. The simple and unfortunate fact is that some governments may have little interest in inclusion, and some may indeed have a great deal of interest in the continued marginalization of informal workers. This serves as a major impediment to creating more open and durable decision-making structures. It also makes them even more necessary.

Beyond these basic conditions for political inclusion, two more stand out. The first of these surrounds having suitable institutional spaces that make dialogue and cooperation possible. Second is the political will to promote—or even just allow—inclusion, to create and sustain the processes in which inclusion occurs, and to act on their outcomes. This final condition, unfortunately, disappeared during our project, first as a result of how the state responded to the COVID-19 pandemic, which was already underway when our project began, and later due to the protests that swept through Colombia from April 2021. While COVID-19 obviously had a profound impact on the priorities and activities of governments around the world, the relevant authorities in our project did not act in ways that were responsive to the needs of informal workers or seek to include them more meaningfully in decision making. The protests likely diminished trust further and at least temporarily suspended the possibility for collaboration. Significantly, they were, at their core, the result of long-standing failures in governance, further underscoring the importance of more open and responsive politics that represent and respond to people’s basic needs and interests. An opportunity exists for something better. The question is whether governments will take it.

The four conditions for political inclusion outlined here are, sadly, rarely found together, a fact that explains the appalling record of the treatment of informal workers around the world. And, as our project shows, even where and when they may be present, they can be impermanent and imperfect. But this is no reason for despondency: research, organization, and advocacy can still take place, alliances can be built, and ideas can be developed, shared, and adopted from elsewhere. Our project engaged in many of these activities, conducting a survey of street vendors, sharing and analyzing proposals put forward by vendors’ organizations, and holding a workshop on informal work and public policy to explore these themes in a broader international context. In short, preparations can be made for when the right conditions return, and these conditions can be encouraged by the right forms of political engagement. Change does not happen overnight. To build something sustainable, something that becomes so ingrained in the fabric of political life that it cannot vanish so suddenly and capriciously, takes time. Efforts to promote inclusion for informal workers are only beginning. Further setbacks will come, but they cannot, and will not, deter us.


Acknowledgements

We are particularly grateful to our colleagues in Colombia for the great efforts that they put into this work, which was funded through SHLC’s Capacity Development Acceleration Fund. SHLC has been funded within the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) grant ES/PO11020/1.


Central Business District, Johannesburg, South Africa

City Report: Neighbourhood Characteristics and Inequality in the City of Johannesburg

Overview

The School of Governance at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (Wits), is a partner in the Centre for Sustainable, Healthy and Learning Cities and Neighbourhoods (SHLC), based at the University of Glasgow. A consortium of partners from fourteen cities in seven countries have been studying a major and a secondary city – and the neighbourhoods that make them up – for three years. This report summarises findings of a sample survey undertaken among respondents in Johannesburg, the largest metropolitan municipality in South Africa. The survey is one component of a complex, mixed method, multi-year project.

Authors: David Everatt, Halfdan Lynge and Caryn Abrahams

Abstract

Johannesburg is among the most unequal cities on the planet, and the results of this survey reflect this fact, as two cities emerge: one poor, overwhelmingly black African, with high social capital but poor service access, reliant on state provision of health and education, the other mainly white and Indian (although a fifth of African respondents were in the highest socio-economic status (SES) quintile, suggesting an African elite is prospering), with low social capital but high standard of liv-ing. It is the middle quintile – comprising primarily townships formerly zoned for coloureds and Indians – that seems to be taking the most strain, with high levels of psycho-social, health, crime and other negative factors taking their toll. The city emerges as comprising a wealthy suburban population that primarily use private providers (school for children, health care, transport) and tend to be clustered in small, not very socially engaged groups; and the bottom two SES quintiles, where reliance on ‘the economy of affection’ ensures greater social interaction and engagedness, but in a context of high unemployment and poverty. The middle quintile seems stretched close to break point. The city is uneasily balanced on this continuum.


City Report: Neighbourhood Matters in Cape Town

Overview

There is mounting evidence from around the world that people’s local neighbourhoods exert a powerful influence on their well-being and life chances. The purpose of this short report is to present some of the main findings from a large household survey of almost 1,000 residents undertaken across different neighbourhoods in Cape Town during 2021-22. This report offers an overall assessment of the information emerging from the survey, rather than a definitive analysis of all the very detailed data. The survey was part of a four-year-long study of neighbourhood patterns and dynamics in seven countries and 14 cities around the world. The survey used a mixture of in-person and telephone methods and was based on very careful sampling of neighbourhoods and households to ensure representative results.

Authors: Ivan Turok, Justin Visagie and Andreas Scheba

Abstract

Cape Town is a deeply polarised and segregated city, with graphic contrasts in living standards and subjective well-being between disparate neighbourhoods. People inhabit distinctive worlds that expose them to quite different opportunities and hazards affecting their health, education, economic prospects and general satisfaction with life. Public services moderate some of these inequalities, but their reach and quality are also very uneven across the city. Some communities are deprived of basic water and sanitation services, while many affluent residents opt out of public services through private education, healthcare and security. The Covid pandemic amplified pre-existing divisions and made life much harder for poor communities by retrenching their jobs and swelling their debt burdens. Higher-income groups were better equipped to cope with social distancing measures, economic shutdowns and remote working. The priorities of affluent communities are local peace and tranquility, rather than altruism and solidarity towards poorer neighbourhoods. Individualistic attitudes run counter to opening up local opportunities for outsiders and engaging in collaborative activities to help improve conditions in other communities. The growing spatial divides in Cape Town raise uncomfortable questions about whether this trajectory can be sustained into the future without disruptive social consequences.


SHLC Workshop

Urban Neighbourhood Sustainability and Impacts from Covid-19

  • Wednesday 15 February 2023
  • Thursday 16 February 2023
  • 9:00-17:00
  • Seminar Room 237, Advanced Research Centre, University of Glasgow 11 Chapel Lane Glasgow G11 6EW

This workshop, supported by UKRI/ODA fund, aims:

  • to share SHLC research findings with colleagues in University of Glasgow and wide international research and policy making communities, and
  • to identify future research directions and facilitate further research collaboration between current SHLC team members and other international and University of Glasgow researchers.

The speakers and participants of the workshop will include:

  • Representatives from SHLC international partner teams
  • Invited international researchers
  • Researchers of the University of Glasgow Advanced Research Centre (ARC) theme group of Global Sustainable Development, and colleagues from the three College of Social Sciences’ theme groups Sustainability, Addressing Inequalities, and Challenges in Changing Cities
  • Researchers from other universities and organizations

The workshop will be a hybrid event with in person and on line access. The workshop presentations and discussions will be broadcast online to other SHLC team members and wider research communities.

The attendance of the workshop is free of charge, but pre-registration is required. You can register by press the registration button below.

If you have any questions about the workshop, please email: lynda.frazer@glasgow.ac.uk; or yaping.wang@glasgow.ac.uk

You can download the draft workshop programme here:

SHLC WORKSHOP PROGRAMME

View & download content from the event here