Making Urban Land Markets Work Better in South African Cities and Towns: Arguing the Basis for Access by the Poor

Abstract

Despite a formidable land administration system and a strong land rights base, South African cities and towns continue to manifest the historical inequality of class and race in their spatial patterns of land use and ownership. This is reflected in, and reinforced by, unequal access to markets in land, housing, property in general, and development and use rights. This chapter discusses, at least in notional terms, in what balance market distortions and failures are to blame for the fact that the majority of the poor remain dislocated to the periurban fringes of cities and towns. It also addresses why it makes sense to open up access to well-located land through the market and government allocation.