Abstract
One of the fundamental challenges facing the post-apartheid South Africa’s urban settlement planning has been the requirement for social cohesion. One of the urban transformation interventions involved the construction of mixed-income housing, wherein social cohesion among low- and middle-income households could be enforced. Far from rhetoric and the drift of middle-income households into cities that were previously the preserves for white people, urban South Africa remains deeply segregated. Negligible progress has been made in transforming the apartheid spatial fragmentation and segregation. Mixed-income housing development is considered to be an innovative approach to housing delivery that could provide a mixture of housing products to suit a range of income groups in the cities. To this extent, this approach is assumed to hold social integrative properties, relevant to post-apartheid urban transformation. The paper maintains that the establishment of the mixed-income housing can lead to social cohesion whilst simultaneously correcting for the perception that the poor cannot cohabit with the middle-income households. There is a realistic potential that new culture, values and norms could manifest to create conditions for coexistence between the different income groups in the urban landscape. The race divide in South Africa appears to create an added complexity to urban social cohesion, though. This paper will use evidence from some cities in South Africa to affirm the argument that mixed-income housing has a potential to redress the socio-spatial divisions in the country. The paper concludes by arguing that mixed-income housing can foster the notion of inclusive compact city and socially integrated community where the low-income and middle-income households can live in harmony and mutually enjoying common sets of facilities and services. However, the race factor could render urban social cohesion in a democratic South Africa an unachievable dream. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n25p36
Highlights
One of the major challenges in current South Africa’s urban development lies in the persistent socio-spatial division of cities (Landman, 2010; Onatu, 2010; Haferburg, 2013) which was intentionally created by the apartheid spatial planning
To denounce the undesirable perception, this article provides a theoretical argument based on the principles of the Comprehensive Plan for the Development of Sustainable Human Settlement, commonly known as the Breaking New Ground (BNG) program which promotes the building of mixed-income housing (Department of Housing, 2004)
Based on the successful experiences of mixed-income housing projects in various cities in the country, it can be suggested that the establishment of the mixed-income housing has a potential to transform the socio-spatial division in the urban areas of the country
Summary
One of the major challenges in current South Africa’s urban development lies in the persistent socio-spatial division of cities (Landman, 2010; Onatu, 2010; Haferburg, 2013) which was intentionally created by the apartheid spatial planning. The principles to assess the physical characteristics that are believed to enable the manifestation social cohesion in the mixed-income housing are discussed hereunder. The last section of the article highlights the successful experiences of mixed-income housing witnessed across the country. With this evidence based experiences, the article seeks to demonstrate the possibility of the manifestation of social cohesion in the post-apartheid urban South Africa’s mixed residential space
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