One of the most significant urban phenomena over the past thirty years has been the rapid, widespread and originally unanticipated growth of informal sector activities. While it is now recognised that such activities have substantially transformed cities across the world, their urban geographies remain under-studied, especially in the fast-changing South and with special reference to planning practice. This thesis addresses this surprisingly large lacuna through a detailed account of the planning for, and survival within, Black Metropolitan Cape Town's informal food distribution system. The discussion shows that, to date, this planning experience has proven profoundly difficult and uneven, notwithstanding the relatively progressive nature of the interventions themselves. Why, exactly. Why has this particular experience been so difficult. More, why has it been so uneven. Where has it succeeded, where has it failed, and in what sense. Finally, what can we learn more generally from these successes and failures. Extant theorisations of informal sector development planning emphasise class, state or land use variables. Rather than argue "against" these variables, this thesis argues "across" them (and others), hypothesizing the importance of the configurations - the spatialities - that dialectically connect various scales of heterogeneous relations. It is not simply that "space matters"; it is that the constitution of how space is actually produced in real places matters. Ultimately, this thesis explores the implications of this spatial hypothesis for planning theory and practice and for informal sector development. The discussion is advanced through a framework of theoretical inquiry derived principally from the work of Henri Lefebvre, Bruno Latour and Michel de Certeau. Specifically, the narrative architecture of the thesis is built around Lefebvre's central claim that urban space is "produced" through three, intimately related modalities or "moments" - representations of space, spatial practices and representational spaces. Investigating each of these moments in succession, but also binding them together, the discussion deploys Latour's "constructivist" ontology of the actor-network as a central analytical and metaphorical device. More, de Certeau's attention to strategies, tactics and the local state's attempt to capture and direct "belief" is also used to explore the developmental geographies associated with planning and survival as major empirical processes shaping the post-apartheid city.

The 'apartheid city' was synonymous with extreme racial segregation and inequality. After the first democratic elections in April 1994, a range of new urban development policies were developed to deconstruct and re-build the apartheid city. These efforts unfolded under a policy discourse of urban integration. Spatial planning featured large in the urban development policy matrix of the South African state at a time when spatial planning was declining in influence in the international context. The thesis focuses on the relevance of spatial planning for addressing three intractable and inter-related features of the apartheid city: racial segregation, land-use fragmentation and inequality. The research sought to explain why by 2001, the urban development agenda was not dismantling the apartheid city, but rather reinforcing its spatial patterns. The theoretical contribution of the research is to show how the policy ideal of urban integration corresponds very closely to planning ideas contained in theories associated with the Compact City and New Urbanism, while procedural aspects are akin to the arguments of Communicative Planning theory. The thesis identifies a hybridised South African approach that found support across a wide spectrum of urban development policies - housing, development planning, transport, local government, environmental management. However, political and institutional frictions between national departments and spheres of government made it virtually impossible to harness the potential synergy that could arise from such policy confluence. The research explored two policy frameworks in close detail: 1) the Urban Development Framework driven by the national Department of Housing; and 2) the Municipal Spatial Development Framework (Muni- SDF) of the City of Cape Town Municipality. The latter policy was explored in terms of its broader institutional setting and through a micro-level study focussed on a land-use dispute. The case study of post-apartheid urban policy was researched through a combination of qualitative methods such as in-depth interviews, archival documentary reviews and an analysis of secondary literature. The thesis argues that the normative planning theories employed need to be articulated in a way that accounts for the specificity of the South African postcolonial experience. It is concluded that the policy tenets of urban integration need to be recast in a way that takes explicit account of specific contextual and institutional dynamics and power that shape the contested political dialogue about how best to advance urban integration so that policies can better reduce the urban fragmentation, segregation and inequality that continue to mark and haunt South African cities.

The concepts "capital building" and 'Institutionalisation" are analysed and applied to community arts centres as instruments for socio-economic development (SED) in South Africa. Theories of neo-classicism, Marxism, development economics and socio-economic development show that building physical, financial, human, social and cultural capital in a complementary configuration is crucial to sustainable socio-economic development. The concept "capital building for SED" is formulated in this regard. New institutional economics and critical extensions of this theory show that institutions play a key role in capital building for SED, as they entail embeddedness, normativity, e-ntreprcneurship, partnership, structure and complementarity. The arts sector contributes considerably to capital building for SED, in particular arts centres in marginalized communities in the UK, USA and South Africa. Community arts centres built political, cultural and human capital in black townships during the South African democratic struggle (1950-92). In accordance with proposals from the arts sector, the post-1994 South African government developed 42 arts centres. However, the contribution of most old and new centres to socio-economic development appears to be insignificant and few are sustainable. The causes of failure are difficult to explain due to lack of information and theory. Through the application of a theoretical framework to the South African arts sector and three case studies the hypothesis is tested that community arts centres can contribute considerably to capital building for SED if they are appropriately institutionalised, while an appropriate focus on capital building for SED results in stronger institutions. An analysis of arts sector shows that strong institutions achieve high returns on investments in capital building, but that few benefit the poor. The application of an analytical matrix consisting of indicators of the above-mentioned five types of capital and six institutional components, shows significant positive correlations between the levels of inslitutionalisation and capital building for SED in the Community Arts Project, the Katlehong Art Centre and ArtsforAIl. The findings result in recommendations on policy and practice of community arts centre development in South Africa. / Development studies / D. Litt. et Phil. (Development Studies)

The concepts "capital building" and 'Institutionalisation" are analysed and applied to community arts centres as instruments for socio-economic development (SED) in South Africa. Theories of neo-classicism, Marxism, development economics and socio-economic development show that building physical, financial, human, social and cultural capital in a complementary configuration is crucial to sustainable socio-economic development. The concept "capital building for SED" is formulated in this regard. New institutional economics and critical extensions of this theory show that institutions play a key role in capital building for SED, as they entail embeddedness, normativity, e-ntreprcneurship, partnership, structure and complementarity. The arts sector contributes considerably to capital building for SED, in particular arts centres in marginalized communities in the UK, USA and South Africa. Community arts centres built political, cultural and human capital in black townships during the South African democratic struggle (1950-92). In accordance with proposals from the arts sector, the post-1994 South African government developed 42 arts centres. However, the contribution of most old and new centres to socio-economic development appears to be insignificant and few are sustainable. The causes of failure are difficult to explain due to lack of information and theory. Through the application of a theoretical framework to the South African arts sector and three case studies the hypothesis is tested that community arts centres can contribute considerably to capital building for SED if they are appropriately institutionalised, while an appropriate focus on capital building for SED results in stronger institutions. An analysis of arts sector shows that strong institutions achieve high returns on investments in capital building, but that few benefit the poor. The application of an analytical matrix consisting of indicators of the above-mentioned five types of capital and six institutional components, shows significant positive correlations between the levels of inslitutionalisation and capital building for SED in the Community Arts Project, the Katlehong Art Centre and ArtsforAIl. The findings result in recommendations on policy and practice of community arts centre development in South Africa. / Development studies / D. Litt. et Phil. (Development Studies)