Thesis (M. Dev.) -- University of Limpopo, 2013 / Urbanisation is one among the pressing issues facing human kind today and with it large number of rural poor immigrated to cities, failed by economic growth to get formal employments, large number of the poor are now found in informal settlements around cities where abject poverty, unemployment and extreme hunger is concentrated. Urban Agriculture is viewed as one of the strategies the urban poor employs to cushion themselves from the hardships of poor economic conditions. In contrast, there is a view that urban agriculture exploits labour, generates below poverty incomes and land fetches higher prices in cities, as such providing scarce public resources to this practice is not of economic importance. The purpose of this study was to explore the impact of urban agriculture on poverty, more precisely on the contribution of the practice towards job creation, cash incomes and food security. To determine if, urban agriculture can become a potential avenue for local economic development in the informal settlements of Soweto. Descriptive and quantitative assessments of the variables of urban agriculture in the study area were attempted to validate whether urban agriculture can emerge as a substantial mechanism to eradicate poverty and bring forth a potential area for local economic development in the study area. A questionnaire was used as an instrument for data collection. In the study, some of the facts revealed were that large proportion of the practitioners of urban agriculture are women and few went pass the matric. Moreover, large proportion of the urban farmers were doing so to supplement food at home and surplus sold, on average generating below poverty incomes and no job opportunities were recorded. The study concluded by providing recommendations on how city municipalities, development scientists and policy administrators can ensure that Urban Agriculture is supported in order to offer a potential avenue for local economic development. Some of the recommendations proposed, to cite a few, are that bottlenecks that limit development of Urban Agriculture must be removed, such as policy biasness, especially to livestock production in the cities, provision of infrastructure, tenure system and access to credits to improve productivity of the practice. Provision of advisory service must be conducted in indigenous language to improve adoptability and comprehension to facilitate technological transfer.

M.Phil. / While it is true that urban transport is a function of land use, it is equally true that land use is a function of urban transport. Any change in urban transport facilities changes the relative accessibility and hence the relative attraction of various land uses of every piece of land in a given area. Blumenfeld (1972, p. 140) feels that: "Transportation planning and city planning are not two different things but two sides of the same coin". According to several international sources the physical-spatial interrelation of urban transport and land use are totally ignored during the planning process. The short-term measures which have dominated urban transportation and land use planning have failed to appreciate long-term negative side-effects which, at later points in time, are perceived as current problems and again tackled with short-term solutions. This indicates a vicious circle which can only be broken if planners resolve to develop urban transport policies which are designed to reinforce desirable land use and development policies. In the long term it ls-the accessibility engendered by transport facilities which determine changes in the distribution of land use. Unfortunately in South Africa urban transport and land use planning appear to be concerned only with current perceptions of the transportation/land use problem such as congestion, delay, safety, movement, zoning and bulk regulations. Cameron (1977, p, 6) is of the following opinion: "Sadly the Driessen Report in South Africa has resulted in a transportation planning Act which, while appearing to offer scope for integrated planning, is being widely interpreted as a means to solve current problems, rather than as a means to really plan for the future". The object of this study is an attempt to determine within the physical-spatial dimension the interrelation of urban transport and land use with reference to Alberton. The methodology followed consists of a theoretical analysis of urban transportation and land use throughout the world. Thereafter the study area is described in order to marry the theory with the practice. An empirical investigation into the components of an urban structure, i.e, residential, industrial, business, administrative, open spaces and the transportation network, is followed by an analysis of the gathered information by means of a computer.

D.Phil. / The spatial distribution patterns of wholesale establishments on an intra-urban level is a neglected field of study. This is mainly due to the fact that various disciplines regard the wholesale establishment merely as an annexure to industrial land-uses. This study attempts to prove that wholesaling has its own distinct character and that it is indeed necessary to give more serious attention to the locational problem of wholesale establishments ...

Agriculture is a complex cultural institution. This is particularly the case when studying subsistence conditions in a tribal system, because aspects requiring investigation include social, religious, political and economic factors (Dalton, 1967). These factors represent an extremely broad sphere of inquiry and the large number of relevant aspects has been the cause of problems plaguing attempts to develop subsistence agriculture (Grigg, 1973). The purpose of this study is to outline an environmental perception approach to agriculture and explore the contribution that the approach could make to agricultural improvement. As such it represents a pilot study which attempts to introduce behavioural science research into agricultural development. Foster (et all (1965) outline three research foci in this respect; the socio-cultural-psychological system of the recipient people (farmers), the system of the innovating organization, and the interaction of the two. This study deals with the first focus outlined by Foster, and aims to make a statement about the image that two semi-subsistence communities have of their agricultural system. In other words, how their agricultural system appears to them.

The purpose of this thesis is to explain the continued advocacy of 'urban agriculture' (UA) in the literature in the face of the seemingly modest role played by cultivation in practice. The analytical framework adopted isrthat of discourse, the theoretical underpinnings of which are derived from the early works of Foucault, and applications such as those of Escobar (1989; 1991) and Ferguson (1990). Using a discursive orientation involves two main tasks - an explanation of how 'UA' has gained some prominence and the man~er in which its currency is able to be maintained. The investigation included an in-depth analysis of the literature and empirical research in th!"e~Eastern Cape centres. The function of the empirical findings is to expose the discourse, as well as to extend the empirical base relating to 'urban agricultural' research in general. The thesis suggests that the growth in interest in 'UA' is a result of a Foucaultian "gap" opening in the discourse. Changes in the conceptualisation of development, the rise-in prominence of the urban poor and emerging ecodevelopment views, among others, have given proponents of "UA' greater room for manoeuvre. However, most case studies promote 'UA' despite providing little evidence of its role in household welfare. The way the discourse maintains its' currency is in the manner in which the objects of 'UA' are constituted. Firstly, the people are characterised as poor, largely divorced from their rural origins, and mainly female. Each of these assertions is questioned on the basis of the literature itself and the empirical findings. Secondly, in the practice of cultivation, emphasis is placed on the inputs used, and the crops that are produced. The treatment of both the inputs and the crops by the literature is cursory. Investigations show that land availability, garden size and irrigation water are e~pecially problematic and vegetable consumption remains low. Four types of alleged benefit associated with 'UA' are analysed - environmental and ecological, psychological and social, financial, and nutritional. In each case commonly held assumptions are undermined by closer investigation. Thus, the thesis contends that the role played by cultivation is a modest one. Most of the claims made on behalf of 'UA' are more congruent with development discourse than actual cultivation practice.

Thesis (MSc)--Stellenbosch University, 2015. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Urban planning and management require up-to-date information about urban land cover. Producing such geospatial information is time consuming as it is usually done manually. The classification of such information from satellite imagery is challenging owing to the difficulties associated with distinguishing urban features having similar spectral properties. Therefore, this study evaluates the combination of a digital surface model (DSM) derived from LiDAR data and very high-resolution GeoEye-1 satellite imagery for classifying urban land cover in Cape Town. The value of the DSM was assessed by comparing a land cover product obtained from the GeoEye-1 image to a map produced using both the GeoEye-1 image and the DSM. A systematic segmentation procedure for the two classifications scenarios preceded a supervised (using a support vector machine, K nearest neighbour and classification and regression algorithm tree classifiers) and rule-based classification. The various approaches were evaluated using a combination of methods. When including the DSM in the supervised and rule-based classifications, the overall accuracy and kappa vary between 80% to 83% and 0.74 to 0.77 respectively. When the DSM is excluded, the overall accuracy ranges between 49 to 64% whereas kappa ranges between 0.32 to 0.53 for the two classification approaches. The accuracies obtained are always about 20% higher when the DSM is included. The normalised DSM (nDSM) enabled accurate discrimination of elevated (e.g. buildings) and non-elevated (e.g. paved surfaces) urban features having similar spectral characteristics. The nDSM of at least one-metre resolution and one metre vertical accuracy influenced the accuracy of the results by correctly differentiating elevated from non-elevated. The rule-based approach was more effective than the supervised classification, particularly for extracting water bodies (dams and swimming pools) and bridges. Consequently, a rule-based approach using very high spatial resolution (EHSR) satellite imagery and a LiDAR-derived DSM is recommended for mapping urban land cover. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Stedelike beplanning- en bestuur vereis dat inligting oor grondbedekking (land cover) op datum moet wees. Die vervaardiging van hierdie georuimtelike inligting is tydrowend omdat dit gewoonlik met die hand gedoen word. Die onttrekking van sulke inligting vanuit satellietbeelde bied ʼn groot uitdaging omdat stedelike voorwerpe met soortgelyke spektrale eienskappe moeilik is om van mekaar te onderskei. Hierdie studie evalueer die kombinasie van ʼn digitale oppervlak model (DOM) afkomstig van LiDAR-data en ʼn baie hoë resolusie GeoEye-1-satellietbeeld om stedelike grondbedekking in Kaapstad te klassifiseer. Die waarde van die DOM word bepaal deur ʼn grondbesettingsproduk wat vanuit ʼn GeoEye-1-beeld verkry is te vergelyk met ʼn grondbesettingsproduk wat verkry is deur beide die GeoEye-1-beeld en die DOM te gebruik. Sistematiese segmentasie word op die twee benaderings uitgeoefen en dit word gevolg deur ʼn gekontroleerde klassifikasie (steunvektormasjiene, k-naaste aangrensende waarde en klassifikasie en regressie algoritme) en ʼn reël-gebaseerde algoritme. Hierdie verskeie benaderings is geëvalueer met behulp van ʼn kombinasie van kwalitatiewe en kwantitatiewe metodes. Toe die DOM in die gekontroleerde en reël-gebaseerde klassifikasie ingesluit is, het die algehele akkuraatheid en kappa tussen 80% en 83%, en 74% en 77% gewissel. Toe die DOM uitgesluit is, het die algehele akkuraatheid en kappa tussen 49% en 64%, en 32% en 53% vir die twee klassifikasiebenaderings gewissel. Die behaalde akkurraatheidswaardes is altyd 20% hoër as die DOM ingesluit word. Dit is hoofsaaklik omdat die DOM akkurate onderskeiding tussen hoë (bv. geboue) en plat (bv. geplaveide oppervlaktes) stedelike bakens met gelyksoortige spektrale eienskappe in staat stel. Die kwaliteit van die DOM beïnvloed die akkuraatheid van die resultate. ʼn DOM van ten minste een meter resolusie, met een meter of beter vertikale akkuraatheid, word benodig om te verseker dat geboue en ander beboude bakens korrek van mekaar onderskei kan word. Die reël-gebaseerde benadering was meer effektief as die gekontroleerde klassifikasie, veral om waterliggame (damme en swembaddens) en brûe te identifiseer. Gevolglik word ʼn reël-gebaseerde benadering met die hoë resolusie satellietbeelde en ʼn LiDAR-afgeleide DOM aanbeveel om stedelike grondbesetting te karteer.

Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2013. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In many developing countries, rapid urbanisation continues to substantially transform land from agricultural and rural land uses, as well as natural landscapes into urban areas. This leads to significant changes to the socio-economic fabric and nature of the natural environment. Data to monitor such transformation is often out of date, unreliable, in unstandardised format, cumbersome and expensive to collect or simply unavailable in urban centres of many developing countries. These characteristics inhibit local authorities‘ and other stakeholders‘ capacity to monitor and leverage resources toward sustainable urban development. Sustainable urban land use planning is a major objective of urban planning, but it is difficult to put into practice. This study investigates the efficacy of earth observation (EO) for collecting information required for sustainable urban land use planning and proposes the use of decision consequence analysis (DCA) as a simple and structured way to put sustainable urban development into practice. The study focuses on three central determinants of sustainable urban land use, namely (1) land use change and land use mix, (2) urban sprawl and (3) the urban built-up area. Consequently, urban sustainability indicators of these three components were identified. EO data for Stellenbosch, a town in the Western Cape province of South Africa, was gathered and used to perform spatio-temporal analyses of the indicators in a geographic information system (GIS). This enabled the establishing of the positive or negative trajectory made toward achieving sustainable urban land use planning. The study demonstrates how the use of EO data, DCA, urban sustainability indicators and GIS can enhance local authorities‘ capacities for monitoring urban sustainability. EO data and urban sustainability indicators were used to develop an urban sustainability toolbox which facilitates evidence-based decision making. The results also show that urban sustainability indicators derived from EO are valuable in providing synoptic, up-to-date, standardised and normalised information on urban areas. Such information would be expensive and cumbersome to collect without the use of EO and GIS. As a result, earth observation will continue to play a key role in monitoring urban sustainability, particularly in developing countries. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die volgehoue en versnelde verstedeliking wat in baie ontwikkelende lande voorkom is voortdurend besig om landbougrond, plattelandse gebiede en natuurlike landskappe na stedelike areas om te skakel. Dit bring ʼn noemenswaardige verandering in die sosiaal-ekonomiese struktuur en aard van die natuurlike omgewing te wee. Data om hierdie veranderinge te monitor, is dikwels verouderd, onbetroubaar, nie in ʼn standaard formaat nie, omslagtig, te duur om te in te samel of net eenvoudig nie beskikbaar vir baie stedelike sentra van ontwikkelende lande nie. Hierdie faktore beperk plaaslike owerhede en ander belanghebbendes se moniteringskapasiteit en verhinder die beskikbaarstelling van hulpbronne vir volhoubare stedelike ontwikkeling. Beplanning vir volhoubare stedelike grondgebruik is ʼn belanrike doelwit, maar is moeilik om in die praktyk toe te pas. Hierdie studie ondersoek die doeltreffendheid van aardwaarneming (AW) vir die insamel van inligting wat vir volhoubare grondgebruik beplanning nodig is. Die studie stel die gebruik van analise van besluitnemingsgevolge (ABG) as ʼn eenvoudige en gestruktureerde manier voor om volhoubare stedelike ontwikkeling in die praktyk toe te pas. Die ondersoek fokus op drie hoof bepalende faktore van volhoubare stedelike grondgebruik, naamlik (1) verandering en vermenging van grondgebruik, (2) stedelike kruip, en (3) die beboude stedelike gebied. Gevolglik is aanwysers van die stedelike volhoubaarheid van hierdie drie komponente geïdentifiseer. AW-data vir Stellenbosch, 'n dorp in die Wes-Kaap provinsie van Suid-Afrika, is ingesamel om met behulp van ʼn geografiese inligtingstelsel (GIS) die aanwysers tyd-ruimtelik te analiseer. Dit het dit moontlik gemaak om die positiewe of negatiewe trajekte vir die bereiking van volhoubare stedelike grondgebruiksbeplanning vas te stel. Die studie demonstreer hoe AW-data, ABG, aanwysers van stedelike volhoubaarheid en GIS plaaslike owerhede se kapasiteit vir die monitering van volhoubaarheid in stede kan bevorder. AW-data en stedelike volhoubaarheidsaanwysers is gebruik om 'n stedelike volhoubaarheidsgereedskapkis te ontwikkel wat bewysgebaseerde besluitneming fasiliteer. Die resultate wys ook dat volhoubare stedelike aanwysers afgelei uit AW, nuttig is om sinoptiese, gestandardiseerde en genormaliseerde inligting oor stedelike gebiede te voorsien. Hierdie tipe inligting is duur en omslagtig om in te samel sonder die gebruik van AW en GIS. Gevolglik sal AW voortaan steeds 'n sleutelrol speel in die monitering van stedelike volhoubaarheid, veral in ontwikellende lande.

M.A. / The following study investigates the Landless People’s Movement (LPM) which is a grassroots movement in South Africa. While there have been many movements to emerge, the LPM was formed in 2001 in response to increasing housing evictions and insecure land tenure. The formation of the movement was met in some cases by minor state concessions but also by state brutality. This study focuses on the experiences of the urban landless and argues that the manner in which the movement frames its demands, together with the political opportunity structure, have an impact upon the extent to which the LPM has effectively mobilised around land issues, as well as upon the cycles that the movement has undergone. In order to unpack the experiences of the landless, two theoretical concepts were used to frame the discussion, namely, political opportunity structure and the cycles of protest. Analysing the changing political opportunity structure proved useful in demonstrating some of the constraints and opportunities faced by movements in their attempts to attain land, while the notion of cycles of protest was useful in showing the phases undergone by the movement from its inception in 2001 until 2010. In order to understand the experiences of the urban landless regarding the manner in which they frame their demands and mobilise around land issues, a qualitative research design was employed by making use of a case study method. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with both leaders and supporters of the movement. In addition, focus groups, meeting attendance and informal discussions helped to enrich the data included in this case study on the experiences of the urban landless.

Thesis (M.Arch. (Professional))--University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, 2016 / Globalisation is a considerable catalyst for the state of the world today, and so it is evident through industrialisation, modernism and capitalism that the power and spatiality of food has shifted. Food has always brought people together as it is an universal language that is understood by everyone. However food no longer exists as this valued product of necessity but has now become a product of consumerism. Large corporations control our food industry which has lead to an economic food crisis where our basic needs have become too expensive. This is a consequence of increased population, demands, immoral farming methods and greed. Not only is it affecting our economies but our natural resources. Food production systems need to change along with our attitude towards the environment. In an age of technology, branding and mass production, people have become disconnected from nature, regarding the food we eat and where it comes from. In South Africa, this has resulted in increased food insecurity, obesity, malnutrition and health risks. The necessity of honest, healthy and nutritious clean-living has been lost. So how can we overcome this pressure before we collapse as a society and as a planet? The quality of food affects our daily productivity, well-being and psyche, our primal need. How can architecture instigate a change for the free food philosophy? How can it challenge profit margins in the food system through urban contexts by re-establishing our connection with nature? Investigating the journey through the history of farming, politics and food, I will observe the gradual change in the food industry from the farmer to corporation to consumer, exposing the cultural power plays, which can be reconsidered through architecture. This thesis proposes an holistic approach towards propagating parks and public spaces through food education in an urban context. It concentrates on re-igniting the relationship between man and nature through small-scale agriculture using small-scale architecture: ‘agritechture’. Establishing its roots in Joubert Park, Park Station Precinct, Johannesburg, the strategy unfolds biophilia characteristics observing the intricacy of Persian architecture and soil structures stimulated by modular systems, grid proportions and layering. The prairie ecosystem becomes a precedent study for heterotopian architecture rooting itself as homogeneity. Creating catalytic nodes of urban renewal, it unifies communities while defending its territory, similar to the original African settlement, ‘the Kraal’. / MT2017

M.Tech. (Architectural Technology) / This dissertation explores my own neighbourhood – Roodepoort. It critically examines consumerist lifestyles which currently dominate the area and proposes an architectural intervention which will showcase new modes of living. The proposed building accommodates a cultivation school and a ‘hackerspace’ where residents of Roodepoort can learn to live more sustainable. The cultivation school recalls Roodepoort’s history as a farming area and celebrates the area’s spirit of place. The hackerspace provides a place for suburban inventors to work and collaborate.