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The aim of the dissertation is to create a meeting place between the rural immigrant and the city. It is a system that recognizes the various layers in which the horizontal human meets the vertical city. The meeting place must act as a transition facility where one enters the complex mechanics of city life. It is a celebration of what city life is and can be. The function of the meeting place is to educate and orientate the user in the language and mechanics of city life. It is an archetype of the new life ahead. The catalyst of the meeting place takes the form of a market situated in between Bloed Street Taxi Station and Belle Ombre Train and Taxi Station in the north of Pretoria Central Business District. / Dissertation (MArch(Prof))--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Architecture / unrestricted

The literature on development abounds with examples of development failure, yet people still choose to be involved in small-scale development projects. The study explores the unforeseen and less obvious value of projects in the lives of ordinary people in Giyani, Limpopo, South Africa. During the past three decades, the place and people have experienced considerable political, economic and social transformation – Giyani started as the capital of the Gazankulu homeland, but is now in a unified country, part of the present dual economy. Hence, the link between the Giyani project participants’ experiences and the adjustment to the changes was investigated. Interviews with members of four small-scale development projects formed the ethnographic component of the study. These interviews were augmented by a household survey to determine the participation levels in small-scale projects. The study explores the extent to which the needs of the participants are being met by the projects, using Bourdieu’s distinction between economic, social, cultural and symbolic capital as a lens. The effects of ‘structural adjustment’ measures on qualified professionals (civil servants), their participation in projects and adaptation to changes are examined. The study also investigates the experiences of gender empowerment and changes with regard to subservience to customary law and traditional authorities. The gender and power relations of the ageing process were also examined. The study examined the Avelanani crèche, which was formed to provide pre-school education for the children of refugees from Mozambique, and which was funded through missionary networks. The Giyani Aged Garden project, established by the homeland government, provides a space for retired people from both the civil service and those from poor backgrounds to share and function for their mutual benefit. Ahitipfuxeni, a town-based project, has stage-managed its qualification for funding from various government departments and agencies. By contrast, Hi Hlurile, a project established during ‘structural adjustment’ by professionally trained women, straddles the Second and First Economies and is using business principles, product and service quality, and global connectedness to access ‘social funds’ and other networking opportunities. The study has revealed that these four projects have not achieved the goal of economic empowerment, but that they do provide a safe haven for women and men in times of rapid changes in the political, social and economic spheres. The participants demonstrate agency within a project environment that promotes participative decision-making, democratic leadership and activities supporting empowerment through the accumulation of various forms of capital. The survey demonstrated that 16.2% of the residents of Giyani were involved in small-scale projects. Of the project participants, 89% were women, and 63% of the households of project participants depended solely on government grants for regular income. The findings of the study were used to analyse the government’s plan to facilitate development through Community Development Practitioners, a concept that would promote State planning and control that would stifle the agency of people, would increase the size of the civil service and absorb funding that should reach the poor. / Thesis (DPhil)--University of Pretoria, 2011. / Anthropology and Archaeology / unrestricted

In South African Townships, socio economic activities of the second economy such as informal trading typically manifest themselves in low quality, left over open spaces along roadsides and transport interchanges. These left over spaces are characteristic of townships and especially low cost housing and Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) communities, due to the emphasis placed on the dwelling units with little regard for the quality of open space. These environments are, over-scaled and not suited to human scale and although used for informal trading, they are not conducive to human or environmental well-being. An entrance precinct with such left over spaces in Olievenhoubosch Township, Centurion, is selected to test the hypothesis of an informal market as a catalyst for quality open space that considers human scale and enables the socio-economic functions of the community. The research starts off by establishing guidelines firstly for quality open space; secondly for human scale and thirdly for socio economic functions. These guidelines are applied at framework level looking at the entire precinct, including an informal market, stream corridor and taxi rank. At masterplan level, the focus is on the informal market. To avoid a merely functional response, the market approach is divided into two aspects, the market development and the spatial or experiential development aspect. These are informed by the established theoretical guidelines, case studies and existing activities and uses onsite. An overarching concept “Indawo Yami” meaning “my place”, ties the two aspects together while expressing the unique character of the community. The concept is born out of the vision of the market as a multifunctional community space that expresses the unique character of the community. The sketchplan proposal suggests that human and environmental well-being could be prime objectives of open spaces in townships all over South Africa. / Dissertation (ML(Prof))--University of Pretoria, 2014. / Architecture / ML(Prof) / Unrestricted

In dieser schattenwirtschaftlichen Kausalanalyse wurden entsprechend der Thematik aus der Sicht des Autors relevante Ursachen für eine expandierende Schattenökonomie in Russland vertiefend untersucht. Ein entscheidender Faktor bei der Begünstigung der Second Economy kann darin gesehen werden, dass es dem Staat im bisherigen Verlauf der Transformation nicht ausreichend gelang seine Rolle als Garant für die Schaffung und Einhaltung von festen Regeln einerseits sowie einen weitergehenden Rückzug aus unmittelbar wirtschaftlichen Abläufen andererseits in wünschenswertem maße zu realisieren. Mit den Zugängen sollte in einer fundierten Ursachenanalyse mehr Licht in das Dunkel expandierender schattenwirtschaftlicher, korrupter Erscheinungen fallen und dabei kausale Verknüpfungen zwischen den Zugängen ersichtlich werden. Der Zusammenhang zwischen Rahmenbedingungen, Motivation und der Entscheidungsbildung von Wirtschaftssubjekten wurde anhand 3 theoretischer Ansätze näher analysiert. Die aus den statistischen Schätzungen ersichtliche weit verbreitete Suche nach „unsozialen“ Vorteilen kann auch als eine Orientierungslosigkeit bezüglich der Akzeptanz gesetzlicher Regeln des gesellschaftlichenZusammenlebens durch die russische Bevölkerung angesehen werden. Ein Umdenken würde voraussetzen, dass die Gesetzgebung einer ständigen Begutachtung durch gewählte demokratische Gremien unterliegt und die Menschen weniger gegängelt, bevormundet werden wie in sowjetischer Periode. Viele der Vorschläge zur Reduzierung der russischen Schattenwirtschaft stellen ein Kurieren an Symptomen dar und sind auch als Reflex auf bestimmte Interessenpositionen anzusehen. Die Untersuchung zeigt, wohin eine Wirtschaft steuern kann, wenn sie nicht die erforderlichen Rahmenbedingungen erhält, die juristischen Gesetzesgrundlagen aus den genannten Gründen heraus zunehmend missachtet werden (eigene, ungeschriebene Regeln dafür gelten) sowie das Sozialsystem nicht bzw. nicht mehr erforderliche Mindestsicherheiten bieten kann. Deshalb erscheint es notwendig, die schattenökonomischen Vorgänge Russlands nicht als „fremde Phänomene“ eines „weit entfernten“ Landes zu betrachten. Vielmehr muss bei realistischer Betrachtung der Tatsache ins Auge gesehen werden, dass diese „russische Problematik“ einer expandierenden Second Economy außerhalb von Gesetz und Statistik in Deutschland und anderen westlichen Staaten nicht diese Dimension annahm. Mit zunehmender Wirtschaftskrise wird auch in der Bundesrepublik die Schattenökonomie als eine Antwort auf ungelöste Schwierigkeiten in der Wirtschafts-, Arbeitsmarkt- und Sozialpolitik zu einem Problemfaktor heranwachsen, dem zukünftig mehr Aufmerksamkeit gewidmet werden sollte. / In this causal analysis of the shadow (black) economy, the relevant reasons for the expanding shadow economy in Russia have been looked into from the author’s point of view and in accordance with the topic. A crucial factor in favouring the Second Economy can be seen in the fact that during the previous course of the transformation the state hadn''t succeeded in realizing its part as a guarantor of the creation and observance of the solid rules on the one hand, and as a guarantor of the largely reduction of the regulated economic relations to an acceptable extent on the other hand. Examining the aspects in this causal form should help to cast more light into the shadows of the expanding black economy and its corruptive forms making the causal connections between them more obvious. The connection between the basic conditions, the motivation and the way of decision forming by the economists was thoroughly analyzed on the basis of three theoretical points. The widely spread search for the “unsocial” advantages, which is obvious from the statistical estimations, can be considered also as the lack of direction (Orientierungslosigkeit) in regard to the acceptance of the lawful rules in social live by the Russians. Rethinking would presuppose that the legislation should be subject to the regular examination through the chosen democratic committees and the people not be kept tied and patronized, like in the Soviet period. Many of the suggestions on the reduction of the Russian shadow-economy suppose the cure of the obvious symptoms and are to be regarded also as a reflex on the certain positions of interest. The above study gives the insight into such aspects as: where the national economy can steer 1) if it has no basic conditions; 2). if the fundamental legal principles by the mentioned reasons are increasingly disregarded but some unwritten rules are accepted; 3). if the social system can not offer the necessary minimum security any longer. Therefore, it appears to be necessary not to consider the shade-economic processes of Russia as the foreign phenomena of a "far distant " country. More than that, one must contemplate the fact that this "Russian problematic system" of the expanding Second Economy outside the law and statistics couldn’t reach such enormous dimensions in Germany and other Western states. In the conditions of the growing economic crisis the shadow-economy would certainly become a problem factor also in the Federal Republic of Germany being a reaction on unsolved difficulties in its economic, labour market and social policy. More attention should be dedicated to this problem in future.