faculty of Humanities School of Social sciences 0411881k muanzu@yahoo.fr / Previous studies on fertility in South Africa have mostly focused on the analysis of fertility trends, levels and differentials at the national level and have argued that socioeconomic development affects the national fertility level. This study examines the fertility levels in South Africa informal settlements with a view of examining whether there is any fertility variation between national and informal settlements. Data from the South Africa 2001 Census 10 per cent sample were used. Three levels of analysis were conducted. One examines fertility differentials. Two, multiple regression technique was applied to identify important socioeconomic factors of fertility in South African informal settlements and finally direct and indirect estimation of fertility was done. There is no difference in fertility levels between national and informal settlements. Fertility of 3 children per woman, in informal settlements is close to the national figure of 2.9. It is also shown that there is an inverse relationship between fertility and education and income, in South Africa informal settlements. Multivariate analysis shows that only about 6% of the variation in the dependent variable can be explained by the socioeconomic factors considered in the study. Fertility in the informal settlements was highest amongst women with higher education, among married women, and among those unemployed. In addition, the fertility of Christian women, and those women dwelling in households without radio and television was high. It is found that there is no difference between fertility levels at the national and informal settlements levels.

The main aim of the study was to explore the resident's perception of urban integration or integration of the settlement with the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality (EMM) in terms of the economic, spatial, political, environmental and social aspects.In order to accomplish this aim, data were gathered from a sample of twelve Dukhatole informal settlement residents in the EMM. A research questionnaire was used as the main instrument of data collection. Collected data were analysed qualitatively using both coding and thematic formats.The findings of the study demonstrated that Dukathole informal settlement is spatially, economically, and socially integrated with the EMM. More importantly it is the physical location of the community that has ensured the the Dukathole informal settlement is economically and socially integrated with the EMM city. These results led to the conclusion that the proposed government processes to relocate Dukathole informal settlement to distant areas will disintegrate or exclude this community from the EMM city. It was also discovered that the majority of the respondents are unemployed and involved in the informal sector of the economy with less income. This automatically excludes them from the formal housing processes as they could not afford. Based on the foregoing finding it was concluded that formal rental accommodation does not and will not cater for the urban poor.

Climate change poses serious challenges to households in informal settlements located in marginal areas such as flood plains that are sensitive to extreme weather events. This thesis explores the complex interrelationship between climate variability and informal settlements using two city-level case studies in Johannesburg, viz., Msawawa and Freedom Charter Square. The main objective of this study was to establish the nature of household adaptive capacity in informal settlements in relation to climate change. This entailed assessing household vulnerability to the increased frequency and severity of extreme weather events such as strong winds, extreme cold, extreme heat, floods, drought and fire, as a basis from which to understand household adaptive capacity. Methodologically, the thesis applied a mixed method approach combining quantitative and qualitative instruments to explore household adaptive capacity in relation to climate change. This methodology was used to understand how households have coped and adapted to extreme weather events in the past. Secondary research involved analysing a range of published and unpublished documents, while the primary research component consisted of a survey of two hundred households across the two settlements as well as key-informant interviews with local leaders in the two informal settlements and relevant officials from the City of Johannesburg. The results of this study show that in Msawawa and Freedom Charter Square, households’ social and economic conditions such as those relating to employment, income, assets and health play a role in their vulnerability to climate change. The ability of households to improve their adaptive capacity is influenced by a range of factors that include access to physical capital, social capital, financial resources and governance. The research found that households in the two informal settlements rely mainly on coping mechanisms such as repairing their shacks after disasters related to extreme weather. They have very limited ability to address underlying causes of vulnerability such as weak dwellings. Social capital is one of the drivers, although not very significant, for coping and critical to efforts for improving household adaptive capacity. The study also found that governance is a contested terrain in which it is difficult to recognise a positive impact on household adaptation to climate change. The study highlights the importance for policy-makers to recognise the need to improve household socio-economic conditions as well as building relationships of trust as drivers that could help in improving adaptive capacity and addressing household vulnerability to climate change.

Master of Science in Engineering - Engineering / Inadequate drainage in dense peri-urban settlements in South Africa is a significant problem endangering the public and environmental health and of particular concern are the downstream watercourses, which are a source of drinking water supply, a scarce resource. The objective of this research was to identify appropriate solutions within the limited scope of technical and financial feasibility with reference to Alexandra west bank as a case study area. The findings show that three physical site conditions hamper the application of onsite drainage approaches in Alexandra west bank Township, the case study area. They are: Congestion, due to haphazard development patterns, High drainage flow generation resulting from high population densities and the predominantly impermeable surface area due to intensive site development, and Poorly draining soils Congestion, high densities and intensive site development are characteristics common to low-income settlements in South Africa, and they result in lack of space availability for storage facilities, and interference with nature’s ability to retard, retain and infiltrate significant quantities of the storm runoff flows. Poor soil drainage capabilities, which is more specific to study area would result in a slow rate of exfiltration of drainage flows that would in turn cause ponding and the associated health hazards. Estimates of drainage flows generated from the study area as determined from field observations, flow measurements and computer simulation techniques indicate that if the minimum rate of production of just the wastewater component of the drainage flows is taken, which is approximately 37m3/ha/day, it exceeds the rate recommended for safe onsite management of drainage flows by almost four times. Three off-site drainage system arrangements were compared on the basis of the cost of outfall pipe drains sized according to conservative design procedures, and it was found that the combined sullage and storm water drains with separate sewage (black water) drainage system arrangement is more economical than the commonly practiced approach of separate storm and combined sewage and sullage drainage system arrangement.

This study investigates the role of space and place in urban informal settlement upgrading. The key aim is a better understanding of the character and functionality of informal communities through their social processes. There is a large body of literature on the social, economic and spatial consequences of informal settlement’s ongoing role of housing the urban poor. This study uses an ethnographic approach to investigate the spaces and places which result from the need based social relations and political agency of the informal residents. This genre of need reflects Lefebvre’s description of the tangible and intangible necessities that contribute to individuals’ livelihood and well-being. The study explores the philosophical thinking around spatial production and the meaning of place. It builds on the works of Heidegger, Lefebvre, and Deleuze and Guattari who attribute value to everyday social process and its role in producing space. Deleuze and Guattariʼs relational language is used to articulate the fluidity with which informality engages formality through the rhythm, refrain, milieu and territorialisation of daily use, leading to a rethinking of boundary and edge. Critically, the study also draws on the historic and present elements of time as it relates to space for this group of thinkers. The time/space dynamics of hope lost through waiting for upgrading and hope gained through impatience, political agency and action, add layers of complexity to these spaces. Implied in the first dynamic is an acceptance of the status quo, passive inclusion into South Africaʼs democratic society through the eventual provision of housing. The second is an insurgent demand for socio-economic rights and societal transformation as guaranteed by the Constitution (Holston, 1998). The resultant qualitative data from two informal settlements in greater Johannesburg unravels the logic behind informal spatial production via relational connections which articulate space as a product of informal residents’ social actions. This spatial understanding suggests a shift away from current spatial models employed by the State in its formal provision of subsidised housing. At the same time, it strengthens informal communities’ role in the upgrading process by giving value to the social qualities of place in existing living environments.

Thesis (MTech (Environmental Health))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2007 / Good sanitation includes appropriate health and hygiene promotion. This implies that proper health and hygiene promotion would have the desired effect as part of sanitation service delivery. However, lessons learnt worldwide show that in the promotion of health and hygiene, it is not enough simply to provide facilities, because if people do not use the available facilities properly, conditions do not improve or the system breaks down. The 1986 Ottawa Charter of the World Health Organisation suggests that effective health and hygiene promotion requires the following key elements: • the empowerment of local communities to take responsibility for promoting sanitation and environmental health • collaborative partnerships of role-players across departments • supportive policy environments. Against this background. the focus of this study is the extent to which health and hygiene promotion forms part of sanitation delivery programmes to informal settlements in the City of Cape Town. The investigation was confined to a comparative review of approaches to health and hygiene promotion in four case study sites (Khayelitsha, Joe Slovo, Kayamandi and Imizamu Yetho) in the context of the following criteria: • Community and household capacity to take responsibility for community-based health and hygiene promotion • Role-players and collaborative partnerships across departments • Implementation of health and hygiene promotion and alignment with national policy. Analysis of the case studies highlights the ineffectiveness of once-off awareness campaigns and the need for a more comprehensive approach to health and hygiene promotion in line with the Ottawa Charter. The push towards universal coverage of basic sanitation services will not bring the intended health benefits of delivery if, for instance, the provision of toilets is not complemented by appropriate health and hygiene promotion programmes.

The present thesis is an examination of the early medieval (c. AD 600-1000) territorial divisions, estates and settlement patterns of eastern Dumfriesshire, specifically Annandale, using the parishes of Moffat, Lochmaben and Annan as case studies. The history of this region during the late first millennium AD has received little attention in recent scholarship, which can in part be attributed to the virtual non-existence of written sources before the twelfth century. The obstacle of the limited written evidence can be overcome by using theoretical models which have been created for early medieval territorial units and estates in other parts of northern Britain for which the documentary record is less scarce. One of these models is the multiple estate, also known as shire in a Northumbrian and Scottish context. In this idealised type of estate, a number of townships owe obligations, such as renders in kind or labour services, to a central caput or lord’s hall, which functions as the administrative and legal core. Scholars such as J. E. A. Jolliffe, Glanville R. J. Jones, Angus J. L. Winchester and Geoffrey W. S. Barrow have argued that traces of the multiple estate can be gleaned from the written sources and settlement patterns of eleventh-, twelfth- and thirteenth-century Wales, northern England and eastern Scotland, suggesting a common heritage of pre-Anglo-Saxon territorial organisation. This model can be applied to Dumfriesshire using a multi-disciplinary approach including place-names, medieval and early modern charters, eighteenth-century maps and estate plans, late prehistoric and medieval archaeology as well as spatial GIS analyses. In order to add to the existing body of evidence, a new methodology is proposed which takes into account the agricultural potential of the settlements and territories in Annandale. This approach involves the use of formulae and the reconstruction of land use and land capability to estimate the maximum population which could be supported agriculturally in a given area. The complexity of demographic estimates and agricultural systems means that the calculated numbers should not be understood as absolute values, but rather used to compare territories with each other. The ecclesiastical parishes of Dumfriesshire seem to have been formally established in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, but there is evidence that they represented territorial divisions dating back to before AD 1100. The Anglo-Norman knights’ fees which were created in Annandale in the twelfth century appear to coincide with the parish boundaries, and it is notable that the aforementioned population estimates give similar values for the parishes of Moffat, Lochmaben and Annan, despite the different sizes in area. Place-name patterns for the period from c. AD 700 to 1000 indicate that each parish was sub-divided into territorial or estate units prior to the establishment of Anglo-Norman lordship. In the parish of Moffat, these territorial units are mostly found to coincide with the natural boundaries of the major river valleys. A possible exception may be the group of farms which appear in the early seventeenth century as the barony of Ericstane, encompassing all of Evandale as well as the western banks of upper Annandale. Similarly, the parish of Lochmaben shows traces of two or potentially three early medieval sub-divisions, which may represent small estate units. In the parish of Annan, hints of the same patterns appear, but the evidence does not allow as detailed an examination as in the cases of Lochmaben and Moffat. In the absence of a detailed contemporary written record, much of the aforementioned findings must remain tentative. Nevertheless, the proposed methodology for the assessment of agricultural potential is shown to provide a valuable tool for further studies within Dumfriesshire as well as other regions with similarly limited documentation.

The colonization of New Zealand led to the development of particular patterns of settlement. In some cases models were derived from contemporary British practice; in other cases they came from new world settlements elsewhere. But almost invariably any theoretical propositions which might have either consciously or unconsciously underpinned the form of the settlements and their ideological or other purposes were displaced by the pragmatic beliefs and constraints of those who developed them. These settlements arose at the same time as the belief that New Zealand was a natural paradise and that it offered the opportunity for the establishment of some kind of new and perhaps even utopian model for settlement. The Auckland suburb of Orakei as it developed in the first decades of the twentieth century provides fertile ground for the exploration of a number of themes which illuminate the New Zealand suburban experience: the role of the state in regulating and providing housing; the development of the discipline of planning; the evolution of the garden suburb in New Zealand; the choice of an architectural style for state housing; the integration of planning and housing; the contest for physical and ideological control of development; and the decisive role of individuals in creating the suburb. This thesis describes the political, social and ideological environments which led to the construction of the suburb of Orakei and the form which it took.

Thesis (M.A.)--Ohio University, June, 2005. / Title from PDF t.p. Includes bibliographical references (p. 132-144)

Terminal Project (M.L.A.)--University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2008. / Appendix ([8] leaves) bound in. A Living Routes Student Project. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 93-95). Electronic version available online.