This research examines the planning of the Besters Camp informal settlement in-situ upgrading
project in Durban, South Africa. International experience indicates that in-situ upgrading has
generally been successful in delivering services to the urban poor. It also confirms, however, that
benefits of upgrading are mostly confined to project localities, and that the institutional capacity
necessary for ongoing improvement in the lives of settlement residents is seldom created.
Drawing from experience as a planner in some of South Africa's first generation of settlement
upgrading projects, this research focuses on the question of how informal settlement upgrading
can be planned in order to contribute to the continuity of the settlement improvement process.
An important implication of the 'informalization' process in many Third World cities is that parts
of cities in which the de facto rules of the game are dominant are growing considerably more
rapidly than the 'formal city', which is governed according to the de jure instruments of control,
such as statutory law, planning regulation, and legal administrative authority. In this context, the
most common approach to planning the upgrading of shack settlements is to attempt to legalize, or
'formalize the informal'.
Experience in Besters Camp upgrade elucidates ways of moving beyond a narrow focus on
legalization, and onto more flexible regularization strategies. These strategies attempt to bridge
the gap between de jure and de facto systems by integrating elements of both into the planning
process, and thereby contributing to an amended legal regulatory framework appropriate to
planning in informal settlements. Regularization involves putting in place the institutions - that is,
the norms and structures - that are economically and politically viable, and which have the
potential to carry the consolidation process forward into the longer term. Regularization takes as
its starting point the delivery of services, which provides an activity into which capacity building
initiatives can be integrated. Importantly, in order to sustain the impacts of upgrading projects, it
is necessary to connect local settlement-level institutions and metropolitan-level institutions in
such a way as to provide a relationship of complementary autonomy at both levels. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Community and Regional Planning (SCARP), School of / Graduate
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UBC/oai:circle.library.ubc.ca:2429/6174 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Van Horen, Basil |
| Source Sets | University of British Columbia |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Thesis/Dissertation |
| Format | 33162755 bytes, application/pdf |
| Rights | For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use. |
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