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Research Interests: Geography and Palimpsest
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... sub-stitution of natural vegetation by impervious surfaces, which destroys carbon sinks, and intensifies flooding and heat island effects, among ... Buenos Aires metropolitan region in Argentina, MumbaiPune mega-region in India, the... more
... sub-stitution of natural vegetation by impervious surfaces, which destroys carbon sinks, and intensifies flooding and heat island effects, among ... Buenos Aires metropolitan region in Argentina, MumbaiPune mega-region in India, the Suez-- CairoAlexandria urban region, and ...
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Research Interests: History and Colonialism
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Research Interests: History and Colonialism
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The twenty-first century is the first truly urban epoch. However, the well-circulated graphs that reveal the inexorable urban transition of past and future decades are only part of the story. Accompanying the headline demographic message,... more
The twenty-first century is the first truly urban epoch. However, the well-circulated graphs that reveal the inexorable urban transition of past and future decades are only part of the story. Accompanying the headline demographic message, that this is an era where urbanisation is the dominant motif, is the reminder that the locus of the twenty- first century has shifted away from Europe and North America. We not only now live in an urban world but also a Southern world, in which Asia and Africa are numerically dominant. As the absolute epicentres of population, cities and towns are the places and spaces that provide the foundations on which contemporary and emerging global systems and values will be built (Miraftab and Kudva, 2014; Roy and Ong, 2011). There are other substantive ways in which, over the next few decades, what happens in and is exported from ‘cities of the South’ will come to dominate our collective lives: cities will have massive impact on natural systems changes; the production, distribution and circulation of goods and services; and the experiences of everyday life, health, culture and politics (McGranahan and Martine, 2014; Parnell and Oldfield, 2014; Revi and Rosenwieg, 2013; Elmquist et al., 2013). For the global majority, life will be shaped by urban conditions and expectations. But for all of its centrality, we do not really understand what constitutes the city or how urban form, urban management, urban life and identity interface with the experiences of, or responses to, poverty.
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2015 was a seismic moment for urban stakeholders around the world. A coalition of policymakers, academics and practitioners came together to successfully advocate for an urban goal to be included in the UN Sustainable Development Goal... more
2015 was a seismic moment for urban stakeholders around the world. A coalition of policymakers, academics and practitioners came together to successfully advocate for an urban goal to be included in the UN Sustainable Development Goal framework. Although the value of a place-based approach to development has been demonstrated by a number of cities and countries worldwide, it was 2020–2022 (three years of cataclysmic global events) that highlighted the necessity for a universal place-based approach to planning in order to foster resilience and sustainability. In this article, three academic-practitioners reflect upon the transformative potential of the 2015–16 urban agendas.
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The multi-sectoral nature of urban health is a particular challenge, which urban family planning in sub-Saharan Africa illustrates well. Rapid urbanisation, mainly due to natural population increase in cities rather than rural–urban... more
The multi-sectoral nature of urban health is a particular challenge, which urban family planning in sub-Saharan Africa illustrates well. Rapid urbanisation, mainly due to natural population increase in cities rather than rural–urban migration, coincides with a large unmet urban need for contraception, especially in informal settlements. These two phenomena mean urban family planning merits more attention. To what extent are the family planning and urban development sectors working together on this? Policy document analysis and stakeholder interviews from both the family planning and urban development sectors, across eight sub-Saharan African countries, show how cross-sectoral barriers can stymie efforts but also identify some points of connection which can be built upon. Differing historical, political, and policy landscapes means that entry points to promote urban family planning have to be tailored to the context. Such entry points can include infant and child health, female educa...
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Research Interests: Astrobiology and Planet
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This report, a collaborative effort of more than 50 organisations brought together by the Coalition for Urban Transitions, outlines the immense social and economic benefits of creating compact, connected and clean cities with net-zero... more
This report, a collaborative effort of more than 50 organisations brought together by the Coalition for Urban Transitions, outlines the immense social and economic benefits of creating compact, connected and clean cities with net-zero emissions, and presents a clear six-part action plan for national governments around the world. Zero-carbon cities offer a powerful lever to secure economic prosperity and boost living standards across a country – all while tackling the climate crisis. City governments cannot realise this opportunity alone. National governments have unique and crucial roles to play.
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Housin
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The paper traces the evolution and periodization of shifting ideas about the critical issues shaping city planning in South Africa, looking both at the relative and variable importance ascribed to health and other factors such as labour,... more
The paper traces the evolution and periodization of shifting ideas about the critical issues shaping city planning in South Africa, looking both at the relative and variable importance ascribed to health and other factors such as labour, economic reconstruction and housing. While the evolution of the South African city cannot be read without an understanding of the role of public health, changing ideas about cities and public health necessitate careful historical unravelling before any causal relationships can be identified. Any urban reconstruction, including post-COVID-19 reform, will demand deep knowledge of how the health/planning nexus has evolved, alongside expert advice on how to maximize urban health.
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This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from [publisher] via the link in this record.
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2016 is a year that is consumed with academic and policy debate about ‘a new urban agenda’. This is undoubtedly a watershed in collective thinking about cities, but I want to step back from the wake of the global policy making machine... more
2016 is a year that is consumed with academic and policy debate about ‘a new urban agenda’. This is undoubtedly a watershed in collective thinking about cities, but I want to step back from the wake of the global policy making machine associated with Habitat III and the post-2030 sustainable development agenda to reflect on what a significant new international journal like Urbanisation should be taking on as its substantive intellectual agenda. The theoretical points of departure, analytical precision and use of appropriate methods that we use to dissect and reveal urban processes will have material and relational consequences. Given the overarching importance of cities, not just as increasingly dominant sites of human occupation but as the very pathways of global chance and sustainable development, there has never been a more critical moment to expand and refine the scholarly urban project. Expectations from Urbanisation are justifiably high; there is much work to do and there is not much time. In the most general terms, the post-2030 sustainable development agenda will provide some sort of framing for research (if only through funding that defines much of the direction of what academics are able to do). But setting a course that informs and is critical of ‘the new urban agenda’ and extends beyond the policy remit necessitates a degree of intellectual independence. This is especially true for the global south where the activities and communities of practice found in universities, city halls and NGO offices are much more closely intertwined. In the first instance, Urbanisation must avoid both research funding and policy capture to provide a conscience and autonomous platform for ideas. At the same time, as it is critical and independent, it needs to offer inspiration to sustain and energise the cohort of urbanists who will oversee the most important era of global transition, unleashed by mass urbanisation and a global urban transition. Maintaining such a creative tension is not normally considered the core task of any academic editorial, but in this case it must surely be central to the mandate of the leadership of Urbanisation.
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Die Landschaft der Townships 1994 ; Die sudafrikanische Stadtlandschaft teilt sich auf in Townships — in den schwarzen Stadtteilen hochgezogene «Streichholzschachteln» — einerseits, hubsche, luftige Wohnhauser in den weisen Vierteln... more
Die Landschaft der Townships 1994 ; Die sudafrikanische Stadtlandschaft teilt sich auf in Townships — in den schwarzen Stadtteilen hochgezogene «Streichholzschachteln» — einerseits, hubsche, luftige Wohnhauser in den weisen Vierteln andererseits. Der Ruckgang der Apartheid beginnt nun, die Landschaft zu diversifizieren. Barackenstadte dringen in die Townships ein, wahrend die Mittelschichtensiedlungen von beiden in die Zange genommen werden.
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This paper is a synthesis of the July 2005 Development Report published by the Development Bank of Southern Africa, Human Sciences Research Council and United Nations Development Programme (DBSA, HSRC and UNDP). The Report asks why, if... more
This paper is a synthesis of the July 2005 Development Report published by the Development Bank of Southern Africa, Human Sciences Research Council and United Nations Development Programme (DBSA, HSRC and UNDP). The Report asks why, if the origins of economic dualism are rooted in the cheap, forced, migrant labour introduced by the mining industry and reinforced during apartheid, does dualism persist under democracy when all the relevant laws and many of the practices of the past have been abolished? ...
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Die Landschaft der Townships 1994 ; Die sudafrikanische Stadtlandschaft teilt sich auf in Townships — in den schwarzen Stadtteilen hochgezogene «Streichholzschachteln» — einerseits, hubsche, luftige Wohnhauser in den weisen Vierteln... more
Die Landschaft der Townships 1994 ; Die sudafrikanische Stadtlandschaft teilt sich auf in Townships — in den schwarzen Stadtteilen hochgezogene «Streichholzschachteln» — einerseits, hubsche, luftige Wohnhauser in den weisen Vierteln andererseits. Der Ruckgang der Apartheid beginnt nun, die Landschaft zu diversifizieren. Barackenstadte dringen in die Townships ein, wahrend die Mittelschichtensiedlungen von beiden in die Zange genommen werden.
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The aim of the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) is to redress the inequalities created by apartheid. Unwittingly, however, the RDP may perpetuate many of the social divisions which were created by the policies of the... more
The aim of the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) is to redress the inequalities created by apartheid. Unwittingly, however, the RDP may perpetuate many of the social divisions which were created by the policies of the National Party. This is because the RDP emphasises the racial inequality caused by apartheid, and forgets that a central goal of apartheid policy was to drive a wedge between rural and urban Africans. It did this by curbing African urbanisation and enforcing the migrant labour system. As a consequence, the new government has inherited a large population who live in rural slums, remote resettlement camps, displaced urban settlements and hostels. The RDP's response to the needs of these disadvantaged groups is to compensate them through the provision of rural housing and upgrading hostels in urban areas. However, is it enough for the new government simply to improve the housing conditions of these disadvantaged groups when their poverty is caused by their lack of access to urban jobs? Surely the RDP should aim to transform these apartheid patterns of settlement instead of casting them, quite literall~ in stone? POLICY AND PRACTICE The new government seeks to address the inequalities created by apartheid through subsidising housing and service provision for the very poor. Towards this end, more than two-thirds of the state housing subsidy now goes to households earning less than R1 500 per month (Financial Mail, 16 Dec. 1994). However, housing and service expenditure is also targeted quite specifically at the rural poor and at migrants. The Provincial funding formula, from which housing and service expenditure is drawn, is weighted in favour of rural populations by a factor of 1,25. In other words, for every R1,00 that a Province receives for an urban person, it receives R1,25 for a rural person in its population (statistics supplied to the authors by the Fiscal and Finance Commission). The government is also explicitly committed to improving the
Research Interests: Housing and Urbanisation
Over the past decade, African governments have joined other countries across the world, first in lobbying for and then in adopting a number of global development policy commitments. These include the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable... more
Over the past decade, African governments have
joined other countries across the world, first in
lobbying for and then in adopting a number
of global development policy commitments.
These include the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development, the Paris Agreement on climate
change, the Addis Ababa Action Agenda
(AAAA) on financing for development, the
Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction,
and the New Urban Agenda. This global
policy realignment by Africa is rooted in a
continent-wide policy shift towards sustainable
development, as formulated in the Africa Union
Agenda 2063: The Africa We Want. This shift
reflects a growing recognition of the role of
cities and territories as key sites and actors of
development, and the African region as a major
hub of the global transition to a predominantly
urban world. Thus, it will not be possible to
achieve sustainable development at a global
level without sustainable urbanization in Africa.
Urbanization is key to economic development
and growth in Africa, with cities combining
labour, skills, knowledge and capital. However,
fulfilling the potential of sustainable urbanization
in Africa will depend on overcoming significant
challenges, ones that are at the heart of the
2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs).
joined other countries across the world, first in
lobbying for and then in adopting a number
of global development policy commitments.
These include the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development, the Paris Agreement on climate
change, the Addis Ababa Action Agenda
(AAAA) on financing for development, the
Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction,
and the New Urban Agenda. This global
policy realignment by Africa is rooted in a
continent-wide policy shift towards sustainable
development, as formulated in the Africa Union
Agenda 2063: The Africa We Want. This shift
reflects a growing recognition of the role of
cities and territories as key sites and actors of
development, and the African region as a major
hub of the global transition to a predominantly
urban world. Thus, it will not be possible to
achieve sustainable development at a global
level without sustainable urbanization in Africa.
Urbanization is key to economic development
and growth in Africa, with cities combining
labour, skills, knowledge and capital. However,
fulfilling the potential of sustainable urbanization
in Africa will depend on overcoming significant
challenges, ones that are at the heart of the
2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs).