EDITORIAL

 

From the guest editor

 

Cities, especially in developing countries, have variously been described as places of hope and despair, places of innovation and strange encounters, and places of economic prosperity and acute poverty. These expressions engender the challenges and advantages inherent in the cities for its different classes of dwellers. Some people view cities basically as acutely unequal in terms of the spread of resources and opportunities. Infrastructure is not laterally and symmetrically evenly distributed within city spaces. This is so because of various issues and challenges ranging from discrimination, gender inequality, class segregation, political interference and manipulation, population distribution and several other challenges inherent in the city space. Given the afore-mentioned background, SACPLAN together with Town and Regional Planning Journal has commissioned this special call for manuscripts from academics, scientists, and practitioners across the world in city-oriented research to address the subject of access to the city by all people, irrespective of their age, class, race, gender, and any other spatial consideration for a Special Journal Issue titled: Cities for All / The right to the City. This issue accepted the manuscripts from the following authors.

Tsoriyo, Ingwani, Chakwizira and Bikam evaluated the vendor and pedestrian experiences of their 'right to the city' in street design and management in small urban centres in the Vhembe District, South Africa. Noting that the demand for a spatial turn to enhance citizens' 'right to the city' is gaining more momentum in this era than previously, the authors adopted a case-study survey design and a mixed methods research approach. Data was collected by means of both key informant interviews with eight key experts in street design and management and a street intercept questionnaire survey administered to a total of 100 vendors and 400 pedestrians in the selected case study towns. Data analysis was done quantitatively through average users' satisfaction scores with a spatial quality and qualitatively through thematic analysis. Lefebvre's 'right to the city' theory was used to extract meaning from the research findings. The findings reveal that economic, historical, and geographical differences affect street users' 'right to the city' experiences. To create more spatially just streets, where vendors and pedestrians can enjoy their disparate 'right to the city' claims, users need to embrace the right to differences. Municipalities in small urban centres need to continue to learn, experiment, and co-create urban space with the vendors and the pedestrians.

Muzorewa researched 'Private-public partnership-produced urban space - An antithesis to 'the right to the city': A case study of Ruwa Town, Zimbabwe, from 1986-2021. The article illustrates how the private-public-led urban development disenfranchised Ruwa residents' rights to control the planning of their local environments and affordable access to basic public amenities and services in their town. Ruwa was one of the first postcolonial towns in Zimbabwe to emerge and develop using the private-public approach. The study uses Henri Lefebvre's notion of the 'right to the city' as analytical lens. Lefèbvre presents a vision for urban areas, in which residents manage urban space for themselves, beyond the control of private capital. In the same vein, this article argues that, although the private-public partnership approach was instrumental in the development of Ruwa Town, residents were left out of decision-making processes, yet they were the major stakeholders in the development process. Residents should take charge of development processes in their areas through grassroots participation. The study used mixed research tools which drew data from primary documents, statistical records, and interviews with various stakeholders of Ruwa Town development.

John-Nsa appraised the factors influencing the spatial dynamics of informal settlements in Enugu City, Nigeria. The article analysed the need to address the challenges of housing demand in cities, which hitherto has not recorded much success. This study aims to assess the footprint occupation of informal settlements in Enugu City and identify the factors that contribute to such dynamics. A total of 276 questionnaires from the household heads and 47 questionnaires from urban planners were analysed. Findings revealed that informal settlements are gaining dominance in Enugu City. The 26 identified factors were reduced, using factor analysis, into nine components that accounted for 70% of spatial dominance in Enugu City. Informal settlements need to be approached in relation to their triggering factors such as closeness to other informal settlements, low incomes especially from rural agriculture, among others, to make for an encompassing approach to its management in Enugu City.

Huchzermeyer appraised a critical Lefèbvrian perspective on planning in relation to informal settlements in South Africa. The article notes that informal settlements intersect with spatial planning when they are placed on a trajectory towards permanent upgrading. In South Africa, the law requires this intersection to be as non-disruptive as possible. However, this is difficult to secure, as the Slovo Park informal settlement case in Johannesburg exemplifies. This article demonstrates the conceptual relevance of Henri Lefebvre's writing on the right to the city and his closely associated theory on differential space for the informal settlement and planning question. The article notes that the planning theory discourse has engaged with what occurs outside of statutory planning. This skirts Lefebvre's radical critique of statutory planning and its direct implication for spontaneous urban spatial practice. Lefebvre's critique of planning is open-ended, providing pointers towards an alternative, namely transduction. The article shows the relevance of this for the transformation of planning and urban space in South Africa.

Wall, reviewed the right to functioning urban infrastructure, which is a major objective of local government in South Africa, as defined in the Constitution. However, neglect of infrastructure continues to hamper access to service delivery, affecting all citizens and the economy. The author, informed by his own long career involvement and current research programme in infrastructure operation and maintenance, together with current extensive secondary research, identified that lack of care for infrastructure directly leads to infrastructure failure. This, in turn, harms the economy and inconveniences citizens, in some cases even depriving them of their rights. This article draws attention to some generic reasons for the failure of infrastructure and service delivery and explores ways for measuring infrastructure and service-delivery deficits. It emphasises the consequences of service-delivery failure and notes the experiences of four towns, all of which have service-delivery deficits contrasting the public statements of authorities with the dearth of effective action on the part of many municipalities.

Finally, Achamwie and Danso-Wiredu examined the rental system in Ghana's low-income housing communities, challenges, and adaptation strategies. They noted that shelter is one of the fundamental needs of human survival aside food and clothing. However, provision of adequate housing to accommodate people in urban areas has been a challenge in developing countries, including Ghana. This has caused many Ghanaians, especially the low-income group, to resort to the rental sector for their housing needs. This article analysed the strategies put in place by low-income house tenants to cope with the challenges of renting houses in the Wenchi Municipality to rightly utilise urban housing, by employing a quantitative approach and a questionnaire survey to collect data from 245 tenant household heads. Purposive and systematic sampling techniques were used to select the respondents for the study. The data was analysed using SPSS. The study revealed that rental problems faced by tenants and adaptation measures developed to cope in cities and bigger towns are not different from what exists in the smaller towns. The study recommended that rent control should be strengthened to perform its duties in the rental sector well enough, in order to protect the interest of the urban low-income renters.

 

 

1 Prof. Hope Magidimisha-Chipungu (PhD), SACPLAN board Member, SARChI Chair for Inclusive Cities (supported by NRF-SACN), School of Built Environments Development Studies, College of Humanities, University of KwaZulu-Natal, C872 Denis Shepstone Building (Howard College), Mazisi Kunene Road, Glenwood, Durban, 4041, email: <magidimishah@ukzn.ac.za>