MXOLISI MAHLANGU

MHLKEN012
SPATIAL FORENSICS
Week #05

The right to the city, Isandla Institute

The idea behind the right to the city is to permit access to its people and enables them to take
advantage of what it has to offer. Like most big cities in South Africa, the reality is different from
the theory discussed. Approaches to urban development then excluded people from the city
and its privileges, then “supposedly” intended to improve the lives of the residents. Ironically
today, we supposedly live in an integrated synonymous society that fosters diversity, yet we still
have township-city setups in the country that foster exclusion.

Living conditions in townships today are still poor… similar to Lavina, most people of colour seek
opportunities in suburbs closer to the city & the city itself. The lack therefore of opportunities
outside the city, where the people are situated breeds issues of poverty, crime out of
desperation, depression, stress, substance abuse, unhealthiness etc.

Also prominent outside the city is the issue of access – taxi fares are expensive, some of the
vehicles are unsafe and certain areas face a scarcity of transportation. Accessing the city also
takes a significant amount of time.

In the reading Housing and the right to the city: introduction to the special issue, French
sociologist and philosopher Henri Lefebvre focuses on analyzing how the urban has been
structured according to industrial, commodity, and capitalist-bureaucratic logic. Organized in
ways to ease the movement of products and people... It is a place where the fulfilment of excess
value and capital growth is accomplished. But for who? Capitalism and bureaucracies create
alienation and exclusion rather than habitable space and inclusion (Aalbers & Gibb, 2014).

Gideon from Khayelitsha draws from personal experience on how informal trading driven by the
need to make a living is seen as intrusive and unallowed in the city. How people trying to make a
living in the city from the cards they were dealt has made them feel like foreigners in their own
country.

The urban planning aspects of the city are also touched on in terms of vacant land in suburbs
like Rondebosch. Green open spaces are to be left uninterrupted for the convenience of the
affluent dwellers to “walk their dogs” instead of accommodating people of colour closer to the
city. People want to be left alone.

REFERENCES
Aalbers, M., & Gibb, K. (2014). Housing and the right to the city: introduction to the special issue. International
Journal of Housing Policy, 2014 Vol. 14, No. 3, 207-213. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14616718.2014.936179

Isandla Institute. (2011). The right to the City. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_oXVgiwm28