Backyards and big projects: the politics of densification in South African low income housing

Abstract

Looking at two modes of densification in Gauteng, South Africa, we examine the attitudes, responses and agendas of number of urban actors to “hard” and “soft” densification. Based on several years of field work, we demonstrate how the “quiet” densification of individual entrepreneurs who build rooms for rent on their properties often receive a variety and uneven set of state responses despite their market appeal and ability to provide decent accommodation. We contrast this form of densification against large scale public-private partnerships, which have numerous management and quality of life issues post-occupancy but remain the prefered mechanism of densification by the state. Our work engages relooks and these modes of densification and goes far beyond increases in numbers, buildings or populations. Our cases are revealing of the urban imaginaries, politics and agendas that are at work behind the policy responses to densification and show how densification is not just about meeting housing needs on the ground and the business of supply and demand but also how the state sees itself, its partners and the cities that it is trying to imagine into being.