Marie Huchzermeyer: Reading Henri Lefebvre from the Global South

New struggle is for ownership of the city

Marie Huchzermeyer, Mail & Guardian

The imprint of apartheid is still evident in South African cities. As acknowledged widely by planning academics and recognised in the National Development Plan and draft Integrated Urban Development Framework, urban expansion has engendered new forms of segregation and exclusion.

Apartheid-divided suburbs have their equivalent today in fortified estates catering to an exclusive moneyed minority – a mere 3% of South Africa’s households. More densely packed, walled townhouse complexes cater to the aspiring middle class, which makes up barely 10% of South African households.

WISER: Public Positions: The Right to the City

WISER

Marie Huchzermeyer

New national spatial planning legislation in 2013 highlights the need to spatialize justice. However, the new spatial planning framework does not ensure local autonomy. In the new legislation, spatial justice remains poorly defined and is in conflict with hierarchical imperatives of ‘national [political-economic] interest’. This is at a time when South Africa is witnessing a growing national distrust in the local, as the political landscape diversifies and opposition party support increases in urbanised areas. Aspects of spatial justice can emerge in the absence of planning and property rights – much is to be learned from informality; spatializing justice is a complex but necessary endeavor, it can build a just and reliable economy, but it needs a strong political bearer that trusts the local and is willing to tamper with property rights.  The multiple dimensions found in a progressive reading of the right to the city help inform this political project.

Humanism, creativity and rights: invoking Henri Lefebvre’s right to the city in the tension presented by informal settlements in South Africa today

Humanism, creativity and rights: invoking Henri Lefebvre’s right to the city in the tension presented by informal settlements in South Africa today by TigersEye99

Rich City, Poor City

Rich City, Poor City

Contrasts abound as the wealthy wall themselves in and the poor do everything possible to survive

Marie Huchzermeyer

(Jo’burg in Fact, Literary Festival 2012 Supplement, Mail & Guardian August 24 to 30 2012)

City of Extremes, the title of Martin Murray’s compelling analysis of contradictions in Johannesburg’s city building process, suggests a condition nearing its limit.

Cities with ‘Slums’: From Informal Settlement Eradication to a Right To The City In Africa

Cities with Slums

by Marie Huchzermeyer, 2011

The UN’s Development target to improve the lives of 100 million ‘slum’ dwellers has been inappropriately communicated as a target to free cities of slums. Cities with ‘Slums’: From Informal Settlement Eradication to a Right To The City In Africa traces the proliferation of this misunderstanding across several African countries, and explains how current urban policy, with its heightened focus on urban competitiveness and associated urban policy norms, encourages this interpretation.

Unlawful occupation : informal settlements and urban policy in South Africa and Brazil

by Marie Huchzermeyer, 2004

In 'Unlawful Occupation', Huchzermeyer provides an international perspective on this problem in Brazil and South Africa. Arguing that the South African paradigm is distorted the author also tracks the development of influential international positions on settlement intervention.