Human Settlements Review - Parliamentary Monitoring Group

Human Settlements Review, Volume 1, Number 1, 2010
to, for example, the system of developed by
Open Source House (see www.os-house.
org. The graduates would emerge into ethical
professionals with the will and skills to play
a meaningfully role in solving the problems
of urban informal housing. There is plenty of
opportunity for government and education
institutions to liaise to in terms of strategic
visioning, priority setting, forging of bilateral
and multilateral links, and research funding.
CONCLUSION
There is a housing deficiency in South
Africa that is, to a large extent, being fulfilled
by burgeoning informal settlements. The
government strategy of providing completed
houses to beneficiaries is failing to meet the
deficiency. Moreover, this approach is also
prone to a range of qualitative problems. This
paper has proposed an alternative method
based on incremental innovative intervention
as a more efficacious approach in South
Africa’s context. The approach suggested
hinges on government-empowered self-help
as an avenue for unlocking the currently
latent resources and innovative energy in
communities. Government should limit its
role to that of a provider of a guiding framework
within which the people have the liberty to
innovate at all levels of the production chain
to create sustainable habitats while saving
money, creating jobs, building social networks,
and preserving the natural environment.
masses would probably be driven to riot by
any suggestion that they include something
as “dirt” cheap as earth or reclaimed waste
as part of the solution for self-building their
abodes. After all, recent “toilet riots” in Cape
Town demonstrate that in present day South
Africa, even the very poor prefer to have
concrete walls for their toilets.
Mindset change takes a generation – which
is approximately 30 years. Starting today,
incremental innovation can lead to greatly
improved and improving human settlements
by 2050. Perhaps above all, people need to be
imbued with a pride that will open their eyes
to the riches within their seemingly hopeless
communities. A richness so profuse that world
famous architect Jo Noero took the shack
and the informal as the genesis of his design
philosophy which, in a refreshingly wicked
twist that only gifted designers are capable
of orchestrating, he has successfully applied
to informal and upmarket buildings alike. This
underscores that within the slums is the power;
the power to innovate liveable habitats for the
people, by the people, of the people.
It is appreciated that the reality on the ground
is such that the proposals herein cannot be
realised overnight or even in a couple of years
but could take decades. There are powerful
vested interests to contend with and the poor
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