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31 January 2025

New paper: Anatomy of an alliance for affordable urban housing (Ivan Turok)

Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC)

Abstract

This paper explains how an informal partnership is changing the way affordable housing is produced in Cape Town. It explores the alliance’s composition, the roles of different actors and the shifts in City Council policies and practices. The shared objective is to supplement or replace state-led housing delivery systems with a more developmental approach driven by many grassroots property enterprises. With the glue of goodwill, the alliance draws together diverse partners with different expertise, resources and legitimacy. Through collective action they have amplified the voice and capabilities of emerging micro-developers and opened the bureaucracy to outside interests. This has altered the perspectives of senior politicians and officials towards informality, and prompted the City Council to instigate wide-ranging reforms, galvanizing a momentum for change that may be difficult to arrest. The paper illustrates the power of a compelling vision supported by sound technical arguments and articulated by credible actors and organizations.

The paper is available open-access via Sage here.

Prof Ivan Turok is a Distinguished Research Specialist at the HSRC, and holds the Research Chair in City-Region Economies in the Department of Economics and Finance and the Centre for Development Support at the UFS. He has authored more than 160 peer-reviewed publications and 11 books/monographs, and is one of the most highly cited social scientists in SA. He is ranked in the top 1% of global scientists by Stanford University and Clarivate Web of Science, and ranked 42 out of 9701 top global scientists within the specific field of urban and regional planning. He holds an NRF B1-rating and is the former Editor-in-Chief of the top international journal, Regional Studies. He was formerly Professor of Urban Economic Development, and Director of Research: Department of Urban Studies at the University of Glasgow. Prof Turok was also a Mellon Fellow at the University of Cape Town and Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Strathclyde. He is an occasional adviser to the United Nations, OECD, African Development Bank, UNECA, and several national governments. His recent books include Transitions in Regional Economic Development (2018, Routledge), Value Chains in Sub-Saharan Africa (2019, Springer), and Restoring the Core: Central City Decline and Transformation in the South (2020, Elsevier). He was a finalist for the NSTF Lifetime Achievement Award in 2021.

Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC)

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