Towards Creating Inclusive Cities: Experiences and Challenges in Contemporary African Cities

Housing provision in South Africa has focussed on the delivery of ownership houses at the expense of other forms of tenure and types of housing. This strategy presumes that people live close to where they work. However, ‘migrant’ workers who do not want to own but need affordable accommodation in the city are still prevalent in urban areas. The focus in this paper is on access to affordable rental housing as a mechanism for inclusion in the city with a particular emphasis on ‘rooms’ as this appears to be a neglected type of provision on the formal housing agenda. The paper explores the socio-economic circumstances of the persons occupying these rooms, their strategies for seeking accommodation in the city in the face of a shortage of appropriate and affordable housing, and under conditions of extreme poverty. The paper looks at the different ways in which rooms are accessed and provided in the city of Johannesburg with an emphasis on the physical aspects of this form of housing. The paper is based on the author's previous research and policy work on homelessness, transitional and communal housing, backyard rooms, RDP housing evaluation and design strategies for medium density housing.