Abstract
A social indicators community project was conducted in 2007 to monitor living standards and quality of life in Rhini, a low-income suburb of Grahamstown, Makana Municipality, South Africa. Since 1994, under democratic rule, considerable progress has been made in service delivery to the formerly disadvantaged in South African society in terms of access to housing, infrastructure, and a social safety net to mitigate the high rate of unemployment. A representative cross-sectional household study (n 1020) conducted in 2007 in Rhini found that a positive assessment of the household’s situation and personal life satisfaction did not reflect better living conditions. Lack of income and employment opportunities appeared to dilute gains from higher living standards. The project also inquired into attitudes to place names and a proposed name change for the city under discussion at the time of the survey. It is argued that a place name with which one can identify may be as important as service delivery to enhance community satisfaction and overall quality of life. Dissatisfied residents who had limited access to services and expressed less civic pride were more likely than others to opt for a proposed name change for the city of Grahamstown that would better reflect the country’s new identity and multicultural heritage. It is concluded that a useful pursuit for community quality-of-life studies in countries undergoing social transformation will be to inquire into the complex combination of factors that drive perceptions of material and symbolic progress.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
According to the Centre for Development and Enterprise, a South African think tank, www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=80741, accessed 20 March 2009.
Place names first received attention in order to facilitate equitable postal services. According to Jenkins (2007: 13) the South African post office committed itself in the early 1990s to making it possible for all South African households to receive mail at their own address. Reportedly, by January 2000 some 1.7 million new postal addresses had been provided since 1995, but 37% of households were still without, down from 61% in 1994.
An example of an opposite point of view is the case of Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe (Jenkins 2007:89).
This announcement contradicts reports of referenda on name change issues held in other provinces (see Jenkins 2007).
The initiative to change the name lost momentum in the run up to the national government elections of April 2009. It was assumed that it would be revived once the new government took office.
The price South Africa has paid for a growing economy has been a shortage of electricity. The rollout of electricity in the 1990s was one of the most successful projects carried out under the Reconstruction and Development Programme. However, the demand for electricity soon outstripped supply as the country experienced more rapid economic growth in the new millennium. By the end of 2007, South Africa was caught up in an energy crisis caused by poor forward planning that resulted in regular electricity outages and an increase in the price of electricity. Ironically, the low-income households that were offered a better life with electricity in the 1990s were now being asked to cut back on consumption.
Also spelt Rini. The designation of Grahamstown East was meant to project the idea of a unified city in contrast to the apartheid city that typically separated residential areas by race.
To date, Grahamstown population figures are only estimates. The South African census gives population figures for Rhini that are generally considered much too low. The Makana Municipality engineers use a figure one and a half times larger than the census figures while our household surveys have yielded estimates between the two (Møller 2001a).
The largest town in Makana Municipality following the 2000 local government elections.
Eligible for inclusion in the survey were adults over the age of 18 years who had lived in Rhini for at least 6 months during the past year. If the person selected was not available, an appointment was made to conduct the interview at a later time. Up to four visits were made to the household to interview the person selected to be the respondent. An interview was obtained in 97.9 % or 1,020 of the 1,042 households targeted to be in the sample.
An age extension to 18 years, to be introduced over several years, was announced in 2008.
Access to piped water within 200 m conforms to RDP norms for a minimum standard of living.
The survey items read: ‘Approximately what is this household’s average monthly income?’ and What monthly income does this household need to get by? 13 income categories were supplied.
State social assistance to poor households through non-contributory but means-tested social cash grants reached some 12.4 million in a population of about 48.5 million in 2008. The old-age pension and the disability grant were already well established in the last century. The child support grant introduced under democracy in 1998 aimed to support poor families to provide adequate nutrition for children. It ‘follows the child’ and is paid to the primary caregiver (Lund 2008).
See the Appendix Table 6 for details on ratings of neighbourhood satisfaction.
The household situation was rated as ‘better’ than last year by 18.8%, the ‘same’ by 24.7% and ‘worse’ by 56.5%.
Assessment of satisfaction with life as-a-whole was ‘very satisfied’ (4.2%), ‘satisfied’ (40.1%), ‘neither satisfied nor dissatisfied’ (19.0%), ‘dissatisfied’ (28.5%) and ‘very dissatisfied’ (8.1%).
The chair of the name change task team declared the set of options biased because it included the ‘not important option’. This option was offered as it was spontaneously given by a significant proportion of passersby on city centre streets interviewed in a ‘vox pop’ (voice of the people) survey on the name change issue conducted by the local newspaper a few weeks before our survey went into the field. Some 20 persons are interviewed in the city centre for these snap polls on topical issues. Respondents’ statements on the subject are printed along with their occupation and photograph. The newspaper endeavours to include a demographically representative cross-section of the population in its vox pop surveys.
An explanation may be that the more affluent households who live in better serviced neighbourhoods are more likely to be the targets of crime.
Other income variables initially under consideration included: household is in receipt of a social grant, and household income.
Other access-to-services variables initially under consideration included: RDP house, roof leaked in the past year, dwelling was flooded in the past year, type of toilet facility, and free basic electricity.
Further ‘symbolic’ variables: civic pride, knowledge of one’s ward, and satisfaction with feedback from one’s ward councillor, were initially considered as possible predictors. Their contributions were non-significant so they were excluded from the final model.
References
Afrobarometer. (2002). Afrobarometer Briefing Paper No. 1 (www.afrobarometer.org).
Andrews, F., & Withey, S. (1976). Social indicators of wellbeing: American perceptions of quality of life. New York: Plenum.
Böhnke, P. (2008). Does society matter? Life satisfaction in the enlarged Europe. Social Indicators Research, 87(2), 189–210.
Butana, K. (2008). ‘Unnecessary bureaucracy’ delays housing. Residents wait for houses for over 15 years. Grocott’s Mail, Grahamstown. 14 October. p. 5.
Campbell, A., Converse, P. E., & Rodgers, W. L. (1976). The quality of American life. New York: Russell Sage.
Carter, J., Dyer, P., & Sharma, B. (2007). Dis-placed voices: sense of place and place-identity on the Sunshine Coast. Social & Cultural Geography, 8(5), 755–773.
Cohen, S. B., & Kliot, N. (1992). Place-names in Israel’s ideological struggle over the administered territories. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 82(4), 653–680.
D’Agostini, L. R., & Fantini, A. C. (2008). Quality of life and quality of living conditions in rural areas. Social Indicators Research, 89(3), 487–499.
Delhey, J., Böhnke, P., Habich, R., & Zapf, W. (2002). Quality of life in a European perspective: the Euromodule as a new instrument for comparative welfare research. Social Indicators Research, 58(1), 163–176.
Dickow, H., & Møller, V. (2002). South Africa’s ’rainbow people’, national pride and optimism: a trend study. Social Indicators Research, 59(2), 175–202.
Diener, E., & Suh, E. (1997). Measuring quality of life: economic, social and subjective indicators. Social Indicators Research, 40(1–2), 189–216.
Easterlin, R. A. (1995). Will raising the incomes of all increase the happiness of all? Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 27(1), 35–47.
Eckersley, R. (2001). The mixed blessings of material progress: diminishing returns in the pursuit of happiness. Journal of Happiness Studies, 1(3), 267–292.
Gill, G. (2005). Changing symbols: the renovation of Moscow place names. The Russian Review, 64, 480–503.
Govender, P., & van Rooyen, K. (2009). Schools in suburbs swamped. Sunday Times, Johannesburg, 22 February, p. 5.
Guyot, S., & Seethal, C. (2007). Identity of place, places of identities: change of place names in post-apartheid South Africa. South African Geographical Journal, 89(1), 55–63.
Huschka, D., & Mau, S. (2006). Social anomie and racial segregation in South Africa. Social Indicators Research, 76(3), 467–498.
Jenkins, E. (2007). Falling into place: The story of modern South African names. Clarement: David Philip.
Kearns, R. A., & Berg, L. D. (2002). Proclaiming place: towards a geography of place name pronunciation. Social & Cultural Geography, 3(3), 283–302.
Lund, F. (2008). Changing social policy: The child support grant in South Africa. Cape Town: Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC).
Manona, C. W. (1987). Land tenure in an urban area. Development Southern Africa, 4(3), 569–581.
Marans, R. W. (2003). Understanding environmental quality through quality of life studies: the 2001 DAS and its use of subjective and objective indicators. Landscape and Urban Planning, 65(1–2), 75–85.
Meiring, B. (2008). Proudly South African: a toponymical excursion. Language Matters, 39(2), 280–299.
Memela, S., Mautjane, B., Nzo, T., & van Hoof, P. (Eds.). (2008). The state of local governance in South Africa: What does the Local Government Barometer tell us? Cape Town: Institute for Democracy in South Africa (Idasa).
Ministry in the Office of the President. (1995). Reconstruction and Development Programme: Key indicators of poverty. Pretoria: South African Communication Services.
Møller, V. (Ed.) (2001a). Living in Grahamstown East/Rini: A social indicators report. Research Report Series No. 6, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Rhodes University, Grahamstown. Rhodes University Repository: http://eprints.ru.ac.za/1020/
Møller, V. (2001b). Growing up in Grahamstown East/Rini: A sample survey of youth 15–24 years. Research Report Series No. 9, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Rhodes University, Grahamstown.
Møller, V. (2003). Quality of life and positive youth development in Grahamstown East, South Africa. In M. J. Sirgy, D. Rahtz, & A. C. Samli (Eds.), Advances in quality-of-life theory and research (pp. 53–79). Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Møller, V. (2007). Satisfied and dissatisfied South Africans: results from the general household survey in international comparison. Social Indicators Research, 81(2), 389–415.
Møller, V. (2008). Living in Rhini: A 2007 update on the 1999 social indicators report. Research Report Series No. 14, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Rhodes University, Grahamstown. Rhodes University Repository http://eprints.ru.ac.za/1022/.
Rabkin, F. 2009. Jo’burg to challenge Phiri water ruling. Business Day, Johannesburg, 23 February. P. 3.
Snowball, J. (2008). Measuring the value of culture: Methods and examples in cultural economics. Dordrecht: Springer.
South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR). (2007). South Africa Survey 2006/2007. Johannesburg: SAIRR.
Stedman, R. C. (1999). Sense of place as an indicator of community sustainability. Forestry Chronicle, 75(5), 765–770.
Tweed, C., & Sutherland, M. (2007). Built cultural heritage and sustainable urban development. Landscape and Urban Planning, 83(1), 62–69.
Veenhoven, R. (2000). The four qualities of life: ordering concepts and measures of the good life. Journal of Happiness Studies, 1(1), 1–39.
Veenhoven, R. (2002). Why social policy needs subjective indicators. Social Indicators Research, 58(1–3), 33–45.
Vogel, J. (1994). Social indicators and social reporting. Statistical Journal of the United Nations, 11, 241–260.
Vogel, J. (1997). The future direction of social indicators research. Social Indicators Research, 42(2), 103–116.
Wee, H.-L. (2000). Quality of life assessment: Is quality of place an appropriate proxy? In F. T. Seik, L. L. Yuan & G. W. K. Mie (Eds.), Planning for a better quality of life in cities (pp. 54–69). Singapore: School of Building and Real Estate, National University of Singapore.
Acknowledgements
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the First International Sociological Association Forum, ‘Sociological Research and Public Debate’, Barcelona, Spain, 5–8 September 2008, Working Group WG06 Social Indicators. Conference participation was made possible by a Rhodes University travel grant. The paper is based on a survey supported by a grant from the South Africa–Netherlands Programme on Alternatives in Development (SANPAD). Fieldwork for the survey was commissioned to Development Research Africa. Two reviewers supplied useful comments on an earlier manuscript. While this sponsorship and assistance is gratefully acknowledged, views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to sponsors or others.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
An erratum to this article can be found online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11482-011-9145-7
Appendix
Appendix
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Møller, V., Radloff, S. Monitoring Perceptions of Social Progress and Pride of Place in a South African Community. Applied Research Quality Life 5, 49–71 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11482-010-9092-8
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11482-010-9092-8