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The urban land market theme work addresses the challenge of working with the private sector and other market agents to address the needs of the poor for land (for living, trading, production etc.). A well functioning property market has many benefits for achieving shared economic growth. Based on work done to date, an early action is the identification of key barriers to entry into the market by reducing transactions costs and improving education around market participation.
Street trading in Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality: realities and challenges
Informal trading plays an important role in poverty reduction and absorbing unemployment. Recent media reports on the plight of street traders in some of the host cities during the forthcoming Soccer World Cup have also focused attention on this issue. A paper by researcher Marry Masonganye investigates the challenges faced by street traders operating in Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality in the neighbourhoods of Hatfield, Sunnyside and Arcadia.
Affordable inner city residential accommodation for the poor
Urban LandMark commissioned Sagitta Financial Consulting to undertake a modelling exercise of selected formal residential accommodation options for the poor in Johannesburg. This report describes in detail the financial model that has been developed for the assignment that reflects the selected housing options targeting the poor.
Listening to the voices of developers and municipalities in urban land development in South Africa
Urban Landmark appointed Business Enterprises at the University of Pretoria to perform this study, aimed at gaining an in-depth understanding of the perspectives and everyday experiences of developers and municipalities around urban land development in South Africa. The study aimed to move beyond policy and legislative frameworks to take a direct look at the reality of urban land development in South Africa.
Competing for Urban Land: improving the bidding power of the poor
The development planning vision of equitable and integrated cities, and the achievement of slum-free cities, remain unrealised. This paper (and presentation) looks at this conundrum in the South African context and suggests ways in which poor people can be spatially and economically integrated into cities by increasing their bidding power, including improving the intensity of land utilisation.
Making Urban Land Markets Work Better in South African Cities and Towns
This paper by Dr Mark Napier discusses the balance between state allocation of urban land and market distribution of land as a resource, an asset which inevitably becomes a commodity which can be used by the poor more or less effectively to alleviate poverty. Observations are made about how the market has been distorted, and why it would make good sense (socially, economically and ideologically) for poorer communities to be better located in South African urban areas.
Land as Commodity in South Africa
This report proposes useful categories for the categorisation of urban land in South Africa and records the current trends and patterns of land ownership in South Africa's towns and cities. It also identifies the main actors influencing urban land transactions and the individuals, institutions or groups that benefit from the current operation of the urban land market, as well as those who do not, providing possible explanations of why this may be the case.
Towards effective state interventions to improve access by the poor to urban land markets
The main objective of this paper is to investigate and discuss ways in which the state should intervene around urban land issues, within the context of its relationship to the private sector, in order to improve the access of poorer and excluded sectors of South African urban society to land, housing, and services.
- Paper [88KB] by Dr Mark Napier and Nana Ntombele
Housing Entrepreneurs Research Project
The Housing Entrepreneurs Research Project, concluded in 2006, seeks to provide a deeper understanding of housing as a productive asset, and its role in promoting economic activity and improved affordable housing supply, by supporting the activities of home-based entrepreneurs and small-scale landlords.
Funded by Finmark Trust, the Social Housing Foundation, Nedbank, the Gauteng Department of Housing and the National Department of Housing, the project focused on obtaining a detailed understanding of how small-scale landlords and home-based entrepreneurs operate, the key constraints they face and the extent to which they use their homes as a productive asset. This was set within the context of a broad understanding of entrepreneurship and current policy and practice in unleashing and supporting entrepreneurial activity.
Project outcomes included the following:
Final Reports:
Resource Reports
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