RURAL/URBAN & PERI-URBAN PLANNING

CRIAA research into rural/urban and peri-urban planning is based around land reform, livelihoods and quality of life studies conducted in post-apartheid South Africa.

Consensually inhabitants of peri-urban and closer rural settlements in the target area's prefer to remain there, despite the cost and distance of travelling to the city for work and the relative lack of infrastructure and services. Residential quality of life is considerably better than in most informal urban settlements. Cheap or free land is available to most and, apart from some conflict and vulnerability of certain groups, mainly ‘tenants’ and women, most people believe they ‘own’ their land. There is a universally expressed ‘need’, however, for formalisation of tenure rights. People are prepared and able to invest in housing and property improvements, as well as in tenancy settlements on black-owned land and in trust land settlements, without the housing subsidy, and even before de jure formalisation of their land rights. In such settlements, the substantial bricks and mortar investments being made indicate a commitment to permanent residence.

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