The urban palimpsest: Part 4, writing the lessons
By: David A. Smith
It’s taken three days’ worth of posting to describe the three days’ worth of disaster-recovery reblocking that occurred at Joe Slovo township in Cape Town, and like the reblocking, we weren’t quite done in that interval. Now for the most important part – what we can learn from this?
Joe Slovo, March 2009
(A large set of pictures is here, from which this post’s images are drawn. My quotes are from a report, written by Tom Herbstein of the University of Cape Town’s African Security and Justice Program (ASJP), and circulated by SDI member affiliate FED-UP, South Africa’s Federation of the Urban Poor led by Rose Molokoane )
What went right
When the palimpsest is suddenly scrubbed clean, action must be swift and coordinated. As it can take a lifetime to become an overnight success, it takes months and even years of community-building to establish trust.
[1. Idea preparation] iKhayalami invested a great deal of time into building a relationship with the Joe Slovo leadership over the previous year. Many barriers that would normally be development obstacles were rapidly overcome through a level of trust that, even after a traumatic fire, allowed iKhayalami to move in and start blocking with the community.
The trust can lie dormant until catalyzed by a spark – in this case, a tragic fire.
Joe Slovo, March 2009
In a palimpsest environment, all things are possible; the universe has not formed. So it’s imperative that everyone be included, because anyone excluded will become the process’s enemy.
[2. Public democratic process] The public meeting, held on the Monday morning, achieved a buy-in from the community and although cut short – before all voices could be heard – was nonetheless critical for the success of the blocking.
Joe Slovo, March 2009
As we’ve seen with SDI, for an effectiveness process, the slum dwellers themselves have to be in charge:
[3. Self-managed] An effective decision was to only supply materials, knowledge and advice to Joe Slovo, and leave the process of blocking to the community to manage and negotiate.
As a consultant, I learned this lesson a long time ago. Although I know more than my client does about how to solve a particular problem technically, that knowledge should never put me in charge of the client’s goal-setting.
A good consultant never tells his client what to want, only the consequences of pursuing what the client wants.
What resulted was a community coming together, and helping the process grow.
A good client learns to hear what the consultant is advising about consequences, and to adapt her desires in light of the consultant’s expert advice.
iKhayalami is a non-profit organisation whose primary aim is to upgrade informal settlements. It focuses on designing and manufacturing affordable housing solutions that are easy to transport, quick to erect and offer a range of opportunities for future upgrading. This is primarily an immediate solution to the national crisis of inadequate shelter, but also provides an effective and rapid response in the event of township hazards such as fire and flooding.
Joe Slovo, March 2009
Equality of opportunity does not need equality of loss, nor necessarily equality of outcome:
[4. Fair process and fair outcome] Deciding what should happen when people’s original shacks were larger than the new iKhayalami shelter.
While iKhayalami were happy to provide larger shelters in these instances, the leadership was adamant that all new shelters should be of uniform size so as to not create a sense of inequality amongst the community. This was firmly adhered to.
Men in particular are bonded by uniformity; as every army’s induction and boot camp know, to anneal them into new forms you must hammer out the old ones. We become brothers when we are all miserable together – and if it is as a community that Joe Slovo’s residents gained the leverage that brought them free homes, then it is up to the community to adjudicate what constitutes equality in that case. I wouldn’t have expected that.
Joe Slovo, March 2009
Learning by doing is important, as is persuading by showing:
[5. Piloting] This was further strengthened by the decision to initially block just six shelters, to create a visible an example and help people understand the concept. It also ensured shelters kept in line, as material was only released once bordering properties had been upgraded. This maintained active community participation, as people had a vested interest in blocking reaching their area.
Interesting dynamics: the grid exists in everyone’s imagination, but before anyone can build a house into the grid, the buildout has to reach this part of the grid. Conversely, beneficiaries who wanted free materials were obliged to buy into the community grid vision – freedom came with a price.
This resulted in shelters being constructed quicker and cheaper, due to increased man-power, but also resulted in significantly fewer disputes as the community was now actively involved in their own development and given the opportunity to guide it themselves.
Joe Slovo, March 2009
Not everything worked exactly as the technical advisors would have wished.
What went wrong
[6. Refusniks] Some shack dwellers were unwilling to replace their structures with iKhayalami shelters, some even to move theirs back within the demarcated lanes. While attempts to move shelters were made through negotiation between them and leadership, in cases where resistance continued, the lanes were simply redrawn around the offending shack, and carrying on beyond.
In effect, the non-conforming uses have been grandfathered into the community. Will the grid be strong enough that over time they will be brought one by one into conformity? Or will it revert to randomness and inefficiency?
Joe Slovo, March 2009
Back in the present, variation and individuality appeared as they always do. So did a gradual erosion of unanimity:
[7. Quality variation] It proved hard to maintain quality control, as the situation was one that developed organically. There were instances where building material was released, when neighboring properties were yet to be blocked. This meant some shelters ended up not lining up with others.
People become impatient and the inevitability effect takes over.
Control needs to be maintained as it is the promise of materials which turned out to be the most effective tool for negotiation.
Joe Slovo, March 2009
Real estate is also a professional business, and slum dwellers are not real estate professionals.
[8. Lack of training] Problems also emerged with people erecting shelters too fast, and without proper supervision, resulting in weaker structures, and in some cases ground that was uneven.
In general, people who own property are entitled to renovate, refurbish, and remodel it – but in the formal city, such alternations are subject to zoning and building codes. A perfectly informal slum has neither, and when Joe Slovo was reborn after the fire, in accepting the free assistance it accepted the city’s dominion over structure and zoning.
Joe Slovo, March 2009
The better housing is, the more formal it is; and that makes it more structural, more technological, and more complicated.
[9. Uncoordinated materials] Khayalami intended to only supply material to construct the walls of the shelter, and then use material supplied by the City for the roof. However, the City’s material was incompatible with iKhayalami’s design, the wood being to short and stout and the zinc sheets too thin.
As a result, more haphazard construction of the roofs resulted, making any future installation of ceilings more difficult. Future coordination between iKhayalami and the City, as to what materials to supply, would result in a far higher quality structure while minimizing costs.
Before the fire, I doubt the City and iKhayalami would have thought it worthwhile to collaborate on rebuilding standards. The fire forged a linkage between them.
Joe Slovo, March 2009
[10. Interruption] The City, suspending the distribution of material and food resulted more time and energy being spent by iKhayalami and the leadership in securing additional resources than in managing the development process, hampering efforts to block adequately.
It’s hard to fault the City on this point; they announced a three-day window and they held to it. Perhaps more illuminating is the necessity for disaster-relief planners to recognize that it’s not enough to rush replacements to the site – you should take a deep breath and imagine not replicating the old but improving it.
Joe Slovo, March 2009
In the end, it always does come down to money. Slum upgrading is municipal infrastructure, and that has a large non-recoverable cost.
[11. Lack of subsidy] Finance was the single biggest issue facing iKhayalami’s efforts to upgrade Joe Slovo and the biggest single hindrance to the wide spread roll-out of blocking.
Not finance – subsidy. These costs are non-recoverable, and the homes will have minimal resale value. Although they have high occupancy value and that makes them a worthwhile expenditure of public or charitable resources, no one should be deluded that turning on a lending tap will magically transform the slums.
While iKhayalami did admirably in securing private funding to sustain construction, this is a government issue, one which can only succeed with buy-in and support from the City.
Donors are scaffolding; they bridge from vision to pilot, and from pilot to political change.
Joe Slovo, March 2009
The story has a happy ending:
In conclusion
While these shelters are not perfect, and certainly dissimilar to more formal housing projects, iKhayalami was able to re-shelter a significant number of people:
Joe Slovo, March 2009
1. In conditions far above what they had before
2. In situ
3. In a way which prepared the site for future introduction of basic services.
All these are enduring achievements. Because slums are places where private investment has outrun public infrastructure, the rationalization of informal private settlements should lead public investment – in fact, it should induce public investment. The city has granted the Joe Slovo residents tacit citizenship by handing them disaster packages and working with them in their deployment; it will be hard for them to retract it when the infrastructure can now be laid down logically.
Joe Slovo, March 2009
This was all done at a cost of less than 10% of what more formal structures cost and in just a few weeks.
Self-built means self-labored, which means cheap.
Remarkably given the circumstances, it was the community that came to the table in this instance and not government.
Not remarkable at all: networks and markets always move faster than government.
Joe Slovo, March 2009
In
Estimates suggest a government house may only be delivered 30 years after being on the waiting list.
Or until there’s a cleansing fire, which creates the urban palimpsest.
Joe Slovo, March 2009
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