Category: MEEs

The urban palimpsest: Part 4, writing the lessons

17 November, 2009 (11:55) | Cape Town, Formalization, MEEs, Networks, Saving Schemes, Slums, South Africa, Speculation | No comments

 [Continued from yesterday's Part 3 and the previous Part 1 and Part 2.]
  
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 [...]

The urban palimpsest: Part 3, building the grid

16 November, 2009 (11:07) | Cape Town, Formalization, MEEs, Networks, Saving Schemes, Slums, South Africa, Speculation | No comments

[Continued from yesterday's Part 2 and the previous Part 1.]

 
By: David A. Smith
 
Within twenty-four hours of a fire that destroyed more than 5900 homes in the Cape Town informal settlement of Joe Slovo, more progress had been made in community redevelopment than had been accomplished in the previous fifteen years’ of confrontation.  The palimpsests had [...]

The urban palimpsest: Part 2, gridding the vision

11 November, 2009 (14:17) | Cape Town, Formalization, MEEs, Networks, Saving Schemes, Slums, South Africa, Speculation | No comments

[Continued from yesterday's Part 1.]
 
By: David A. Smith
 
As we saw yesterday, for fifteen years Joe Slovo had been an informal settlement in the Cape Flats that resisted all attempts at structural improvement.  One night, that all changed:
 
Joe Slovo, March 2009
 
(A large set of pictures is here, from which this post’s images are drawn.  My quotes [...]

The urban palimpsest: Part 1, wiping the slate

10 November, 2009 (12:39) | Cape Town, Formalization, MEEs, Networks, Saving Schemes, Slums, South Africa, Speculation | No comments

By: David A. Smith
 
The best thing to happen to the informal settlers of Cape Town’s Joe Slovo township began with a spark:
 

March 9, 2009

On 9th March 2009, a fire razed 500 shacks to the ground, and left 1,500 homeless. 

 
(Unless otherwise captioned, all photos are from iKhayalami and cover the March 9-11 rebuilding days.)
 
What evolved [...]

Essential actors in affordable housing delivery

13 October, 2009 (10:54) | Global news, Innovations, MEEs, Research, Theory, US News | No comments

By: David A. Smith
 
Last week in Washington, as part of the World Habitat Day activities, AHI – in partnership with the National Housing Conference as host and the Housing Partnership Network as a co-sponsor – issued and discussed the Extract of our report, Mission Entrepreneurial Entities: Essential Actors in Affordable Housing Delivery.
 

It’s all about [...]