Upgrading dense informal settlements by building upwards: lessons from an informal settlement in Durban, South Africa

Abstract

Approximately 287 000 households live in 581 informal settlements across eThekwini Municipality and the numbers are growing. This translates into roughly one shack for every ten formal brick or block houses. The pressures on housing in South African cities are sizeable, despite 25 years of a national housebuilding programme with a budget of almost R20 billion each year. The situation is much worse elsewhere on the continent. More than three-quarters of residential areas developed between 1990 and 2014 in sub-Saharan Africa were informal and unplanned. So what needs to be done to transform informal settlements from overcrowded and often squalid environments into more functional and liveable neighbourhoods?