Romano Del Mistro

Upgrading Informal Settlements in South Africa: Policy, Rhetoric and what Residents really Value

A billion persons live in slums worldwide, and 2 million households live in informal housing in South Africa. The stated goal of the South African government is to overcome this housing backlog by 2014; but doubling the budget will achieve this by only 2030. Current policy is to deliver a choice of housing alternatives; but in practice ‘a house on a fully serviced property with freehold title’ is seen as the only alternative. This paper describes a model that estimates the value that residents of an informal settlement place on aspects such as level of municipal engineering services, location and type of upgrade, and the size of the dwelling. The model was applied to three issues in the current debate on informal settlement upgrading in South Africa; namely: whether to upgrade by relocating all residents to a ‘greenfield’ site or upgrading ‘in situ’? Whether to upgrade incrementally across many settlements or upgrade fully one settlement at a time? Whether to offer residents more than one upgrade alternat...A billion persons live in slums worldwide, and 2 million households live in informal housing in South Africa. The stated goal of the South African government is to overcome this housing backlog by 2014; but doubling the budget will achieve this by only 2030. Current policy is to deliver a choice of housing alternatives; but in practice ‘a house on a fully serviced property with freehold title’ is seen as the only alternative. This paper describes a model that estimates the value that residents of an informal settlement place on aspects such as level of municipal engineering services, location and type of upgrade, and the size of the dwelling. The model was applied to three issues in the current debate on informal settlement upgrading in South Africa; namely: whether to upgrade by relocating all residents to a ‘greenfield’ site or upgrading ‘in situ’? Whether to upgrade incrementally across many settlements or upgrade fully one settlement at a time? Whether to offer residents more than one upgrade alternative? The stated choice approach provides a method to develop and test many housing alternatives as part of involving the community in the upgrading of an informal settlement.

Shocking Habits: Methodological Issues in Analyzing Changing Personal Travel Behavior Over Time

ABSTRACT This paper examines the methodological problem of analyzing changing personal travel behavior without available longitudinal intra-personal datasets. The findings of a trial retrospective survey conducted in Cape Town are discussed. In follow-up interviews, respondents did not report great uncertainty in their recollection of the amount of the time elapsed since changing behavior. The posited explanation is that the recalled behavior changes interrogated were associated with ‘life shocks.’ Consequently, the recollections of behavior changes—the details of which in themselves are unremarkable and would probably be forgotten quickly—are attached to salient events, and respondents therefore reported no major difficulty in recalling them in a retrospective survey.

Evaluation of non-user benefits towards improvement of water and sanitation services in informal settlements

Many municipalities in developing cities are faced with the challenge of providing water and sanitation to ever-growing populations that cannot afford to pay for the services. This challenge calls for solutions that link equity considerations to cost recovery, and may require society to re-evaluate its perspectives on the value of urban water services. This paper explores the potential of non-user benefits as drivers of value and measures the trade-offs that “non-poor” residents were willing to make for the reductions in public health, social and economic costs when levels of service in informal settlements are improved. The study finds that people are sensitive to the public health impacts, and when given the choice of location of settlement to improve, and the means through which to make payment, would be willing to pay 6500 UGX (approx.

Valuing the non-user benefits of improving water and sanitation in informal settlements: a study of Cape Town

2.83) per household per month to install yard facilities in an informal settlement located nearest to their neighbourhood and with payment made through a special purpose vehicle.

CHANGES IN TRANSPORT PLANNING POLICY: CHANGES IN TRANSPORT PLANNING METHODOLOGY?

In the face of declining public subsidies, municipalities will have to find additional revenue to meet the expectations of growing populations that cannot afford to pay. Conventional approaches to setting user fees do not evaluate the benefits to members of society who do not directly use the service. This paper presents a study that measured the willingness of the ‘non-poor’ residents of Cape Town, to pay for the benefits of improving services in informal settlements. The respondents expressed highest preference for shared facilities followed by yard facilities, and were willing to pay USD 11.21; and USD 7.73 per month respectively. Willingness-to-pay was influenced by proximity to the informal settlement and on method of payment. The potential revenue from non-user value exceeded the installation costs for shared and yard facilities, suggesting that municipalities could finance upgrades by harnessing the non-user value among the non-poor residents. The method applied in this study could be used to improve policy planning and subsidy targeting.