ON HANDLING URBAN INFORMALITY IN SOUTHERN AFRICA |
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Authors: | Amin Y Kamete |
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Institution: | Urban Studies, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8RS, United Kingdom, Email: amini.kamete@glasgow.ac.uk |
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Abstract: | In this article I reconsider the handling of urban informality by urban planning and management systems in southern Africa. I argue that authorities have a fetish about formality and that this is fuelled by an obsession with urban modernity. I stress that the desired city, largely inspired by Western notions of modernity, has not been and cannot be realized. Using illustrative cases of top–down interventions, I highlight and interrogate three strategies that authorities have deployed to handle informality in an effort to create or defend the modern city. I suggest that the fetish is built upon a desire for an urban modernity based on a concept of formal order that the authorities believe cannot coexist with the “disorder” and spatial “unruliness” of informality. I question the authorities' conviction that informality is an abomination that needs to be “converted”, dislocated or annihilated. I conclude that the very configuration of urban governance and socio‐economic systems in the region, like the rest of sub‐Saharan Africa, renders informality inevitable and its eradication impossible. |
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Keywords: | modern city formality informality planning southern Africa Zimbabwe |
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