Development planning and citizenship in Cape Town

Abstract

This article argues that there is a dialectical relationship between development planning and citizenship in so far as planners, as institutional decision-makers, ensure a meaningful everyday lived experience for ordinary people. In post-apartheid South Africa, however, the statistical record signals a disjuncture and structural hiatus between what should be the basic rights of ordinary people and the role of local government in promoting citizen-driven development planning at the grassroots level. This article deals specifically with the Wallacedene community, who took the planning authorities to court to have their constitutional right of access to adequate housing and related services enforced. The implications of this court case vis-à-vis development planning are considered and recommendations are proffered.

1. Introduction

This article is divided into five interrelated sections. After the introduction, Section 2 clarifies the problematic relationship between citizenship and development planning. In Section 3 a socio-economic profile of metropolitan Cape Town illustrates the differentiated nature of citizenship as reflected in differential access to basic needs such as water and sanitation; Wallacedene is described and placed within the larger setting of metropolitan Cape Town. Section 4 deals with the conditions that gave rise to the historic ‘Grootboom case’ (1999), which was taken to the Constitutional Court, and discusses the Court's instruction to the South African national, provincial and local governments to take ‘reasonable and progressive steps’ to ameliorate, if not solve, the socio-economic problems of squalor, homelessness and overall deprivation of the residents in Wallacedene. In Section 5 a preliminary assessment is made of the significance of the Wallacedene court case for claiming, planning and implementing the rights of citizens outlined in the South African Constitution (Act 108 of 1996). The final section provides some tentative conclusions and recommendations for fostering a transformative relationship between development planning and citizenship rights.

2. The relationship between citizenship and development planning

The title of this article implies that there is a link or connection, however defined, between citizenship of a society and the manner in which that society is planned. In this article I argue that citizenship encompasses, first and foremost, the historically constituted ensemble of social relations of power embedded within a specific socio-economic political formation and the legislative measures enacted to secure basic rights for individuals and to afford individuals the opportunity to contribute to the overall development of their society. Development planning represents, by way of example, the institutional relations of power that are being mobilised or contested, in different scenarios, projects and programmes, to give effect to specific rights of citizens.

In order to transform uneven patterns of socio-economic development in post-apartheid South Africa, it is necessary to consider the following questions, among others. What are the forms, substance and dimensions of existing or emerging relations of power which underlie specific socio-economic political practices or institutional arrangements for accountability, transparency and overall democratic practice in the delivery of services such as housing and health care? Are any continuities or discontinuities of these power relations crystallised in specific patterns of service delivery by class or race? These interrelated questions are important in the everyday experiences of ordinary people, because planning, as a mediating and mediated institutional practice, is permeated with disparate relations of power, even as it serves as a purveyor and subject of transformation (Lefebvre, 1984). This configuration of embedded, although contested, power relations means that planning itself has to be transformed in order to reflect the procedural and substantive concerns of the new order in South Africa (Lefebvre, 1996).

Peet (2002: 58–90) outlines the problem of social change in democratic South Africa, contrasting the intent and dimensions of change of the African National Congress as a liberation movement and as the South African government. Within a conceptual framework derived from Gramsci and Foucault, Peet argues that a globally hegemonic discourse underlies, orients and limits the possibilities of fundamental change in the current South African order. Peet's implicit thesis that citizenship is truncated, and subordinated to the priorities of development planning, in its parochial form, appear to be borne out in the case of the historically marginalised community, Wallacedene, in Cape Town. As graphically illustrated later in this article, policy initiation, design, implementation and monitoring seem to be the preserve of the racist, sexist, ethnic, class-based powers in place, as against all attempts at structural change. Uneven power relations characterise the South African social formation at the beginning of the twentyfirst century and pose a challenge for development planning as it seeks to give material content to the basic rights of ordinary people in the new South Africa.

3. Socio-economic profile of Wallacedene within its larger context

3.1 Differentiated access to basic services and rights throughout South Africa

Throughout South Africa there can be observed racial or ethnic fault-lines of differentiated access to basic services and rights that continue to downgrade the citizenship of ordinary black people.

In South Africa unemployment was more than 40 per cent in 2002. Over one million jobs had been lost since 1995, mainly by lower-skilled black employees. About 45 per cent of South Africans live in poor households earning less than the Household Subsistence Level of R1 000 per month. In rural areas over 50 per cent of the population lives in poverty. Sixty-one percent of Africans are poor, compared with 1 per cent of whites. Sixty-five per cent of white households and 45 per cent of Indian households, but only 17 per cent of so-called ‘coloured’ and 10 per cent of African households, occupy the top income quintile. Three million households do not live in permanent structures; 7,5 million lack access to running water and 21 million are without indoor sanitation. Five million South Africans have HIV/AIDS, and the crime rate in South Africa is among the highest in the world (Sunday Times, 27 April 2003). Since the birth of democratic South Africa in 1994 unemployment has increased, and 2,5 million young people have entered the labour market but been unable to attain permanent jobs. The poorest 50 per cent of South Africans, almost entirely Black, are almost completely marginalised from the economy (Sunday Times, 20 April 2003). On the other hand access to health care and housing improved between 1995 and 2000 (Cape Times, 24 April 2003).

Material improvements, however, are overshadowed by institutional neglect and bureaucratic incompetence. The South African Human Rights Commission has cited many cases that seem to deprive ordinary citizens of their constitutional rights (Cape Times, 23 April 2003):

•	While there is a huge housing backlog, the housing department underspent by about R100 million in the 2001/2002 financial year. The critical shortage of houses has been demonstrated in 1 088 informal settlements throughout the country.
•	Fewer than 50 per cent of poor people are getting the free water promised by the government before the local elections of 2000.
•	Thousands of pensioners who are entitled to social grants are not getting their money.
•	In the Limpopo province alone, 92 000 pension and disability grants were unfairly terminated by the province's welfare department.
•	In the Eastern Cape province, applications for social assistance were often lost and many pensioners waited more than a year before they could receive financial assistance from the government.
•	Of the 1,2 million people identified by the Department of Social Development as deserving disability grants, only 714 000 were actually receiving them.
•	Only 2 per cent of land has been redistributed; 80 per cent of the land is still owned by white commercial farmers, thus depriving between 13 and 14 million people of access to land and deepening rural poverty among the historically marginalised and excluded poor black people of South Africa.

3.2 Differentiated access to basic services and rights in Cape Town

The historically marginalised continue to suffer in urban South Africa as well. They constitute 2,4 million of the approximately 3,2 million inhabitants of metropolitan Cape Town (Provincial Development Council of the Western Cape, 2002). On the Cape Flats, a predominantly Black residential area, 70 per cent of the people have problems feeding their children; unemployment is 32 per cent for males and 53 per cent for females; there are five people per household; 82 per cent have less than grade 12 education. In these racial ghettos of Cape Town, hundreds of poor people still use the bucket system to remove sewage and in some areas refuse has not been collected for two years (Mail & Guardian, 16–22 May 2003). Figures 1–9 illustrate the enormous differences in access to municipal services in Cape Town and suggest the hardships suffered by the poor. They reinforce the glaring reality of Black marginalisation, exclusion and deprivation, while privilege, affluence and access to adequate and effective services accrue largely to whites even in post-apartheid South Africa, more than 10 years since the country's first democratic elections.

Figure 1 Main source of water in Metropolitan Cape Town, 2001–03

Figure 2 Time taken to fetch water (not on site) in Cape Town, 2001–03

Figure 3 Payment for water received in Metropolitan Cape Town, 2001–03

Figure 4 Refuse removal in Cape Town, 2001–03

Figure 5 Type of toilet facility available in Cape Town

Figure 6 Access to nearest toilet facility in Cape Town, 2001–03

Figure 7 Access to nearest toilet facility in Cape Town, 2001–03

Figure 8 Main source of energy for cooking and heating in Cape Town, 2001–03

Figure 9 Main source of energy for lighting in Metropolitan Cape Town, 2001–03

The authorities treat different groups in completely different ways. The wealthy in Cape Town owe the municipality up to R1,75 billion in arrears for electricity and rates, yet their services are not discontinued at gunpoint, as may occur among the poorest 30–35 per cent of people on the Cape Flats, who owe the Council R750 million for services (Cape Times, 1 May 2003).

The preceding suggests the continued absence of an integrated, humane, responsive and effective service delivery programme within and across national, provincial and local spheres of government.

3.3 Wallacedene: a microcosm of the poor South African black experience

Wallacedene, and citizenship in Wallacedene, should be considered against the background of the conditions in metropolitan Cape Town as a whole. First, a brief description of the history and demographic profile of the community is outlined. The case study is a gut-wrenching example of how South Africans who were classified as ‘non-white’ in the past have been de-humanised, marginalised and excluded through apartheid planning policies.

Wallacedene was established in 1991 with 1 670 plots, which included sites for housing, schools, crèches and so on. A further formal extension was developed, resulting in 2 016 serviced sites; 304 temporary residential plots were also provided.

Homeless people were settled in this area, where the water table is very high, something that causes frequent flooding of the settlement, especially in winter. Up to 95 per cent of dwellings, housing 8 500 families, are informal structures Wallacedene has an estimated total population of between 27 000 and 30 000 people, and a population density of 20 000 people per square kilometre. Overcrowding increases the risk of fire and the health hazards.

In Wallacedene virtually no services exist: the few toilets are no longer functional and are unfit for human use. There are only a few communal taps; no health services are provided; refuse removal scarcely exists. There is no electricity; the use of wood-fires and paraffin for cooking and heating creates continual danger of fire, and the frequent destruction of homes and possessions. In these circumstances of squalor and bureaucratic neglect, children are the worst victims of diseases such as tuberculosis and skin disorders. The place was described by one resident as ‘a playground of dirt and defecation’. Most of the inhabitants earn far below the Household Subsistence Level of R1 000 per month, two-thirds of the community earn less than R500 per month and only three per cent of the residents receive a state pension or grant. Table 1 summarises statistics for Wallacedene and Table 2 compares Wallacedene with three Cape Town suburbs.

Table 1 Demographic profile of Wallacedene, by gender, ethnic group, age, education and language, 2001–03

		Number
		Male	Female	Total	Percentage
Ethnic group	African/Black	7 193	6 673	13 866	71,1
	Coloured	2 516	2 771	5 287	27,1
	Indian/Asian	3	3	6	0,0
	White	1	0	1	0,0
	Unspecified	179	174	353	1,8
	Total	9 892	9 621	19 513	100
Age	0–14	2 978	3 047	6 025	30,9
	15–34	4 676	4 656	9 332	47,8
	35–54	1 819	1 571	3 390	17,4
	55–64	220	185	405	2,1
	65 +	116	93	209	1,1
	Unspecified	83	69	152	0,8
	Total	9 892	9 621	19 513	100
Education (including	Aged under 5	1 388	1 336	2 724	13,9
still at school)	Aged 5 and over
	No schooling	1 759	1 481	3 240	16,6
	Grades 0–2	220	183	403	2,1
	Grades 3–7	3 381	2 981	6 362	32,6
	Grades 8–11	2 466	2 891	5 357	27,5
	Matric only	326	400	726	3,7
	Matric plus Diploma/certificate	19	21	40	0,2
	Degree	7	4	11	0,05
	Postgraduate degree	0	0	0	0
	Other qualification	3	4	7	0,03
	Unspecified	323	320	643	3,3
	Total	9 892	9 621	19 513	100
Language	English	36	29	65	0.03
	Afrikaans	2 891	3 061	5 952	30,5
	Xhosa	6 559	6 115	12 674	65,0
	Other	244	237	481	2,4
	Unspecified	162	179	341	1,75
	Total	9 892	9 621	19 513	100
Source: Urban Policy Unit, City of Cape Town, 2003.

Table 2 Population characteristics and access to services in different residential areas in Cape Town, 2001–03

	Wallacedene (Black residential area)		Constantia^1 (White residential area)		Clifton^1 (White residential area)		Sea Point^1 (White residential area)
Indicator	Number	Per cent	Number	Per cent	Number	Per cent	Number	Per cent
Employed	5 520	40.89	5 956	60,84	263	64,20	5 702	57,32
Unemployed	7 979	59,11	3 834	39,16	147	35,80	4 246	42,68
Total	13 499	100,00	9 790	100,00	410	100,00	9 948	100,00
Income below R1 000 per month (HSL)^2	6 755	78,02	1 320	34,26	51	16,50	1 944	22,98
Income above R1 000 per month	1 903	21,98	2 534	65,74	258	83,50	6 516	77,02
Total	8 658	100,00	3 854	100,00	309	100,00	8 460	100,00
Fuel: candles and paraffin	2 876	52,37	36	0,90	0	0	16	0,26
Fuel: electricity and gas	2 616	47,63	3 890	99,10	221	100,00	6 192	100,00
Total	5 492	100,00	4 016	100,00	221	100,00	6 192	100,00
Outside water only	4 949	90,11	66	1,64	0	0	268	4,32
Access to water inside dwelling	543	9,89	3 950	98,36	221	100,00	5 924	95,68
Total	5 492	100,00	4 016	100,00	221	100,00	6192	100,00
State of physical infrastructure	Very poor	Excellent	Excellent	Excellent
^1In Constantia, Clifton and Sea Point, the incidence of unemployment, incomes below R1 000 per month, the use of candles and paraffin for lighting and heating, and access to outside water only, occurs mainly among black domestic and farm workers.
^2Household Subsistence Level.
Source: author's calculations from statistics provided by the Urban Policy Unit, City of Cape Town: 2003.

4. Contesting the materiality of citizenship in Wallacedene

4.1 Events leading up to the court case

After 1994 Wallacedene expanded at an alarming rate and living conditions deteriorated rapidly. The situation was further exacerbated by the reluctance of the local authority (successively the Western Cape Regional Services Council, the Oostenberg Municipality and finally the City of Cape Town) and the Provincial Administration of the Western Cape (PAWC) to take responsibility for providing adequate services in the area.

The community wrote numerous letters to the local authorities, requesting them to relieve their plight, but to no avail. In desperation, 900 adults and children moved out of the crowded conditions in Wallacedene and occupied land owned by a private landowner. He had the hapless migrants evicted. Ultimately, residents of one of the informal areas in Wallacedene took the local authorities to court in 1999. The application was made to the Cape High Court by and on behalf of Irene Grootboom against the Oostenberg Municipality, the Cape Metropolitan Council, the Premier of the Province of the Western Cape, The National Housing Board and the Government of the Republic of South Africa. The case was referred to the Constitutional Court for a judgement, which is discussed in the ensuing sub-section.

4.2 The constitutional court judgement

The Constitutional Court's judgement in the Grootboom case held that the government is required by the constitution to implement ‘reasonable’ legislative and other programmes to ‘progressively realise’ social and economic rights, including the right to access to water. The Constitution (Republic of South Africa, 1996) also requires (in section 9) that all people be extended ‘equal protection and benefit of the law’ and be extended ‘full and equal enjoyment of all rights and freedoms’. The Constitutional Court held that the national housing programme failed the test of reasonableness, read in the context of the equality clause, because it did not sufficiently address the plight of the poorest and ‘most desperate’ people (para.1), and people in ‘crisis’ situations (due to fire, flood, eviction etc) (para. 2).

4.2.1 Programmes to implement social and economic rights must not exclude the poorest

The Constitutional Court stated that a ‘reasonable’ national programme to implement social and economic rights must not exclude the most resource-poor people from its service provision. In the Court's judgment, a reasonable programme will ‘create conditions for access for people at all economic levels of our society’ and ‘policy must therefore take account of different economic levels in our society’ (para. 35). This means that ‘[a] programme that excludes a significant segment of society cannot be said to be reasonable’ (para. 43). According to the Court, ‘to be reasonable, measures cannot leave out of account the degree and extent of denial of the right they endeavour to realise. Those whose needs are the most urgent and whose ability to enjoy all rights are therefore is most in peril, must not be ignored by the measures aimed at achieving realisation of the right… If the measures, though statistically successful, fail to respond to the needs of the most desperate, they may not pass the test’ (para. 44).

4.2.2 Temporary relief must be provided for people in crisis

Moreover, the Court stipulated that planning measures must expressly provide for temporary forms of relief for people in crisis situations of emergency need and severe deprivation. Accordingly, ‘[t]he programme must make appropriate provision for attention to … crises and to short, medium and long term needs’ (para. 43). Ameliorative programmes must be ‘sufficiently flexible to respond to those in desperate need in our society and to cater appropriately for immediate and short-term requirements’ (para. 56). Thus the Court stated that a programme that ‘leaves out of account the immediate amelioration of the circumstances of those in crisis’ could not meet the test of reasonableness (paras. 64–66). This specifically means that those in ‘desperate need are not to be ignored in the interests of an overall programme focused on medium and long-term objectives’ (para. 66). More importantly, perhaps, ‘[t]he programme must include reasonable measures to provide relief for people who are living in intolerable conditions or crisis situations’ (para. 99) (para. 2(b) of order).

4.2.3 The national government must allocate adequate funds to meet its obligations

Based on the notion of ‘reasonable measures’ the Court stipulated that the national government must monitor constitutional obligations and allocate adequate portions of the national budget to meet the need. It must ‘ensure that appropriate financial and human resources are available’ for the task (para. 39). Hence the Court also ruled that ‘[t]he national sphere of government must assume responsibility for ensuring that laws, policies and programmes and strategies are adequate to meet’ the constitutional obligations (para. 40). This means ‘the national government bears overall responsibility for ensuring that the State complies with [constitutional] obligations’ (para. 66).

Thus ‘[i]t is essential that a reasonable part of the national housing budget be devoted to this (meeting constitutional obligations in respect of the poorest and most desperate)’ (para. 66). In this regard the Court pointed out that ‘[e]ffective implementation requires at least adequate budgetary support by national government’ (para. 68). In short, there must be ‘recognition of the obligation to meet immediate needs in the nationwide programme. Recognition requires it to plan, budget and monitor the fulfilment of immediate needs and the management of crises. This must ensure that a significant number of people in need are afforded relief, although not all of them need receive it immediately’ (para. 68).

4.3 Response to the judgement by the planning authorities

After the Constitutional Court ruled in favour of the 188 families in 2000, the authorities responded by providing rudimentary services. Finally, in May 2001 the City of Cape Town and the Provincial Administration of the Western Cape agreed to take joint responsibility and committed themselves to a joint effort, the Wallacedene Housing Regeneration Project. This project had to be fast-tracked owing to major flooding caused by the Cape winter rains. After the declaration of an emergency situation, which applied also to a section in Wallacedene, the national government also committed further funding to the Flooding Relief Project, which enabled the City of Cape Town to provide temporary relief for the Wallacedene residents.

5. The significance of the Wallacedene court case for citizenship rights

The Grootboom case demonstrates that the South African state, especially at the local level, had routinely failed to uphold the constitutional rights of ordinary citizens within the jurisdiction of a particular local authority. It reveals to what extent public participation in a nominally democratic dispensation, especially by ordinary citizens such as those in Wallacedene, had been stripped of its potential to ensure the de-coupling of race and space in post-apartheid South Africa.

Against this potentially liberatory role of effective and meaningful participation by ordinary people at grassroots level, however, in the name of ‘unity in diversity’ and ‘nation-building’ there appears to be ‘stifling of the imagination’ and ‘freezing of the empowering alternative’ (Butler, 2000). This means that the hegemonic practices of the elite tend to perpetuate the present and stabilise the existing order, significantly reducing the transformative potential of planning programmes such as the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) (ANC, 1994; 2000; Marais, 1998).

Even so, there appear to be signs of hope and determined efforts to resurrect critical-mindedness, underpinned since 1994 by constitutionally driven rights (Bond, 2000). This resurgence of critical civic consciousness perhaps prefigures a deliberate quest for meaningful engagement with the alienating institutional bureaucratic practices that reduce the everyday life of ordinary people to hardship, drudgery and broken dreams (Lawrence, 2000). It is precisely through such re-enchantment with the politics of social change that the self is being re-made, re-formulated and re-imagined as a part of the collective, amid its fragmentary character in the present socio-economic political conjuncture (Laclau, 1990). It is such reflexive praxis that constitutes an empowering fusion of the real with the ideal, as the self is being transformatively appropriated as both constructor of citizenship and a constituent element for transformative action, inextricably linked to deliberative democracy and overall human development (Herwitz, 1996).

6. Conclusion: towards a transformative relationship between development planning and citizenship rights

The Constitutional Court's ruling in the Grootboom case suggests that there is a structural relationship between citizenship and the nature of the everyday experiences of ordinary people (Leca, 1992). Inferring this relationship between the politics of identity (South African citizenship) and the substance of transformative or corrective planning highlights the problem of legitimacy and the communication gap which exists between the ruler and the ruled (Turner, 1986). This weakens and sometimes even severs the organic link between the electorate and the elected official and so impairs the transformative potential of proactive engagement, participatory democracy and assertive citizenship that are grounded in the constitutional provisions (Hudson, 2000).

It was accordingly thought necessary to conduct a diagnosis and prognosis of development planning in Wallacedene (Joint University and Educational Management Trust, 2001). These are discussed in the following sub-sections.

6.1 Diagnosis of development planning in Wallacedene

6.1.1 Lack of emergency funds

An important step that the planning authorities should have taken was to develop a policy to provide emergency relief to severely depressed areas and situations of emergency or potential disaster. Treasury regulations permit local authorities to set aside ‘disaster funds’, and the situation in Wallacedene would qualify as a declared ‘disaster area’, as these are not necessarily areas devastated by the elements of nature.

6.1.2 Lack of sensitivity and humanity on the part of planning bureaucracy

It is tragic that a council planner was heard to say that he did not know why the squatters ‘illegally’ occupied land. Anyone would want to escape from such horrendous circumstances as those in Wallacedene. A planner should know his or her area well enough to allow for pro-active management of emerging problems. Yet this does not seem to have been done in Wallacedene.

6.1.3 Absence of an adequate databank

Development planning presupposes that proper information about the exact extent of the problems would be in the hands of planners and the Council. A single visit to Wallacedene could have shown beyond any doubt that the community was in dire need: formal gathering of information could confirm its extent. The requisite information would include the population size and breakdown, sources of income, levels of poverty and unemployment, number of people per household, the number of children and their ages for purposes of immunisation and education, the means of heating and cooking, the services needed, crime levels, rape and child abuse statistics, the incidence of HIV and Aids. Additional information, for instance on how much land, what housing subsidies and which health services are available, would be required to compile possible responses to the situation. Proper information would determine which areas of intervention are most critical, what they would cost and which are feasible.

6.2 Prognosis: what is to be done in Wallacedene?

According to the provisions of the Local Government Municipal Systems Act no 32 of 2000 (Republic of South Africa, 2000), various critical elements inform development planning, including among others access to land, labour, capital and technology, which significantly affect available health and educational services as well as local economic development within specific communities (compare Harvey, 2001).

6.2.1 Readiness to deal with emergencies

Immediate emergency response is required. Emergency meetings between Council and the community should be held, to arrive at agreements and solicit the commitment of all parties to the proposed interventions in both the short and the long term. Budget priorities may have to be reviewed if there is no specific fund that can be utilised. Some essential emergency actions are:

•	an immunisation campaign to reduce disease among children
•	a mobile clinic twice weekly for a specified period to treat current problems
•	a clean-up operation involving as many of the community as possible, paying the unemployed to work, provide equipment and support mobile toilets and fix broken toilets
•	intensive education programmes on health and hygiene, and fire prevention
•	regular weekly interaction with the community to report, motivate, explain and encourage cooperation.

These measures could have an immediate impact by reducing health risks and partially affirming the dignity and rights of these people.

6.2.2 Medium- to long-term responses

•	Land: There is severe overcrowding in the area. Although the Chief Director stated that the land surrounding the settlement belonged to farmers and was not suitable for housing, no reasons were given why it is unsuitable. Land could be purchased through negotiation with the surrounding farmers and financial support from the department of Land Affairs. Some community members indicated that they want their ancestral land returned, but it was not clear where this is located.
•	Labour: The planning officials should mobilise the council to discard its apathy towards the plight of the poor; provide the staff with the skills and motivation to interact with the community and their leaders; employ community development officers to ensure genuine interaction and consultation with, and empowerment of, the community; commit ward councillors to interact with the community; persuade community members to volunteer their own time and labour where possible; train the community to render and protect some services and ‘contract’ them to do so, in the process generating some short-term income and creating commitment to the programmes.
•	Health services: What are needed are more educational programmes on other alternatives for cooking, training of community health workers and continued support from mobile clinics, condom provision and HIV/Aids education. It is essential to increase or upgrade the provision of basic services: more and better infrastructure is needed in order to provide increased access to water and sanitation. To supplement local funds and subsidise the provision of infrastructure the authorities must try to access grants from such sources as the Consolidated Municipal Investment Programme, Equitable Share, Mvula Trust, the Department of Public Works; they should explore the possibility of creating partnerships with businesses such as engineering companies; and should investigate the possibility of raising loans. To meet the basic Reconstruction and Development Programme standards (water within 200 metres of dwellings) requires increasing the number of standpipes and taps. There are no ideal solutions for sanitation, as each comes with its own disadvantages. Ventilated Improved Pit latrines are cheapest but are of doubtful value in this area with its high water table, unless meticulous de-sludging arrangements can be made. Users will have to be educated on whichever option is chosen, and one the use of sanitary services. Planning authorities must establish regular refuse removal services. It is possible that a waste removal and recycling project could create jobs in the community.
•	Capital: The planning department of the Oostenberg municipality indicated that they had spent about R6,5 million on Wallacedene without getting anything in return. Presumably this means that this community cannot afford to pay and some of its members can be termed indigent. The municipality did not indicate whether they have communicated this information about their indigent population to higher levels of government, or whether they have received their equitable share from the national treasury. They need to form partnerships with the private sector and try to access all the possible funds for improving this area. The Council may consider further cross-subsidisation from their rates revenue. The municipal officials need to work in concert with the welfare authorities, to assist residents to apply for social grants and to establish poverty alleviation projects in the area. Possibly more capital funds would have to be sourced from the municipal budget and other sources. Once land has been acquired the community will need help to access RDP housing grants. New types of housing models need to be explored.
•	Technology: A proper database, for example on a Geographical Information System or GIS, is needed to compile a community profile and to store information about indigence, nutrition levels, health indicators, labour, social indicators, and so on. This will assist the Council to monitor interventions and assess their impact. The technology of sanitation should also be explored so that the services that are most appropriate for the area can be provided. User education programmes are urgently needed along with the new facilities, to help reduce the many health hazards. The living circumstances and the levels of dirt and disease in the community indicate that much needs to be done to empower, motivate and educate the residents. Once planning authorities have been able to create a ‘clean slate’ for the community to start on, it would be the duty of the community to take charge and start to treat their environment more responsibly.
•	Local economic development: Because virtually nothing exists in this community, there will be many opportunities if the Council can access economic development funding – perhaps in partnership with local business and other donors. If the land question is sorted out there is the possibility of training the community to build their own homes, or to start a brick-making project. The basic idea would be to make them self-sufficient through a number of projects and enabling them to be contracted for services needed in the community. This approach will be an incremental approach where gains are made maybe at a small, but steady pace. Hopefully this will generate a sense of dignity and pride in this community of the historically neglected and excluded, transforming ordinary people at the grassroots level into active citizens, directing and shaping their everyday lived experiences, congruent with the principles and ethos of the post-apartheid constitution of creating a caring and sharing society.

6.3 Theoretical perspective

The preceding practical steps to improve the living conditions in places such as Wallacedene suggest several theoretical perspectives on the transformative relationship between citizenship and development planning.

First, culturally sedimented interpretation of the world provides a reflexive elucidation of citizenship in relation to the overall human condition (Dews, 1996; Castells, 1997; Douglas & Friedmann, 1998). Secondly, contingent situations, of triumph or crisis for instance, are often serialised and linked; they function as dynamic, lived encounters and experiences, and frequently operate as markers of citizenship and serve either to empower or disempower people (Jenkins, 1996). Thirdly, the will to knowledge in relation to the overall human condition constitutes the leverage that anchors the individual in everyday life as a mediator of self and planning as a determinant of contending relations of power, interpretation, meaning and positionality in relationship to citizenship in all its variegated forms and dimensions (Held, 1999). Fourthly, the aligning and re-aligning of planning bureaucracies by way of discursive reflexes or positioning implies a continuous redefinition of the human subject in relation to a particular lived reality, as opposed to being a mere reflection or chimera of an objectified instance of citizenship within a specific social formation, or crystallisation of time–space distanciation in the Giddensian analytical framework (Williams, 1999). Fifthly, equilibrium amid flux and fluidity amid social change imbues the human subject with a potentially liberating, perhaps even transcendental, presence in the domain of development planning, where intellectual rigour paves the way for a transformative consciousness and being, perhaps the only sure emblem that warrants endorsement and celebration en route to human solidarity, liberation and fulfillment as thinking, creative, change-inducing citizens across time and space (Harvey, 2000, 2001).

In the South African context of dynamic change, a form of reinvigorated civic awareness and engagement appears to be arising, predicated upon human agency as the provenance of the realignment of the dominant or contending relations of power (Turner, 1993). This derived from, and remains in opposition to, the dysfunctionality of individualism which, especially in the years since the first democratic elections in 1994, resulted in the disintegration of social cohesion in various communities, generating a whole range of pathologies (Brenner, 2001). Hence there is a need for reflexive modernisation, not commodified existence but social relations which enhance meaning, as against the atomisation and functional division of labour which produces structural displacement and anomie, and undermines the foundations of self-understanding and creative action, which are the basis of a reflexive citizenship associated with a productive and meaningful everyday life (Berger & Luckmann, 1966). This means, among other interpretations, that neither the ethnological ‘othering’ of citizens who may differ as regards place of residence or skills, nor the anthropologising of differences in language or belief systems, constitutes or offers the requisite structural leverage for transformative development planning (compare Bekker et al., 2000).

Interactive disclosure of social pathologies and effective deployment of human potential within and across territorially assigned groups are now essential, to expedite despatialisation and eliminate ethnic-cum-racial enclaves within the geographical order of post-apartheid South Africa (Castells, 2000c). ‘The prison theory of identity knows little of the riches which the other offers to itself and its transformation into otherness’ (Beck, 1996: 63). Pursued in this way, the stereotypes of otherness and racial prejudice would be subordinated to the panoptic gaze and control of state functionaries within the domain of development planning. Structural re-positioning and spatial realignment of employment opportunities, industrial development, housing services and so forth will make it clear that the systems for representing citizens need radical questioning, as does too the current racial-cum-ethnic fragmentation and categorisation of the population into myriads of types and sub-types that can be manipulated at the whims and caprices of the dominant ideologues and functionaries within a particular political regime (Beck, 2000). The construction of the silent subject must therefore be subjected to erasure as a dialectical imperative en route to the empowerment of the collective ‘other’, the marginalised (Lacan, 1977; Derrida, 1982; Craib, 1997).

Even so, the dynamics of structural erasure presuppose the presence of a competing consciousness as the prelude to an alternative ‘order of things’, an alternative way of naming, interpellating and understanding the human subject and the overall human condition (Castro, 2000; Kagarlitsky, 2001). Fresh, alternative conceptualisations of citizenship as being a constituent and active part of a particular social formation thus become a determining force within the discursive or structural ordering of the existing and emerging social relations of power; and a prerequisite for transforming unequal relations of power in society at large (Carusi, 1996). The authorial legitimation of the dominant texts, contexts and pretexts is accordingly problematised and constitutes a veritable arena of ideological contestation (Hahlweg, 1996). Conceptual fissures so created proffer the opportunity for the consideration of other narratives, alternative ways of understanding and presenting citizenship as a collective and transformative being in the present, eternally midway between the past and future, seemingly located along an infinite space–time continuum where points of entry and exit for particular individuals or groups are neither pre-determined nor endlessly deferred (Giddens, 1998, 1999, 2000). Citizenship in such a space–time relation, therefore, constitutes and represents ideally the opportunity for decisive action (Castells, 2000b). And in the quest to secure the survival of humans on earth, radical reflection and the deepening of critical consciousness become prerequisites for transformative action (Burket & Hart-Landsberg, 2000).

However, it may not be possible to realise one's human potential to make a meaningful contribution to social change because citizenship is circumscribed, both spatially and juridically. This in turn is usually the outcome of convention and chauvinistic political frameworks (Lenta, 2000). Thus, for example, identity often becomes a totalising master concept and legitimates a shallow if not actually spurious patriotism which, in an age of aggressive globalisation, functions largely as a type of regressive activism, in contradistinction to being the sound basis of an engaged, assertive and critically oriented citizenship. Accordingly, deliberative democratic practices by the citizenry appear to be discouraged or even condemned in the name of a simplistic, reified, metaphysical and essentialist discourse of ‘unity in diversity’ and ‘nation-building’ (Dubow, 1994). Still, as borne out by the Grootboom case, discursive engagement with the topical issues signals emancipatory hope amid palpable misery, and continued aspiration despite profound disappointment with the record of elected officials in high places. Such is the tapestry of interrelated, materially driven contestations of the operational meaning of citizenship and development planning, where organic and civic interconnectedness of being and context becomes a route for understanding socio-political identity and overall human progress and development (Derrida, 1982; Laclau, 1977).

Conceptualised in such self-reflexive terms, inclusive citizenship in post-apartheid South Africa, as was borne out by the everyday life experiences of ordinary people in Wallacedene, depends largely on the form, substance and overall dimensions of the power relations underlying the acknowledgement and promotion of human rights, development and social change. Indeed, as stated by the Constitutional Court: ‘[The] foundational values of the [South African] constitutional order will have a ‘hollow ring’ if the principles articulated in Grootboom are not integrated into all aspects of social policy’ (Chaskalson, 2000).

6.4 Specific recommendations for translating constitutional principles into practice

The Grootboom case suggests a number of ways of facilitating the process of transformation in South Africa (compare Williams, 1999) and ensuring that it is maintained:

•	effective territorial coordination of all civil services, planning authorities and institutions intervening in the various aspects of change, including that of the physical environment
•	integrated policies for particular spatial units; overcoming the simplistic practice of preparing projects according to immediate, ad hoc concerns and without a long-term vision of sustainable development
•	abandoning the linear approach of space determinism and inculcating an overall concern for people and their needs to replace the mechanistic deployment of projects of spatial intervention
•	including historically neglected groups; hence the need for an effective system for gathering and managing information
•	enriching the means through which policies are exercised, adding new measures and selecting those which are more appropriate to tackle existing problems
•	giving a cyclic character to planning, and strengthening existing cyclical elements, so that there is continuity, evaluation, and eventually a redirection of policies to more appropriate objectives
•	instituting reforms in the machinery for planning and social policy, one of whose primary targets must be to create an efficient bureaucracy that can deal with these issues. With a view to deepening and sustaining the process of transforming South African society, the understanding of what management involves must be broadened from managing people, to include, most importantly, the management of time, skills, abilities, potential and aspirations in relation to specific tasks, exercises, projects and programmes. Intersectoral and multidisciplinary networking, liaison and communication are essential elements in defining the form and substance of development planning (Castells, 2000a).

Thus in order to expedite the transformation of planning as a regulatory framework of official intervention in the ‘public domain’ (compare e.g. Williams, 2000), as recognised by the Municipal Systems Act No 32 of 2000, it will be necessary to investigate

•	particular governing strategies and structural features that shape decision-making at local level
•	the public, private, non-local agencies and interest groups which participate in development coalitions or regimes and the means by which they are brought together
•	intergovernmental relations and the effects they have on local institutional structures
•	the ways in which institutional structures affect, but do not determine, the behaviour of public officials and citizenry
•	the way in which wider economic forces, including locational criteria, set the context for strategic decision-making at the local level
•	policy agendas, occupational and employment structures and local patterns of interest mobilisation
•	place-boundedness and place-consciousness of public–private relations
•	the interrelationship between, and the effects of, local economic and administrative restructuring within a citizen-driven framework for development planning.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

John J Williams

Adjunct Professor, Department of Geography and Environmental Science, University of Fort Hare. Support for this work was provided by the Development Research Centre on Citizenship, Participation and Accountability, a research network coordinated in the United Kingdom by the Institute of Development Studies (IDS); in Bangladesh by the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS), in Brazil by the Centro Brasileiro de Análise e Planejamento (CEBRAP), in India by the Society for Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA), in Mexico by the Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (IIS-UNAM), in Nigeria by the Theatre for Development Centre of Ahmadu Bello University (TFDC) and in South Africa by the Centre for Southern African Studies/School of Government of the University of the Western Cape (UWC). Funding was received from the UK Department for International Development. The support is much appreciated.