Housing for the nation, the city and the household: competing rationalities as a constraint to reform?

Abstract

The South African housing programme is acclaimed internationally and has achieved important successes since its inception in 1994. However, there are also concerns about its negative impacts. The ambiguity of this achievement is underlined when the programme is viewed from different perspectives. To consider the complex picture of positive and negative outcomes, this paper takes the viewpoints of the nation, the city and the household and reveals a range of problems that suggest the need to reform the housing programme. It then uses these three viewpoints to reveal the constraints that hold back reform. The paper argues that it is necessary to understand the ‘competing rationalities’ reflected in the three viewpoints. Although this is not the only factor holding back fundamental transformation, recognising it does help to explain the persistence of significant problems in the housing programme.

Keywords:

• South Africa
• housing programme
• constraints to reform
• reconstruction and development programme projects

1. INTRODUCTION: SUCCESSES AND FAILURES

The post-1994 South African housing programme has had a distinctly mixed success. This chequered track record suggests the need for a fundamental rethink of at least one key element of housing policy and practice; namely, mass delivery through the capital subsidy scheme. The framework used in this paper – looking at the situation from three different viewpoints – shows up not only the varied interpretations that have been made of the situation to date but also a range of constraints that are holding back a more fundamental review. The paper argues that acknowledging the multiple, and at times competing, interpretations of the situation can help explain both its inherent complexity and the lack of clarity about what directions the programme might take next. The concept of ‘competing rationalities’ is applied, most immediately from literature in urban planning, to shed light on the situation and to explain why some key elements of the South African housing programme persist, in the face of some significant criticism.

The analytical framework used in the paper structures the range of commentary on the basis of the observable impact – or outcome – of the housing programme from three viewpoints, those of the nation, the city and the household (Charlton et al., 2003). Admittedly this approach has limitations – for example, in suggesting commonality of experience or position among highly diverse constituents such as a heterogeneous cluster of beneficiaries, defined here as a ‘household’. However, this framework is a useful device for highlighting the significance of these three different perspectives on the housing programme.

The paper focuses in particular on the main feature of the housing programme, namely ‘greenfields’ mass delivery for ownership, dubbed the ‘RDP’ (reconstruction and development programme) projects, within large urban areas. It does not do justice to the numerically small, but significant, other features, such as social housing. These features merit a study of their own.

The RDP projects make use of a once-off capital subsidy from the state to deliver freehold ownership of a house on a serviced site. By March 2006 more than 1.9 million houses had been built or were under construction, most of them RDP-type houses (Republic of South Africa [RSA], 2006). Considerable financial resources – more than R24 billion – were used for the National Housing Subsidy Programme between 1994 and 2003 (RSA, 2003a). The Minister of Housing from 1995 to 2003, Sankie Mthembe Mahanyele, received a UN-Habitat award in October 2003 ‘for improving the housing condition of six million South Africans during her term of office’ (BuaNews, 2003). The United Nations confirmed that ‘South Africa's record of providing houses to the poor is unprecedented in the history of housing delivery throughout the world’ (BuaNews, 2003). Nevertheless, while its significance is unquestioned, the nature of the housing programme's impact is more opaque.

2. OBJECTIVES AND OUTCOMES OF THE HOUSING PROGRAMME

The programme's outcomes need to be considered in relation to its diverse and complex objectives, conveyed over the years both explicitly and implicitly. A selection of the main objectives is briefly noted below, viewed from the relative perspectives of the nation, the city and the household.

2.1 Multiple objectives of the nation, the city and the household

Although Oelofse (2003) argues that the South African housing policy was founded on the RDP's basic needs approach, which emphasises providing the poor with shelter and public services, the programme can be seen to have objectives that go far beyond this.

From a national perspective, at least five other related objectives are discernable. First, an important aim has been to demonstrate delivery to an expectant post-democracy constituency. Housing featured as a key issue in the RDP document, the African National Congress (ANC) Government's manifesto for a post-apartheid South Africa (RSA, 1994; interview with Matthew Nell, chairperson of the Coordinating Committee of the National Housing Forum and housing practitioner, August 2004, cited in Charlton & Kihato, 2006). The policy adopted in 1994, it is argued, was in part shaped by the imperative to deliver. Violence related to urban living conditions contributed to the formation of the National Housing Forum (NHF) policy negotiating body in 1992 (Rust, 1996). These conditions fuelled an approach that favoured short-term implementation feasibility, orientating policy deliberations towards ‘what worked in delivery terms’ (interview with D Smit, consultant to the NHF and housing practitioner, August 2004, cited in Charlton & Kihato, 2006:271), or the ‘preoccupation with delivery’ (Pottie, 2003:136). So while the housing programme took a broad view of residential environments (National Department of Housing [NDoH], 2000), the national housing goal focused on delivery, aiming ‘to increase housing delivery on a sustainable basis to a peak level of 350 000 units per annum until the housing backlog is overcome’ (NDoH, 2000:5).

Second, housing is also intended to make a contribution to the economy. The Housing Code notes that housing practices should also ‘reinforce the wider economic impact and benefits derived from effective and adequate housing provision in the domestic economy’ (NDoH, 2000:11). The housing programme is intended to help mobilise additional resources: ‘Government housing policy and strategy is essentially directed at utilising limited State resources in order to achieve maximum gearing of such efforts and resources with non-state investment and delivery’ (NDoH, 2000:92). This economic benefit is anticipated not only at a macro level but also within households, with the expectation that housing will be an asset; as the Department says, ‘our housing products must have a market value’ (NDoH, 2000:15).

Third, and related to this, government discourse in recent years has flagged the intention that housing should contribute to poverty alleviation (Charlton & Kihato, 2006). The government's Ten-Year Review includes housing in the ‘programmes to alleviate poverty [that] have brought improvement in the lives of millions’ (RSA 2003b:4). Redistribution is also an aim:

The housing programme has a positive influence on the alleviation of poverty as well as contributing to the redistribution of wealth. The home … may serve as collateral for credit for home improvements or other purposes such as the development of small businesses. (NDoH, 2000:89)

Fourth, in line with World Bank thinking in the 1990s, the South African housing policy also aims to ‘enable housing markets to work’ (Jones & Datta, 2000). The Housing Code notes:

The State has insufficient resources to meet the needs of the homeless on its own … The challenge is achieving a balance between State intervention (with a focus on the poorest who operate on the fringes of the formal market) and the effective functioning of the housing market as a whole. (NDoH, 2000:16)

Fifth, the housing programme is expected to contribute to the development of what might be termed ‘urban citizenship’, with new communities of home owners ‘helping to develop a democratic and integrated society’ (Rust, 2003:8). The Department states that ‘Government, at each of its three spheres of operation, is committed to a South Africa in which every person has adequate housing in a manner that supports their development as a functioning member of society’ (NDoH, 2000:94).

In national terms, therefore, the objectives of the housing programme include demonstrating delivery, contributing to economic performance and assisting with poverty alleviation. There are both intersections and points of divergence between these and the city-level objectives of the housing programme.

At the scale of the city, the aims similarly focus on delivery, but also include contributing to spatial reconfiguration and creating well-managed places of opportunity. First, local representative politics in the form of elected councillors and their constituencies give immediacy and a local focus to the national delivery imperative. Second, the housing programme is viewed as intervening in the apartheid spatial legacy, to help create spatially and socially integrated settlements, with a focus on overcoming segregation, fragmentation and inequality in the city (NDoH, 2000). Third, as a contribution to the management of urban areas, housing delivery provides a recognised billing address that helps align urban dwellers with the administration of the urban system.

Within cities, several household-level objectives can be discerned. The housing product – made up of land, shelter and services – is intended to be effective and affordable and to form the basis for an equitable standard of living (NDoH, 2000). Beneficiaries should be able to live and work in safety and peace, with access to economic opportunities and social amenities, and security of tenure (NDoH, 2000). With the programme's focus being (although not exclusively) on the poor and previously disadvantaged (NDoH, 2000), the former Minister of Housing, Brigit Mabandla, noted that it ‘is one of the few state interventions which places a physical asset directly in the hands of households living in conditions of poverty’ (Mabandla, 2003:6). Further objectives are evident in the National Housing Code, including ‘process’ concerns with respect to participation, people-centredness, skills transfer and economic empowerment (NDoH, 2000).

In summary, therefore, the objectives of the housing programme are wide ranging. The main emphasis is on visible delivery and provision of shelter, but the objectives also include urban spatial reforms, making an impact on household poverty and creating assets. The three perspectives this paper takes make it clear that some objectives coincide and appear to reinforce each other (such as the emphasis on delivery) while others are potentially contradictory.

2.2 Varied outcomes for the nation, the city and the household

Just as the objectives noted above reflect diversity, so the outcomes of the housing programme have been similarly varied. From a national perspective the housing programme has achieved unprecedented delivery at scale, representing a visible redistribution of resources to the poor. It is claimed that in the period 1994–2003 the programme ‘has delivered more subsidised houses than any other country in the world’ (Rust, 2003:5). In 2003 this represented an addition of 17 per cent to the total national housing stock (NDoH, 2003a). The political significance of this should not be underestimated. However, the assumption that housing delivery at scale helps reduce backlogs in a direct and simply quantifiable manner is questionable (Charlton et al., 2003).

Less successful in its realisation has been the idea that the property asset delivered through the programme should have both an exchange and a use value. Anecdotally at least, there have been many indications that houses are being sold for less than their investment cost (Tomlinson, 1999; Metro Housing, 2000; Huchzermeyer, 2003; Rust, 2003). While the evidence of a secondary market that this points to can be welcomed, of major concern is the disposal of the asset at less than the cost of production. While a 2003 report on the Housing Subsidy Scheme noted that ‘perceived market values of properties are generally slightly less than the subsidy amounts’ (Public Service Commission [PSC], 2003a:106), others have noted that sale prices are considerably below government subsidy amounts (see e.g. Boaden & Karam, 2000 cited in Huchzermeyer, 2003; Turok, 2001; Baumann, 2003), particularly when other state contributions such as bulk service grants are added to the equation. This is of concern to the state: ‘What beneficiaries perceive to be the market value of their subsidised houses is an important indicator of the potential long term macroeconomic effect of the Housing Subsidy Scheme’ (PSC, 2003a:106). Nevertheless, in the Ten-Year Review conducted by government in 2003, housing is listed in the category of ‘boosting ownership of assets and access to opportunities’ (RSA, 2003b:4).

The Ten-Year Review also notes that housing is considered to be one of the ‘lead programmes relating to the elimination of asset capital poverty’ (RSA, 2003a:25). However, despite this claim, the contribution of the housing programme to objectives of poverty alleviation is not clear. Baumann (2003) suggests that in some instances the policy may even increase poverty and vulnerability. Reasons include the cost of formal services and the costs associated with housing poorly located relative to other facilities of the city.

Gearing of other sources of finance has been more limited than expected, with the private sector reluctant to invest in this arena owing to a range of perceived risks (NDoH, 2000). The Housing Code comments that ‘access by the poor to housing credit has been limited for a range of reasons beyond affordability’ (NDoH, 2000:32). Smit contends that there does not seem to be a lack of mortgage lending in South Africa; ‘rather, it is the mortgage loan design that is inappropriate for low-income households and formal financial institutions are unable to work with low-income borrowers’ (Smit 2003:174). Encouraging further loan products from financial institutions has in fact been criticised since many people have not been in a position to access formal financial products (Tomlinson, 1999; Jones & Datta, 2000).

Jones and Datta question whether the ‘enabling’ strategy adopted in South Africa in 1994 can in fact ‘be squared with a government commitment to the alleviation of poverty and inequality’ (2000:411). They suggest that there should be a more explicit engagement with the interventions necessary for alleviating poverty and inequality, in addition to removing market barriers.

However, on a more positive note, the programme can be said to have fostered an awareness of national belonging through the sense of pride and dignity home ownership engenders (Zack & Charlton, 2003).

To sum up, from a national perspective the housing programme has achieved impressive scale delivery, but accompanied by concerns about the exchange value of the asset created. Its contribution to poverty alleviation is not well understood, and the gearing of other resources has not lived up to expectations. However, the programme appears to have given beneficiaries a degree of self-esteem, strengthening in turn an aspect of national pride.

At the scale of the city, a positive outcome has been the direct demonstration of delivery to political constituencies. Some years ago it was noted that ‘many politicians … argued that housing should be part of their remit as a means to reverse the illegitimacy of local government through the notion of “developmental local government”’(Parnell & Pieterse, 1998 cited in Jones & Datta, 2000:402). The creation of new housing stock and its allocation has been significant in local politics.

However, some of the impacts of housing delivery on the city are considered to have been negative. In many instances, housing projects represent a financial burden to municipalities with respect to maintenance and operating costs (Turok, 2001; Huchzermeyer, 2003; PSC, 2003a). The location of many low-income housing developments, the scale of these new neighbourhoods, the limited nature of the initial investment in them and the poverty of their inhabitants imply a large maintenance and management task for local authorities. Tomlinson noted in 1999 that ‘while interviews with local government housing implementers revealed a willingness, if not an eagerness, to provide low-cost housing, the councils were hesitating, as they began considering its likely impact on their financial health’ (1999:291). Outside the big urban centres, it appears there is a major shortage of government capacity to provide and maintain services (PSC, 2003a).

In addition, far from contributing to spatial restructuring, a number of projects located on cheap land on the urban fringes appear instead to contribute to fragmented, inefficient urban form, and to consist of monofunctional neighbourhoods that are not conducive to future investment (Charlton et al., 2003). Huchzermeyer goes so far as to say ‘there is growing concern that government subsidised low-income housing delivery in post-apartheid South Africa has perpetuated urban segregation’ (2003:115).

The extent to which housing projects have contributed to the creation of paying ‘local citizens’, committed to the official functioning of an urban area, is unclear. There is a real concern that housing projects by and large – although with notable exceptions – represent peripheral ‘seas of poverty’. The Housing Subsidy Scheme report noted that:

poorly resourced small town municipalities face up to 80 or 90 per cent default on rates or services but appear not to have the means, or the national or provincial support, to be able to put in place appropriate indigent policies … [this affects] the social and economic viability not just of the housing projects but also of these small municipalities. (PSC, 2003a:101)

In several municipalities, the introduction in recent years of indigent policies for rates and service payments has attempted to deal with these concerns, albeit with some controversy over how adequate they are for sustaining an average household.

At the scale of the city, therefore, housing delivery has been significant politically, but has expanded local government responsibilities for maintenance and management without the positive spin-off of an increase in the rates base, at least in the short term.

With respect to households – the people – it appears that receiving subsidised houses has generally improved lives, at least with respect to shelter, security of tenure, and access to services (Charlton et al., 2003; PSC, 2003a). In addition, the pride and dignity that many people associate with receiving a subsidised house appears to be highly significant (see, e.g., Zack & Charlton, 2003). This is despite the widespread perception that, at least in the first decade of housing delivery, top structures were of poor quality (see, e.g., PSC, 2003b; Rust, 2003; Zack & Charlton, 2003). It is noted that poor quality construction not only undermines ‘the benefit received by the beneficiary, [but] also undermines government's plan for a normalised, vibrant housing market in which dwelling units are bought and sold among subsidised beneficiaries’ (NDoH, 2000:15).

Although the receipt of a subsidised house generally means an improvement in basic living conditions, it is not clear that it provides a platform for the further development of or improvement of peoples’ lives (Charlton et al., 2003). For some, it has added a direct financial burden through the cost of services and transport and the lack of opportunity to tap into the advantages of the wider urban area, as noted above. In general, housing delivery has little clear connection with, and does not actively foster, strategies for income generation. However, it is also clear that many people benefiting from the housing programme have come from a fairly ‘low base’ (Zack & Charlton, 2003:50) and, while many aspects of the housing programme do not live up to the expectations of the housing and planning professions, it is not clear that recipients are necessarily worse off than before.

The sale or sub-letting of state housing by some beneficiaries noted above, at times shortly after taking occupation and for less than the cost of delivery, suggests some mismatch between product and needs. Importantly, much housing provision for the poor remains outside the state's housing programme, in extra-legal accommodation in informal settlements, backyard rooms, warehouses and flats (Charlton et al., 2003). This is symptomatic of the programme struggling to meet diverse needs (Tomlinson, 2002; Rust, 2003), and of it being unable to significantly reduce backlog (PSC, 2003a). In many cases, the impacts and consequences of these various living arrangements are most keenly experienced by local authority departments charged with managing day-to-day city life – such as health, and fire and safety officials – rather than those directly tasked with the housing programme.

With respect to the people, therefore, it appears that many recipients of the housing have benefited from an improvement in shelter, but may either have been adversely affected by the costs of formal living or not been able to use their housing to noticeably improve their life circumstances. A significant number of people remain housed outside the state's programme.

2.3 Objectives and outcomes: an uneven track record

Overall, therefore, this summary of the intentions and realisations of the housing programme reveals a mixed picture with respect to positive and negative impacts, with, at all scales of reference, both encouraging and disappointing aspects. There is a range of reasons for the weaknesses mentioned, including the absence of substantial housing policy refinement and review in the mid-1990s (see e.g. Charlton & Kihato, 2006); the absence of broader urban planning policies to shift the emphasis from the delivery of houses to a housing strategy more firmly located within wider spatial and other transformation concerns (Crankshaw & Parnell, 1996); and fundamental shifts in the context and socio-economic environment from what was predicted in the early 1990s. A further contributing factor is the mismatch between intentions and available tools. Rust argues that:

while government's intervention is limited to the delivery of subsidised housing units, the expectations for its intervention are far broader, including issues such as beneficiary empowerment, the growth of the housing market, and the establishment of communities – all outcomes for which no policy mechanism or facilitative instrument exists. (2003:18)

A number of factors therefore underpin the mixture of important achievements and significant failures. It is beyond the scope of this paper to do more than briefly refer to these points, as the discussion now turns to the constraints inhibiting major reform.

3. CONSTRAINTS TO REFORM

The array of negative as well as positive features of the housing programme, coupled with an understanding of the shifts in context over the past 13 years, suggests the need for a reorientation of the programme. In particular, four objectives of the housing programme that have met with only limited success are a cause for concern: to deliver an asset with a robust exchange value, to have a decisive impact on poverty, to aid in spatial reconfiguration, and to contribute to local government sustainability.

The national state has been active in various forms of self-evaluation and reflection in recent years (e.g. the Ten-Year Review). Specifically within the housing terrain, new areas of emphasis have emerged since about 2000. These include discourse on the notion of sustainable human settlements, and a concern with quality as well as quantity. In addition, in 2004 a new housing document informally known as ‘Breaking New Ground’ (BNG) was approved by Cabinet. Intended as a comprehensive plan ‘for the development of sustainable human settlements in the next five years’ (NDoH, 2004:2), BNG introduced a number of new areas of focus to the housing programme. These included upgrading informal settlements, extending subsidy assistance to mortgage seekers in the ‘grey gap’ of household incomes from R3500 to R7000, and securing well-located land for the poor. While some of these initiatives were accompanied by new tools and instruments, others merely highlighted the need for more research in order to pursue initiatives.

There are mixed opinions about the extent of policy shift BNG represents. Some cite it as a ‘radical departure’ from previous policy (Isandla Institute, 2004) and as representing ‘fundamental rethinking … of the approach to housing delivery’ (Eliot, 2006). Others contend that the approach contained in BNG, while signalling shifts in emphasis, does not fundamentally break with the past policy (Charlton & Kihato, 2006). In particular, the lack of clarity in ‘addressing key weakness’ in existing policy is cited. A further problem is that key indicators of performance appear to remain largely quantitative, focused on numbers of houses produced and budgets spent, despite the programme's striving for broader outcomes such as holistic comprehensive sustainable human settlements (Charlton & Kihato, 2006).

This paper contends that the uneven track record of the housing programme suggests the need for a more fundamental review of the programme than has been done to date. However, it is clear that there are a number of constraints preventing this. Discussion of these can be organised as above, using the prism of the nation, the city and the household. At a national level the programme has a long way to run in terms of numbers of people still to receive the benefit, and it remains politically important in demonstrating delivery to the poor. The significance of this delivery momentum may have been anticipated at the inception of the programme, and its strategic importance – in terms of contributing to political stability and credibility – overruled qualms about the programme's likely spatial weaknesses and failures. The focus on delivery, it is argued – reinforced by political developments at the time – ‘sidetracked deliberations at the NHF away from critical debates on the spatial impact of capital subsidies and urban restructuring, which were never resolved’ (Adler & Oelofse, 1996 cited in Charlton & Kihato, 2006:272; Lalloo, 1999 cited in Huchzermeyer, 2001).

The continued imperative for rapid delivery, emphasised by the current Minister (see e.g. Sisulu, 2004, 2006), is at variance with the need for a more careful, considered implementation programme to overcome the identified shortcomings of the past. In the early 2000s indications were that the rate of delivery had been slowing (see e.g. Sisulu, 2004) from a delivery peak of 323 000 units achieved during 1998 (NDoH, 2003b). While there are a variety of reasons for this (see e.g. Jones & Datta, 2000; Charlton et al., 2003), this may be, at least in part, the result of attempts to improve the outcome. For example, a focus on better located land, in more efficient urban localities and embedded within broader planning initiatives, is generally slower to secure and more costly in the short term. In the meantime, however, the housing backlog grows, and is estimated to be larger than in 1994, despite the large volume of delivery in the intervening years. A variety of explanations can be put forward for this paradox, including the increase in the number of households, apparently due to household fragmentation (South African Cities Network, 2004), and the phenomenon of the duplication of housing circumstances – or what is termed multi-nodal households (FinMark Trust, 2004). The large backlog inevitably adds to the pressure for rapid delivery, whilst the tension between this and the aim of building quality human settlements remains largely unacknowledged, constraining attempts to reconceptualise initiatives.

With regard to issues that affect the city, a major constraint to reconceptualising the housing programme remains ‘the land issue’. Huchzermeyer asks why ‘segregated dormitory development in South Africa [has] prevailed since 1994’ (2003:128). Among other things, there are entrenched interests attached to existing patterns of property ownership (Huchzermeyer, 2003; citing also Bremner, 2000). This is a key factor that must be engaged with in attempts to alter the negative effects of the housing programme on cities (see e.g. Berrisford, 1999). As Pieterse notes: ‘policy formulation and implementation tend to steer clear of the structural forces and associated interests that reproduce segregation and fragmentation’ (2003:123). Attempts to tackle these entrenched interests have generally either had limited success – for example, Gauteng's Rapid Land Development Programme, described in Bremner (2000) – or led to protracted battles (e.g. Gauteng's Cosmo City project). Exceptions to this general trend can be found in, inter alia, localised infill development evident in places like Durban and Pietermaritzburg, and in highly significant urban renewal projects such as Cato Manor (see e.g. Robinson et al., 2003).

Seemingly, excessive optimism has been vested in the potential of institutions and processes to overcome negative patterns of development. Assumptions that the Integrated Development Planning processes undertaken by each municipality will overcome unintended housing development patterns so far appear misguided. For various reasons, Integrated Development Planning processes to date have tended to be reactive to proposed housing projects, and have also not been able to bridge sectoral and institutional divides to the extent that was initially anticipated (see Harrison, 2006b).

A further constraint is that key issues pertaining to the nature and trajectory of cities, and those who live in them, remain inadequately debated in housing circles. An example is the issue of informal housing. Marx notes that ‘housing policy is regarded as the primary mechanism for addressing the phenomenon of informal settlements because the assumption is that informal settlements emerge as a result of a lack of housing’ (2003:303). There is a prevailing and persistent conviction that the informality and inadequate living conditions – a major contributor to ‘the backlog’ – can be overcome with a mass roll-out of rational, technical solutions. However, there is still only limited understanding of the underlying reasons for these housing conditions. This affects the extent to which the housing programme can provide recipients with a platform for further life advancement.

Another factor that confuses the housing issue is the notion of consensual politics. The idea of consensus enjoys a status that at times reflects a lack of engagement with the reality of competing agendas and the stark tradeoffs that must be made in, for example, tackling the spatial and location challenges of housing. In addition, there exists a largely uncritical assumption that the (vague and poorly defined) concept of community participation can overcome most problems – for further on this see, for example, Pieterse's (2003) discussion of the Department of Housing's Urban Development Framework.

Another constraint is that the very direct relationship between housing and transportation policies is rarely sufficiently foregrounded in housing circles. It can be baldly stated that housing in poor locations ‘functioned’ under apartheid to the extent that it did partly because of subsidised transport (Napier & Ntombela, 2006). Its ability to serve peoples’ needs in the current context of reduced transport subsidies and services must be questioned. Despite some commentaries on this matter (see e.g. Behrens & Wilkinson, 2003), housing discussions lack a clear focus on the critical relationship between these two interventions.

With regard to household-level issues that constrain a rethink, the extent or nature of popular discontent with the status quo is not clear. Where criticisms are expressed, they often focus on the size or quality of top structures (e.g. an interview with South African National Civics Organisation on SAfm radio, Friday 3 September 2004). In part, the limited focus of critique may be related to the sense of entitlement fostered by the delivery to date – the entitlement of those who have not yet received a house. Huchzermeyer observes that:

In South Africa, the prospect of acquiring an individual household-based asset – a standardised house with freehold title – undermines grassroots demands for a meaningful urban land reform … Alternative solutions developed by community organisations … have lost support when individual households are made aware of their once-off entitlement to ownership of a standardised house. (2002, cited in Huchzermeyer 2003:129, 130)

In addition, there are indications of the sentiment that ‘anything is better than nothing’ and that a free gift should not be questioned. For example, in focus group discussions in early 2003, beneficiaries were asked how much choice people had had – of project, of house, of site. A number of respondents did not seem to think this was a valid question: ‘beggars can't be choosers’ (Zack & Charlton, 2003). There are, however, indications of growing concerns – such as the Diepsloot relocation protests in 2005, and the protests of Abahlali baseMjondolo, a Durban-based organisation of informal settlement dwellers, which has engaged with a range of issues such as relocations to housing projects considered to be badly located. The extent to which criticism is directed at the underlying nature of the housing programme is, however, unclear.

Constraints inhibiting significant reform therefore include the very complexity of the housing picture demonstrated here – the mixed nature of the track record to date, and the way the programme is successful in certain respects despite continuing problems. Expectations of entitlement among those who have not yet benefited are another important factor. Other restrictions include the limited nature of debate about important issues that affect the way housing functions, such as transport and livelihood strategies. Target-driven delivery and competing but unacknowledged political imperatives and expectations also constrain significant reform.

4. THE PRISM OF COMPETING RATIONALITIES

As has been shown above, the effectiveness of the South African housing programme can be conceptualised very differently when considered from different viewpoints. For example, the political importance of scale delivery from a national state perspective can be contrasted with the concerns that officials in local authorities may have about the maintenance implications of mass housing projects. This paper has thus far emphasised different ‘logics’ or ‘reasonings’ at play in these views. At times these rationalities are clearly identifiable and overt, and at other times they are hidden, opaque and perhaps can only be understood with hindsight.

This notion of competing rationalities is useful for illuminating the complexities and contradictions of the programme, and further useful for understanding the basis for some of these. In a different context – that of environmental impact assessment practices – Richardson (2005) demonstrates how reason, or rationality, can be seen to be constructed through the way in which certain aspects of knowledge are assigned validity. Drawing on the work of Foucault (1979) , he highlights the way our understanding of contexts (and therefore our responses or interventions) is constructed through the ‘value’ ascribed to types of knowledge, shaped through power relations. Richardson calls on us to examine the way certain practices ‘reproduce certain modes of thought … and institutionalise the prejudices which are at their heart’ (2005:346). In this way he raises awareness of how ‘practices of government … legitimise certain forms of knowledge whilst marginalising or excluding others’ (Robinson 2005:347). Robinson concludes that ‘the construction of Environment Assessment methodologies becomes a moment where certain knowledges get framed as being significant, as others are sidelined or ignored (this is the construction of rationality)’ (2005:347).

Closer to the housing field, Watson (2003) uses the case of the upgrading of a settlement in Crossroads in Cape Town to reveal how deep the different motivations and understandings can be among actors in a development situation. She notes that ‘planners and other agents of intervention continue to make assumptions about the value, beliefs, or rationalities of those for (or with) whom they plan, which frequently do not hold’ (Watson 2003:404). In a related vein, Harrison – describing urban planning interventions in the context of Johannesburg – points to the difficulties of ‘influencing the outcomes of urban processes … that are … elusive and unpredictable … shaped at the intersection of multiple rationalities’; planners and policy-makers, he contends, can be confused and frustrated ‘as planned interventions, more often than not, have outcomes that are unintended, unexpected and, even, quite contrary to original designs’ (Harrison 2006a:328).

These insights from writings in urban planning resonate with the notion of competing rationalities in low-income housing in South Africa. The outcomes of housing delivery suggest in part that the rationalities of state policies and of ‘ordinary people’ may not be well aligned. In addition, differing rationalities are evident within the state. Acknowledging the existence of these different perspectives helps explain impasses and inertia.

The extent to which thinking in urban planning can provide useful future direction in this regard, is, however, less clear. Some strands of planning theory direct us towards a focus on process – deliberation and communication. Termed ‘proceduralist’ approaches by Harrison, these ideas in planning ‘focus on what is required in terms of process to reach just outcomes rather than on what the substantive content of just outcomes might be’ (2006a:321).

These ideas may be usefully applied in localised development contexts, and in some form they have in fact been part of housing discourse, and to a lesser extent housing practice, in South Africa for some time through approaches such as ‘social compacts’ and ‘community participation’. The effectiveness and outcomes of these experiences are, however, variable and contested (see e.g. Khan, 2003b; Napier, 2003). In addition, many of these efforts at participation have been by and large within the fairly prescribed framework of the housing policy, with outcomes shaped by the limitations of the programme.

A focus on process is perhaps more difficult to apply to reworking a macro-level national housing policy, where agendas include the need for visible delivery and redistribution referred to above, as well as the desire to be responsive to localised demands at project level. An orientation towards process was evident in the 1992–1994 NHF negotiations, which forged the original policy contained in the Housing White Paper of 1994. Commentaries on this process have drawn attention to the unevenness of capacities to engage and of power inequalities among participants (see e.g. Huchzermeyer, 2000, 2001; Khan, 2003a). Links can be made with Richardson's concern about the way legitimacy gets ascribed to some experiences and practices and not others. In addition, the resultant policy that was adopted at the NHF by forging consensus is seen to contain weakness and unresolved contradictions as a result of compromises made (see e.g. Hendler, 1999; Khan, 2003a; interview with N Walker, non-profit housing delivery sector representative at the NHF and housing practitioner, October 2004, cited in Charlton & Kihato, 2006). This resonates with Pieterse's criticism, mentioned earlier, of the confidence placed in deliberative planning and the ‘depoliticised approach to urban development’ (Pieterse, 2003).

More pragmatically, in the years since 1994 specific local predicaments have offered new challenges to policy and innovations in housing, obliging authorities, urban dwellers and support organisations to confront conditions that national policy is ill-equipped to address, and to forge new approaches. Examples include inner-city accommodation for the poor in Johannesburg and transitional housing in Durban.

5. CONCLUSION

Significant weaknesses persist within the South African housing programme, despite the substantial experience of implementation to date, some shifts in policy, and many evaluations and critiques of the programme. This paper has highlighted a range of different rationalities evident in both the objectives and the outcomes of the programme, and in factors constraining change. Organised under the headings of the nation, the city and the household, these have been used to demonstrate different scales from which to consider housing issues, and the varying logics both within and between these viewpoints. Two examples serve to recap the point. First, a focus on delivering great numbers of houses in as short a time as possible has been perceived to be of national political importance and at the same time to help politicians at the local level to deliver tangible product to constituents. But this approach is very difficult to reconcile with the simultaneous imperative to create sustainable human settlements – a more time-consuming and complex product needed for the healthy functioning of cities – and to help beneficiaries access the benefits of the city. This tension is not openly acknowledged, a fact that constrains deep deliberation of the issue. Second, housing as an anti-poverty instrument is an appealing concept for government to promote, and in many contexts it has the potential to play this role. However, there is little clear understanding of how the South Africa housing product actually performs this function, given variations in local contexts, and the diverse and opaque ways in which beneficiaries choose to operate within these contexts. Clearer targeting of housing as an effective intervention to alleviate poverty is therefore constrained.

Despite contradictions within the programme, and its shortcomings when outcomes are measured against objectives, there have also been clear successes. This mixed track record is confusing and, it is contended, is itself a factor constraining substantial review. Understanding that different logics are at play, and that these are at times divergent and conflicting, while not the only factor inhibiting more fundamental reform, does help to explain the persistence of key components of the subsidy programme. The notion of conflicting rationalities also flags the potential limitations of a focus on deliberation and communication in reworking a complex, high-profile national programme. While this paper does not provide alternative approaches to the programme, it suggests that an increased awareness of the multiple standpoints, agendas and perspectives on the current programme can help target future reform.