The Policy Context for Informal Settlements: Competitiveness, Slum Eradication and a Right to the City?

by Marie Huchzermeyer, Trialog, 2011

Since the mid-1990s, policy makers and economic analysts have increasingly emphasised “competitiveness” at urban, regional and national levels (Turok, 2004). This trend responded to economic globalisation – the growing mobility of capital across national borders and the removal of restrictions that would protect national markets from foreign interests (ibid.).

Since the bankruptcy of major financial institutions in the US in 2008, the world has witnessed the crumbling of liberal economic orthodoxy. Although the economic crisis has its roots in an “urban crisis” (Harvey, 2009: 1270), namely in an overly commodified and under-regulated housing finance market, we are only just beginning to see a fundamental questioning of urban policy orthodoxy.

In this paper, my particular concern is how policies for urban competitiveness treat poor urban inhabitants who are only marginally connected to the formal economy but are as mobile as people skilled for formal participation in the globalising economy. My concern is that the management of mobility in the interest of urban economic competitiveness in itself justifies the need for slum free cities. I also explore what this in turn means for a “right to the city”, a notion that very recently entered the South African policy vocabulary.