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Low-income rental housing: are South African cities different?

Department of Geography, University College London, 26 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AP. Fax: (44) 171 380 7565; agilbert{at}geog.ucl.ac.uk.

Alan Mabin

Department of Town and Regional Planning, Witwatersrand University, Johannesburg 2050. Fax: (27) 11 403 2519.

Malcolm Mc Carthy

Land and Agricultural Policy Centre, Johannesburg. Fax: (27) 11 339 6423; lapc{at}wn.apc.org.

Vanessa Watson

Department of Architecture and Planning, University of Cape Town. Fax: (27) 21 650 3600; watson{at}centlivres.uct.ac.za.

A significant proportion of the black urban population in South Africa rent accommodation. Surveys conducted in two low-income settlements in Cape Town and Johannesburg show that the rental housing scene is in many ways similar to that found in other Third World cities. Landlords are older than their tenants, many are female, their families are larger, their homes have more space and better services. Few landlords make any money and landlord-tenant relationships are not generally conflictive. At the same time, rental conditions in the survey settlements appear to be very different from those found in most other poor cities. Most significant is that few South African landlords build accommodation; the majority merely offer space to tenants who build their own shacks. The poor quality of accommodation helps keep rents low which in turn accentuates the feeling that is it not worth investing in rental accommodation. Few landlords actively seek out tenants, most grant space in the backyard only out of compassion. Further research is investigating whether more typical forms of rental housing exist in Cape Town and Johannesburg. The project also seeks to persuade the South African government that it should develop some kind of rental housing policy.

Environment and Urbanization, Vol. 9, No. 1, 133-148 (1997)
DOI: 10.1177/095624789700900111


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