Why low-income people leave state housing in South Africa: progress, failure or temporary setback?

IF 2 2区经济学 Q3 ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES

Environment and Urbanization Pub Date : 2023-01-24 DOI:10.1177/09562478221146395

R. Beier

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引用次数: 1

Abstract

The delivery of houses for homeownership to low-income urban dwellers has been a cornerstone of post-apartheid policies fighting both land and socioeconomic inequalities in South Africa. In this context, policy stakeholders and scholars have been puzzled by housing beneficiaries who leave their state houses, either selling or letting them. On the one hand, this might signal upward mobility where “leavers” successfully integrate into the housing market, climbing the next rung of the “property ladder”. On the other, it could indicate that “leavers” cannot afford to stay in their state houses and are consequently displaced to worse living conditions. However, due to methodological challenges, research on the experiences and perspectives of “leavers” is scarce. Based on narrative interviews with “leavers”, this article questions the progress/failure dichotomy. Instead, it argues that “leaving” could be construed as people-led reconfigurations of pro-poor housing policy – representing alternative, individually adapted but partly constrained pathways towards inclusion, 25 years after the end of apartheid.

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南非低收入者为何离开国有住房:进步、失败还是暂时的挫折?

向低收入城市居民提供住房，使其拥有住房，一直是南非后种族隔离政策对抗土地和社会经济不平等的基石。在这种背景下，政策利益相关者和学者们一直对那些离开他们的国家房屋的住房受益人感到困惑，要么出售，要么出租。一方面，这可能标志着向上流动，“离开者”成功融入房地产市场，攀登“房地产阶梯”的下一个台阶。另一方面，它可能表明“离开者”无法负担住在他们的国家住宅里的费用，因此流离失所，生活条件更差。然而，由于方法论上的挑战，对“离开者”的经验和观点的研究很少。基于对“离职者”的叙述性采访，本文对进步/失败的二分法提出了质疑。相反，报告认为，“离开”可以被理解为以人为主导的亲穷人住房政策的重新配置——在种族隔离结束25年后，代表了不同的、个别适应的、但在一定程度上受到限制的包容性道路。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Environment and Urbanization Multiple-

CiteScore

7.50

自引率

2.70%

发文量

期刊介绍： Environment and Urbanization aims to provide an effective means for the exchange of research findings, ideas and information in the fields of human settlements and environment among researchers, activists and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in low- and middle-income nations and between these and researchers, international agency staff, students and teachers in high-income nations. Most of the papers it publishes are written by authors from Africa, Asia and Latin America. Papers may be submitted in French, Spanish or Portuguese, as well as English - and if accepted for publication, the journal arranges for their translation into English. The journal is also unusual in the proportion of its papers that are written by practitioners.