The Production of Urban Peripheries For and By Low-Income Populations at the Turn of the Millennium: Maputo, Luanda and Johannesburg

Melo, Vanessa

doi:10.1080/03057070.2016.1196955

Cited by 6 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Paradoxically, despite their vulnerabilities, African cities such as Lilongwe, Maputo, and Luanda have undergone a rapid increase in starkly uneven urban development (Tiwale et al, 2018;Melo, 2016). An additional challenge, as Chilinde and Mamiwa describe in their article, is the weak regulatory boundaries for land allocation that are common to African cities.…”

Section: Political and Practical Climate Action: Between State And Co...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparing Climate Politics and Adaptation Strategies in African Cities: Challenges and Opportunities in the State-Community Divide

Mususa

Marr

2022

Urban Forum

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Residents of African municipalities exhibit a lengthy and varied history of coping with conditions of pervasive precarity and uncertainty in the context of an unevenly present state. The climate crisis compounds these challenges. Based on case studies from across the continent, this introduction to the Special Issue on the Politics of Climate Action in Africa's Cities presents research oriented around questions of "do-it-yourself" urbanism, sustainable development, and climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts undertaken by socio-economically vulnerable citizens. It offers insight into how the urban poor respond to ongoing urban climate crises, the variable roles of an absent, ineffectual, or inattentive state, and the unequal power relations undergirding sustainability discourse and practice. It draws on a crossregional comparative perspective that centres conversations about urban theory and development in a (urban) world succumbing to mounting pressures from climate change, environmental precarity, and pervasive inequities. Keywords African urbanism • DIY urbanism • Climate change • Urban marginality • Urban politics • Comparative urbanismCities everywhere increasingly contend with growing socio-economic inequality and environmental stressors. Meanwhile, the institutional shrinking of the state has diminished its ability to fulfil its traditional role as provider of public goods and everyday security (Brescia & Marshall, 2016;Ciplet et al., 2015). These broad trends, today shared across urban geographies of the Global South and North, however,

show abstract

Section: Political and Practical Climate Action: Between State And Co...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparing Climate Politics and Adaptation Strategies in African Cities: Challenges and Opportunities in the State-Community Divide

Mususa

Marr

2022

Urban Forum

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…While many institutions and practitioners look at the "informal" as an exception and the "other" of the formal (Acuto et al 2019: 476), many scholars have shown that the situation is more heterogeneous. Indeed, many postcolonial cities with a strong history of spatial segregation (Andersen et al 2015a, b;Melo 2016), have grown into diverse realities characterised by overlapping planning practices, uneven urban morphologies and heterogeneity in infrastructure and service provision. Despite this, many post-colonial countries and cities inherited "formal" planning regulations and principles, which, in many cases, have continued almost unchanged or with minimal development through time (Watson 2009).…”

Section: From Informality To New Approaches Transcending the Formal-i...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Underlying this is the ambition to emphasise the positive aspects as opposed to a pejorative perspective. According to Melo (2016), self-production is the major way in which the peripheral areas of Maputo have developed through processes typically established by the inhabitants, such as land sub-division and occupation.…”

Section: Alternative Framings Of Informality and The Relation To Coll...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Furthermore, CS can be considered an interface of "conflicting rationalities" (Watson 2003). These rationalities, mainly of the state and population (Melo 2016), interplay or coexist, sometimes complementing one another, creating an ambiguity in the perception of responsibilities in CS's. CS is therefore understood in this article as spaces of collective use/interactions and production.…”

Section: Collective Space: the Place Of Conflicting And Complementing...mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Complementing or Conflicting Rationalities? How Self-Production Practices in Collective Spaces Can Shape Urban Planning: Insights from Maputo City

António

2022

The Urban Book Series

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Spatial planning and governance in African cities are often framed and conceived through the formal-informal binary. This view has been responsible for negative connotations that increase urban populations’ vulnerability. Moreover, it has been heavily criticised as presenting a reductive view of urban development. Alternative framings such as “alternative informality” and “self-production” have recently contested such views by proposing process-oriented approaches that recognise the legitimacy of informal praxis. However, research on self-production practices has tended to focus on the household or municipal level, neglecting what can be termed “collective space”. This chapter explores the production and use practices within collective spaces based on research conducted in two peripheral neighbourhoods in Maputo in 2019. The findings highlight the role and legitimacy of self-production practices in collective space to provide services, consolidate local governance and substantiate urban development. It finds that the role of local residents and authorities in urban planning has only tentatively been accepted by official municipal-level planning agencies. The chapter will reflect on how collective space can better overcome local challenges beyond the household level and represent potentialities for inclusive and democratic planning. However, there are still many challenges in collective space that remain poorly addressed.

show abstract

“…10,11 Moreover, this assumption obscures the complex ways in which energy access barriers manifest in urban areas and, in particular, the specific limitations that emerge in sub-serviced, informal or peri-urban areas. [12][13][14][15][16] Delivering sustainable energy access in urban areas requires a multidimensional understanding of users' needs within diverse urban contexts.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

A research agenda for a people-centred approach to energy access in the urbanizing global south

et al. 2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Energy access is typically viewed as a problem for rural areas, but people living in urban settings also face energy challenges that have not received sufficient attention. A revised agenda in research and practice that puts the user and local planning complexities centre stage is needed to change the way we look at energy access in urban areas, to understand the implications of the concentration of vulnerable people in slums and to identify opportunities for planned management and innovation that can deliver urban energy transitions while leaving no one behind. Here, we propose a research agenda focused on three key issues: understanding the needs of urban energy users; enabling the use of context-specific, disaggregated data; and engaging with effective modes of energy and urban governance. This agenda requires interdisciplinary scholarship across the social and physical sciences to support local action and deliver large-scale, inclusive transformations.

show abstract

The Production of Urban Peripheries For and By Low-Income Populations at the Turn of the Millennium: Maputo, Luanda and Johannesburg

Cited by 6 publications

References 0 publications

Comparing Climate Politics and Adaptation Strategies in African Cities: Challenges and Opportunities in the State-Community Divide

Comparing Climate Politics and Adaptation Strategies in African Cities: Challenges and Opportunities in the State-Community Divide

Complementing or Conflicting Rationalities? How Self-Production Practices in Collective Spaces Can Shape Urban Planning: Insights from Maputo City

A research agenda for a people-centred approach to energy access in the urbanizing global south

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About