Urban political ecology of water in Cape Town, South Africa
Date
2010
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Publisher
Municipal Services Project, Queen's University, Kingston, ON, CA
Abstract
Exploring how spatial patterns of water provision in South Africa reinforce urban inequities requires examining distributive and procedural modes of justice. This paper illustrates how South Africa has moved from a notion of distributive justice (the Reconstruction and Development Program (RDP) of 1994 which promised universal delivery of social welfare provision), to a skewed version of procedural justice through the Growth Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) policy, which adopts the market as the main social and environmental mechanism for service distribution. Power relations embedded in the urbanization of Cape Town and its resulting inequalities in the distribution of water problematizes the logic of economic “growth.”
Description
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Working Paper
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Keywords
WATER MANAGEMENT, APARTHEID, DISTRIBUTION OF WATER, PUBLIC SERVICES, POLITICAL ECONOMY, POLITICAL ECOLOGY, PRIVATIZATION, URBAN POOR, ACCESS TO WATER, POLITICAL WILL, BASIC NEEDS, ACCESS TO RESOURCES, SERVICE DELIVERY, SOUTH AFRICA, SOUTH OF SAHARA