Formalising informal land rights: The case of Marconi Beam to Joe Slovo Park

Providing adequate shelter and improving the lives of people living in informal settlements represents a major development challenge. Upgrading informal settlements holds many unique challenges for external agents involved in this process. It is important that these agents understand the social and political dynamics of informal settlements and how these can influence project plans and strategies. Moreover, project planners should also understand how a changing national social and political environment and the general quality of governance in society impact on intervention projects. Social change theory provides a basis for understanding the social and political dynamics of informal settlements. The Marconi Beam informal settlement in Cape Town has been analysed from a stage of rapid growth in the early 1990s through to the settlement's demolition, following which people have been living in formal houses in the nearby suburbs of Joe Slovo Park and du Noon for at least 3 years. This has taken place during a period of far-reaching social, political and economic change in South Africa.