Ameliorative Governance, Spatial Planning, and the Pot of Melting Climate in Cape Town, South Africa
Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Master of Science in
International Development Studies
Written by Sara Azeem
10706860
sara.azeem@gmail.com
Supervisor: Prof. Maarten Bavinck, GPIO, UVA
Date of Defence: January 20, 2016
Thesis Defense Committee:
dhr. dr. J.M. (Maarten) Bavinck (Professor at GPIO, UVA) mw. dr. H.J.L.M. (Hebe) Verrest (Asst. Prof. at GPIO, UVA)
Ameliorative Governance, Spatial Planning, and the Pot of Melting Climate in Cape Town, South Africa
Copyright © Sara Azeem, Graduate School of Social Sciences, Universitiet Van Amster-dam, the Netherlands.
The Graduate School of Social Sciences and the Universitiet Van Amsterdam, the Nether-lands have the right, perpetual and without geographical boundaries, to file and publish this dissertation through printed copies reproduced on paper or on digital form, or by any other means known or that may be invented, and to disseminate through scientific repositories and admit its copying and distribution for non-commercial, educational or research purposes, as long as credit is given to the author and editor.
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Ac k n o w l e d g m e n t s
During the entire period of my research fieldwork and thesis writing there are very few people I turned to. These are the people who offered immense support and I cannot thank them enough for helping me to the best of their capacity.
Firstly, my supervisor Maarten Bavinck – you are my savior. There are many times I have looked back and thanked for the day I ran into you in the corridor and told you about my fieldwork situation after the earthquake in Nepal. I could not even have thought of this amazing opportunity if it hadn’t been for you.
Secondly, my local supervisor Darryl Colenbrander for his guidance during my entire research period in Cape Town. Your help went beyond academic guidance and so did your kindness. Thank you, you’re the coolest!
Thirdly, my husband Rameez, for his love, patience and unswerving support during the entire Masters program. You are the best teacher, the best partner, and the most amazing person I have ever known. My love and gratitude cannot possibly be captured in words.
I also want to thank those people I met during my research in Cape Town whose kindness, knowledge, and wisdom have left lasting impressions on me: Helen Davies, Sally Argent, Illana Steenkamp.
Finally, I want to thank my sister Baji, for standing up for me when no one else did, and for always being my oasis.
A b s t r a c t
In this thesis I seek to analyze how local governments in developing countries deal with climate vulnerability. For this purpose, I studied the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality (CCT) in South Africa. South Africa poses a special challenge, as it is unique among developing countries. Given its brutal history of apartheid, the shadow of prob-lematic spatial planning still looms large. I thus seek to determine the interplay between climate vulnerability and spatial planning, and examine the governance steps that CCT takes, and the challenges it faces, in dealing with this dynamic. Towards this end, I look at how climate vulnerability is understood by various departments working within the CCT, and the policies that they undertake to tackle this vulnerability. I conducted in-depth interviews with tens of government officials from five CCT departments, scruti-nized several policy documents and studied data collected from departmental workshops. Based on my analysis, I find that the distrust of people in the government and the silos mentality within local government departments serves to hamper the efforts for dealing with climate vulnerability. Further, the local government policies often focus primar-ily on economic development. Ironically their efforts still fail to address grave social inequalities leading to societal disillusionment. Put another way: the combination of grave social inequalities, exclusivist (and often failing) efforts for economic development and the wealth favoring spatial configuration of Cape Town leads to a melting pot where climate vulnerability is exacerbated and a feedback loop occurs between the resultant spatial design and climate vulnerability. We conclude that to break this feedback loop a broad range of stakeholders including civil society and private sector need to be involved, since the complexity of the problem defies being solved by a single body such as the local government. Finally, we also present a diagnostic framework for governing systems calledAmeliorative Governance.
C o n t e n t s
List of Figures xiii
List of Tables xv Acronyms xvii 1 Introduction 1 2 Theoretical Framework 5 2.1 Introduction . . . 5 2.2 Urban Resilience. . . 5
2.3 Climate change and Vulnerability Analysis. . . 6
2.3.1 Vulnerability as a Starting Point and as an End Point . . . 6
2.3.2 Vulnerability Analysis Matrix . . . 8
2.3.3 Application for my Research . . . 9
2.4 Governance. . . 10
2.4.1 Introduction . . . 10
2.4.2 Interactive Governance . . . 10
2.4.3 Principled Approaches to Urban Governance . . . 13
2.5 Spatial Planning and Application of Governance concepts . . . 16
2.5.1 The Role of Spatial Planning . . . 16
2.5.2 Spatial Planning as a Governance Instrument . . . 16
2.5.3 Criteria for Evaluating Urban Resilience . . . 17
3 Research Context 19 3.1 South Africa . . . 19
3.2 Cape Town . . . 19
3.3 City of Cape Town Metropolitan Municipality . . . 20
3.3.1 Executive Structure . . . 20
3.3.2 Ward Councilors . . . 22
3.3.3 Policy-Makers/Departmental Heads . . . 22
3.4 Post-Apartheid Perspective of Spatial Planning and Climate Vulnerability in the Cape Town . . . 23
3.5 Neoliberal Approach in the Government . . . 23
4 Research Design 25 4.1 Introduction . . . 25
4.2 Research Question and Sub-questions . . . 25
4.3 Ontological and Epistemological Position . . . 26
4.4 Unit of Analysis . . . 26
4.5 Methods . . . 26
4.5.1 Participant Observation . . . 27
4.5.2 Interviews . . . 27
4.5.3 Analysis of Policy Documents . . . 28
4.6 Sampling . . . 28
4.7 Data Analysis . . . 29
4.8 Assessing the Quality of Research . . . 29
4.9 Methodological Reflections . . . 30
4.10 Ethical Considerations and Challenges . . . 31
5 Climate Vulnerability or Climate versus Vulnerability: Analyzing needs of the people, and the environment 33 5.1 Introduction . . . 33
5.2 Understanding Climate Vulnerability in CCT . . . 33
5.2.1 Municipal Disaster Risk Management Plan: A Risk-Hazard Ap-proach to Vulnerability: . . . 34
5.2.2 Role of Insurance and ‘A Sense of Community’ in understanding Vulnerability. . . 35
5.2.3 Poor People vs. Poor Environment . . . 37
5.2.4 Vulnerability to Fire (Second order vulnerability) . . . 40
5.3 Policy Analysis . . . 40
5.3.1 Informal Settlement Risk Matrix . . . 40
5.3.2 Framework for Adaptation to Climate Change in the City of Cape Town (FAC4T) . . . 42
5.3.3 Climate Adaptation Plans of Action . . . 43
5.3.4 Conclusion . . . 46
6 Spatial Planning and ‘Environmental Apartheid’ in Cape Town, South Africa 47 6.1 Introduction . . . 47
6.2 Spatial Distribution of Risk. . . 48
6.3 Socioeconomic Vulnerability . . . 48
6.3.1 Climate Vulnerability and Human Settlements . . . 48
6.3.2 Climate Vulnerability and Planning . . . 50
6.3.3 Design of Sustainable Urban Form . . . 52
C O N T E N T S
6.5 Conclusion . . . 60
7 ‘Making Progress Possible. Together’: Governance of vulnerability 63 7.1 Introduction . . . 63
7.2 Different Understandings of Problems . . . 63
7.3 Insufficient Collaboration between Departments . . . 65
7.4 Lack Of Broader Stakeholder Engagement . . . 67
7.5 Short-term Solutions . . . 68
7.6 Distrust between Government and People . . . 69
7.7 Conclusion . . . 70
8 Conclusions 73 8.1 Answering the main Research Question . . . 73
8.2 Theoretical contributions of this thesis . . . 76
8.3 Reflections on the limitations of this research . . . 79
8.4 Recommendations for Future Policy and Research . . . 80
9 References 81
A List of Interviews and Interview Guides 87
L i s t o f F i g u r e s
3.1 Cape Town . . . 21
3.2 City Management (Source: Author) . . . 22
5.1 Proposed Solution to Minimize Flood Damage (Source: CCT) . . . 37
5.2 Shacks set up on sand dunes with access to electricity . . . 39
5.3 Relative Risk Prioritization . . . 41
5.4 Informal Settlement Risk Matrix. . . 42
5.5 CAPA Process (1) (Source: FAC4Tby CCT) . . . 43
5.6 CAPA process (2) (Source: Report on the Development and Progress of Coastal Sector CAPAs by CCT) . . . 45
6.1 Map of Informal Settlements in Cape Town (all those in red) (Source: Dr. Rob Godspeed) . . . 49
6.2 - Urban planning of Cape Town under apartheid (Source: By Schoonraad (2004) in Kay (2007: 3)) . . . 54
L i s t o f Ta b l e s
2.1 Components of IG and related principles Source: Kooiman and Jentoft, 2009 11
5.1 Adapted from Comprehensive Disaster Risk Assessment 2009/10 for The City
of Cape Town . . . 34
5.2 Definitions used by Disaster Risk Management Centre (Source: Municipal DRM Plan, July 2015) . . . 35
5.3 Sector specific Adaptation Strategies Source: Adapted from FAC4T . . . 44
6.1 Informal Settlement Hazards in Cape Town . . . 51
7.1 Different Understandings of Problems (Source: Author) . . . 66
Ac r o n y m s
ANC African National Congress.
BRT Bus Rapid Transit.
CAPA Climate Adaptation Plan of Action.
CCT City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality.
DRMC Disaster Risk Management Center.
EPWP Expanded Public Works Programme.
ERM Environmental Resource Management.
FAC4T Framework for Adaptation to Climate Change for the City of Cape Town.
IS Informal Settlements.
PBDM Planning and Building Development Management.
RDP Reconstruction and Development Programme.
SDF Spatial Development Framework.
SPUD Spatial Planning and Urban Design.
SUDS Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems.
SUF Sustainable Urban Form.
SWS Storm Water and Sustainability.
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I n t r o d u c t i o n
In this Introduction, I aim to answer the following five questions: 1) What is climate vulnerability; 2) What is the significance of spatial planning in climate vulnerability; 3) Why it makes sense to explore climate vulnerability at the local government level; 4) How do the challenges of a developing country such as South Africa interface with climate vulnerability; and finally 5) How I conducted my research – (what were) my hopes and my assumptions?
By exploring these questions briefly in the introduction, I hope to convince the reader that reading this thesis is worth her time. I note that these questions are not my formal research questions (for those, I refer the reader to Chapter4). The above questions simply serve to motivate my research, and to provide a general overview of this thesis. If I am successful in my aim, the reader will then delve into the rest of my thesis. Throughout this Introduction, I refer the reader to relevant Chapters where she may get detailed information.
I now discuss the above questions in turn: 1. What is climate vulnerability?
Vulnerability to climate change is defined as ‘the degree to which geophysical, bio-logical and socio-economic systems are susceptible to, and unable to cope with, adverse impacts of climate change’ (IPCC.ch 2007; Füssel, 2007: 164). Given the current pace of industrialization in our society, modernization and emissions responsible for warming the planet go hand in hand and there are few aspects of nature left untouched by human intervention: a notion referred to as ‘the end of nature’ by Giddens (1999). These inter-ventions have brought us to a point where the more we try to harness the resources of nature the more unpredictably it reacts. Global warming is no more a thing of a distant future – it hits close to home in the form of floods, droughts and extreme temperature changes, loss of biodiversity and so on. It is therefore critical to understand the coping
mechanisms that can be developed or adopted in the face of these vulnerabilities. Thus, in the recent years, increasing attention is being paid by governments to deal with the impacts of climate vulnerability. With increase in frequency of natural disasters, there is a rise in costs to deal with the damage. According to the New England Journal of Medicine, there were three times as many natural disasters from 2000 through 2009 as there were from 1980 through 1989 (Leaning and Guha-Sapir, 2013). Between 1994 and 2013, EM-DAT International Disaster Database recorded 6,873 natural disasters world-wide, which claimed 1.35 million lives (almost 68,000 lives on average each year). The estimated economic damage in 2012 alone was of more than 350 billion dollars, which is measured in terms of both direct and indirect consequences1(Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, 2015). Given the level of development in different parts of the world, the consequences of climate change are more severe for some than they are for others. Hence, a distinction needs to be made here about the capacity to deal with this vulnerability especially in context of developing countries with growing populations and high levels of poverty. Moreover, coastal areas such as for instance Cape Town, due to their location are directly vulnerable to coastal erosion, saltwater intrusion and sea-level rise. In this context, the lack of capacity (financial or social) to deal with disasters itself becomes an important dimension of vulnerability, which needs to be looked at in conjunction with biophysical risks due to climate change.
2. What is the significance of spatial planning in climate vulnerability?
A determining factor of vulnerability that plays a big role in adaptation and mitigation of climate change is the spatial characteristics of the area. Further, spatial planning, an administrative tool for balanced regional development, is become increasingly influential discipline in promoting sustainability and resilience, as a provider of stewardship of both the built and natural environment (Colenbrander and Sowman, 2015). The more compact and well planned the region is, the easier it is to implement adaptation or mitigation measures and the less vulnerable the region becomes. Given geophysical characteristics of coastal areas and the history of apartheid planning in South Africa, I explore various aspects of spatial design and planning in Cape Town. I discuss these in Chapter 6in detail.
3. Why it makes sense to explore climate vulnerability at the local government level?
Given the frequency and cost of natural disasters in recent years, and the increasing political and social conflicts arising worldwide, governments are recognizing the need to develop multiple pathways to counteract natural and manmade disasters. Rapid ur-banization and the concentration of knowledge and resources in cities make them the appropriate unit for implementing resilience planning for disasters (Revi et al., 2014). Several studies emphasize the participation of local actors in dealing with climate vulner-ability due to geographic varivulner-ability in climate impacts. Local actors tend to have a better
1Direct consequences include damages to infrastructure, crops, and housing while indirect consequences
idea of common reactions to specific meteorological events even if they do not have a full understanding of climate projections (Cloutier et al., 2014). Given this understanding and the authority and legitimacy of local governments, they become key players in deal-ing with climate vulnerability (Measham et al., 2011; Anguelovski and Carmin, 2011). Furthermore, the perceptions of local stakeholders such as local governments influence the development and implementation of effective strategies for mitigation and adaptation (Fatorić and Morén-Alegret, 2013). However, there is limited knowledge on the ability of local governments for implementing solutions to tackle climate vulnerability in devel-oping countries. Do local governments have an understanding of climate vulnerability or are they mere implementation bodies of a national agenda? Does their understanding echo the concerns of the masses? Do local governments influence climate related policies, and if so, how? How do these policies translate into actions on the ground? These are some of the questions that motivated me to study climate vulnerability on a local govern-ment level. And as a case study, I consider the local governgovern-ment of Cape Town in South Africa, which I shall discuss in answering the next question.
4. How do the challenges of a developing country such as South Africa interface with climate vulnerability
South Africa has embarked on a new phase in its political history, with the end of the apartheid, and enthusiastic adherence to the neoliberal agenda, thereafter. It is intriguing to investigate how the aforementioned questions are addressed in post-colonial countries, such as South Africa. While colonialism and apartheid are similar as both represent forms of political and economic domination that are based on racial hierarchies which favor white minorities over black majority populations (Decker, 2010), nowhere is this discrimination as apparent today as it is in South Africa. Given this background, I explore climate vulnerability in Cape Town and the governance challenges it represents especially given its unique geophysical characteristics (See Chapter2).
In addition to the legacy of apartheid, in South Africa (SA), like in other countries that came out of colonial rule not too long ago, neoliberal/ pro-growth strategies have emerged as a dominant approach to development (Houghton, 2010; Pieterse, 2009). Integration into the neoliberal economic system barely two years after the political liberation has had devastating consequences for the working classes. The adherence to this agenda in South Africa coupled with the profound social segregation as a result of apartheid planning has led to great economic inequality, societal disillusionment, and distrust in the government (ibid). The black and colored population of Cape Town that was forced to settle in less developed areas under the Group Areas Act (1950), is now exposed to several climate related risks. The economic inequality further compounds the marginalization as people settle down informally in shacks and poor houses in climatically vulnerable areas. Spatial planning, as mentioned earlier, can play an important role in addressing some of these issues. Through proper land use management and integrated urban development with the social and environmental factors, planners can tackle climate vulnerability. I discuss these issues in detail in Chapters5,6, and7.
5. How I conducted my research – (what were) my hopes and my assumptions? Specifically, to investigate how the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality (CCT)deals with the challenges posed by climate vulnerability, I conducted tens of inter-views with government officials, scrutinized several policy documents and studied data collected from departmental workshops. In order to gain a broader understanding of climate vulnerability in the City of Cape Town, I also interviewed a few members of the civil society actively engaged in volunteer work either in the floodplains of Cape Town (Cape Flats area). The research design is discussed in detail in Chapter4of this thesis. The data collected from in-depth interviews and policy documents is analyzed in the context of Urban Resilience and Interactive Governance. Finally, since the focus of this study is the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality, I distill my analysis using the model of Interactive Governance.
My assumptions and hopes:While, it is true that South Africa faces numerous chal-lenges, I argue that these can also be treated as opportunities, and things can be set in new directions. Two factors provide hope for more productive policymaking for tackling climate vulnerability, and which motivated me to undertake this study: Firstly, the new postcolonial phase of South African history means that nothing is set in stone. Policy-makers are struggling to come to grips with the notion of climate vulnerability in all its manifestations. Given the right critique (such as this thesis, among others); an elu-cidation of the salient problems; and provision of alternative ways of doing things, the climate agenda in Cape Town can still change for the better. Secondly, the fact that an independent City government such as the CCT exists and actively produces policies for dealing with problems, is a positive development.
I now invite the reader to peruse the rest of this thesis for delving further into these issues, and to discover my findings!
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T h e o r e t i c a l F r a m e w o r k
2.1
Introduction
The aim of this chapter is to provide the organization of theories, concepts and insights that drive my subsequent research, and inform the analysis of my results. I link three key topics, namely, climate vulnerability, governance, and spatial planning. For each of these topics, I look at the various ways in which they have been approached, defined, assessed, and measured, by various researchers. Finally, I synthesize the particular approaches that inform my research in Cape Town.
2.2
Urban Resilience
In common language resilience refers to the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties. In recent years, resilience has become an important concept in the context of climate change and in managing urban risks. Resilience is defined as “the ability of a system, community, or society exposed to hazards to resist, absorb, accommodate to and recover from the effects of a hazard in a timely and efficient manner including through the preser-vation and restoration of its essential basic structures and functions” (UNISDR, 2010: 92). This ability of a city also depends on the availability or strength of its resources such as technology, infrastructure, and finances etc. also refers to its resilience. Vulnerabil-ity, on the other hand, refers to the inability of a system or unit to withstand the effects of a hostile environment (ibid). Resilience and vulnerability therefore have an inverse relationship: higher resilience means less vulnerability and vice versa.
With the increase in the frequency of natural disasters in recent years, and threats to national security, governments worldwide are recognizing the need to develop multiple
pathways to counteract natural and manmade disasters. Further, due to rapid urbaniza-tion and growing importance of cities as resource hubs, cities are seen as an appropriate unit for implementing resilience planning (Revi et al., 2014). This resilience planning also means assessing the causes of vulnerability. Therefore, vulnerability analysis has become an essential component of urban resilience studies. I discuss some common approaches to vulnerability in the next section.
2.3
Climate change and Vulnerability Analysis
Vulnerability is a central concept in a wide variety of knowledge domains such as ecol-ogy, poverty, development, public health, sustainability, climate change, adaptation etc. Within these domains, scholars in various research contexts conceptualize vulnerability very differently, so there is no single best conceptualization of vulnerability that would fit all assessment contexts (Füssel, 2007).
When it comes to climate change, vulnerability represents a multi-scale global change problem that it is characterized by infinitely diverse actors, multiple stressors and mul-tiple time scales (Adger, 2006). This creates many challenges for researchers as the assumptions underlying vulnerability and factors causing vulnerability may not always be the same for areas with similar characteristics. Let’s take the example of coastal areas: with the onset of climate change it has become a widely accepted fact that coastal areas are under threat of inundation due to sea-level rise. How do we assess whether Karachi is more vulnerable to flooding or Amsterdam. Give the fact that Amsterdam is 7 ft below sea-level whereas Karachi is 26ft above sea-level (Floodmap.net, 2014) one would think that Amsterdam is more vulnerable to inundation. However, this geophysical assessment does not shed light on the world of difference between the coping capacity of both cities if such a disaster were to occur. These capacities hinge upon the resources in terms of technology, infrastructure, finances, political and socio-economic stability etc., of the two cities. Therefore, one needs to take into account the context and purpose of study before making a meaningful assessment of vulnerability.
Given the dynamic nature of climate vulnerability, I expound on the common inter-pretations of vulnerability in the next sections. I conduct my research in the light of these interpretations to explore the discourse on climate vulnerability in CCT and to understand the various contexts in which it is created.
2.3.1 Vulnerability as a Starting Point and as an End Point
In the context of climate change, (Kelly and Adger, 2000: 327) provide interpretation of vulnerability as an ‘end-point’ or ‘starting-point’ of the analysis: “the assessment of vulnerability is the end point of a sequence of analyses beginning with projections of future emissions trends, moving on to the development of climate scenarios, thence to
2 . 3 . C L I M AT E C H A N G E A N D V U L N E R A B I L I T Y A N A LY S I S
biophysical impact studies and the identification of adaptive options”. The ‘starting-point’ interpretation of vulnerability, on the other hand, captures the inability to cope with external pressures or changes. Using these as my points of reference, I now explore some classical approaches to vulnerability research.
2.3.1.1 Risk-Hazard Approach
This approach assesses risks in terms of physical hazards to elements of value. Vulnerabil-ity of physical systems (e.g., built infrastructure, biophysical systems) forms a large part of this approach and is widely used by engineers. Future emission trends and impacts of climatic variability such as temperature and sea-level rise fall into this approach. Hence it can be categorized as the end-point approach to vulnerability, which can be represented “quantitatively as a monetary cost or as a change in yield or flow, human mortality,
ecosys-tem damage or qualitatively as a description of relative or comparative change” (O’Brien et al., 2004: 2). Since such approaches are driven by the goal of finding the extent and cost of climate change they are difficult to apply to people whose exposure to hazards depends on their behaviors (as determined by socioeconomic factors) (Fussel, 2007). The most vulnerable people are considered to be those who live in the most sensitive physical environments (O’Brien et al. 2006). Therefore, in terms of social costs, the risk-hazard approach considers, at most, the human exposure to hazard.
The definition of vulnerability in the Third IPCC assessment was classified as an end-point approach – focus on biophysical with the aim to quantify vulnerability (O’Brien et al., 2007). However, the Fourth IPCC Assessment Report explicitly takes into account socio-economic vulnerability and defines vulnerability to climate change as “the degree to which geophysical, biological and socio-economic systems are susceptible to, and unable to cope with, adverse impacts of climate change. The term ‘vulnerability’ may therefore refer to the vulnerable system itself, e.g., low-lying islands or coastal cities; or the impact to this system, e.g., flooding of coastal cities and agricultural lands or forced migration; or the mechanism causing these impacts, e.g., disintegration of the West Antarctic ice sheet” (Parry et al., 2007). This revision of the IPCC definition suggests that the socioeco-nomic factors related to climate chance are equally important and need to be assessed in conjunction with the biological and geophysical impacts of climate change. I explore this in the next section.
2.3.1.2 Entitlements and Human Ecology Approach
One group of scholars puts social and economic well-being of society at the center of vulnerability analysis. Adger and Kelly (1999: 256) borrow the concept of ‘entitlement’ by Sen (1994) to explain social vulnerability as the “extent to which individuals, groups, or communities are ‘entitled’ to make use of resources, determines the ability of that population to cope with and adapt to stress”. Capacity here is explicitly defined as the ability to respond, cope, and adapt. It is therefore meaningless to study the consequences
of climate change without taking into account the range of responses that can substan-tially affect any initial impacts. Looking at climate vulnerability through the entitlements approach means considering the availability and distribution of entitlements, the means by which entitlements are defined, contested and, therefore, change over time, and the wider political economy of the distribution and formation of entitlements. It is therefore based on the assumption that “institutions of the state are dominant in determining the access to resources” (Adger and Kelly, 1999: 257).
The human ecology tradition of vulnerability research is close to the entitlements school of thought. It argues that the discourse on hazard management fails to incorporate political and structural causes of vulnerability and explain why the poor and vulnerable have been most at risk from natural hazards (Adger, 2006). Poorer people tend to settle down in riskier urban areas prone to flooding are discussed in the case of Cape Town, South Africa (See Chapter 5). In this sense, vulnerability is a social construct and any implications of climate change are to be looked at in terms of the coping capacity of people exposed to natural hazards.
Both the entitlements and human ecology approach consider vulnerability as the capacity (to cope or resist) determined by socio-economic structures (Kelly and Adger, 2000: 327), and is therefore the starting-point of the analysis.
It is interesting to note that O’Brien et al. (2004) contest this classification on the premise that combining two different interpretations of vulnerability within one single concept may create scholarly confusion and policy implication. They further argue that these interpretations are rooted in two different discourses and cannot be combined into one framework (but should be considered complementary).
2.3.2 Vulnerability Analysis Matrix
Given the broad range of interpretations of climate vulnerability, Jabareen (2012: 221) proposes a Vulnerability Analysis Matrix based on a multidisciplinary theory for re-silience. This theory places cities at the center of analysis and integrates a variety of urban dimension into a unified conceptual framework for understanding resilience of cities. The purpose of vulnerability matrix is to “analyze and identify types, demogra-phy, intensity, scope, and spatial distribution of environmental risk, natural disasters and future uncertainties in cities.” This multifaceted approach that takes into account the socioeconomic, environmental, and physical aspects of vulnerability captures both the starting-point and end-point of vulnerability. For this framework, vulnerability is defined according to the IPCC’s Third Assessment Report (2.3.1.1). This matrix has four components:
• Demography of Vulnerability – demographic, health and socioeconomic variables affect the ability of people to deal with environmental risk and uncertainties. Main variables in this assessment are income, gender, education, language skills, accessi-bility to resources, political power, and social capital.
2 . 3 . C L I M AT E C H A N G E A N D V U L N E R A B I L I T Y A N A LY S I S
• Informality – the scale, socio-economic conditions and environmental condition of informal spaces of city where the marginalized tend to settle and are more vulner-able. Due to large populations and socio-spatial character of cities, they are more vulnerable to a variety of risks that can become generators of new risks such as failed infrastructure, environmental degradation etc.
• Uncertainty – due to uncertain risks posed by environmental change, non-climatic drivers of future risk often get ignored. These risks may be difficult to predict but scenario of uncertainty must still be taken into account.
• Spatial Distribution of Risk – Some parts of the city are more vulnerable than others because environmental risks are not distributed evenly across space. Mapping these uneven risks and hazards across the city are critical for effective management of resources. Managing this distribution of risks also falls within the purview of Spatial Planning. I discuss these at length first in section2.4and then in Chapters
5and6.
The abovementioned matrix provides a holistic way of looking at vulnerability. The demography and informality lend insight into the socio-economic factors whereas the uncertainty and spatial distribution of risk help explore the external factors that are closely related to the vulnerability of geophysical systems. I use this matrix to explore whether these components of vulnerability are captured by the governing system in my area of research and how their absence may influence governability (discussed in2.4).
2.3.3 Application for my Research
Each of the approaches to vulnerability described above has its own underlying assump-tions. The contexts in which these approaches can be applied may vary depending on the purpose of the study/assessment. Since the purpose of this research is exploratory, I use all the abovementioned approaches as a tools to identify the discourse around vulnera-bility. I do this because it considers both the starting-point and end-point interpretations of vulnerability. Further, the implications of climate change not only entail future scenar-ios, they can also be experienced in the present. Changing weather patterns, increase in the intensity of rain and wind etc., can affect the daily life of people especially in devel-oping countries with high levels of poverty and inequality. It is therefore important to understand the existing socioeconomic vulnerabilities in relation to the climate change.
Perceptions of vulnerability, however, are only formed collectively. I argue that institu-tions (whether public or private) serve as conduits for collective percepinstitu-tions of vulnerabil-ity. They play an important role in limiting or enabling responses to these vulnerabilities. It is therefore important to explore the governance of climate vulnerability in the context of institutions. I provide a rationale for this in the next section.
2.4
Governance
2.4.1 Introduction
Like vulnerability, governance has also become a catchword in the policy world with mul-tiple interpretations. Most commonly occurring versions of it are part of specifications such as ‘good’ governance, ‘network’ governance, ‘urban’ governance, ‘global’ governance etc. A literature review on governance reveals governance as a structure, or mechanism, or strategy through which power is divided among social actors to manage and control re-sources for public good. For example, in the context of resilient cities, urban governance is defined as “the many ways that institutions and individuals organize the day-to-day management of a city, and the processes used for effectively realizing the short term and long-term agenda of a city’s development. . . a process of decision making that engages various actors with different priorities to ensure that rules are made and enforced, devel-opment is realized and services delivered” (Unhabitat.org, 2015). Further, governance is not only associated with government institutions but with a plurality of actors both public and private entities, and individuals. Giving an example of policing agencies, both public and private, Shearing and Wood (2003: 403) argue that this is not just a result of devolution of state functions under the neo-liberal reform, but in fact the “extension of existing non-state activities as well as the emergence of new form of governmental activity outside of the state”. At the same time, the plurality of actors also implies various scales of governance: local, urban, global etc. These differences often revolve around the perceived role of state in both normative and analytical sense (Kooiman et al., 2008). Following are some of these analytical and normative approaches I use as a lens for my research.
2.4.2 Interactive Governance
Recognizing the various approaches to governance and different societal scales (from local to global), Kooiman et al. (2008) present an approach to governance that take into account the interactions of all kinds of horizontal and vertical governing arrangements between public and private entities. The main concept is that of an ‘interactive gover-nance’ which is defined as “the whole of interactions taken to solve societal problems and to create societal opportunities; including the formulation and application of prin-ciples guiding those interactions and care for institutions that enable and control them" (Kooiman and Bavinck 2005: 17). As an analytical approach it recognizes governance in the form of actors and structures, but at the same time this approach presents a normative side that argues for broad societal participation as an expression of democracy hence, a desirable state of affairs (Kooiman et al., 2008: 3). The actors, in this context are any social unit possessing agency or power of action, whereas structures refer to frameworks within which actors operate (Kooiman and Jentoft, 2009). IG is then about how actors continuously make changes to these structures while being subjected to their influence.
2 . 4 . G O V E R N A N C E
GOVERNANCE COMPONENTS PRINCIPLES
Elements
Images Transparency
Instruments Efficiency
Action Accountability
Modes
Hierarchical Governance Respect
Self-governance Equity
Co-governance Inclusion
Order
First order Effectiveness
Second order Responsiveness
Third order Moral Responsibility
Table 2.1: Components of IG and related principles Source: Kooiman and Jentoft, 2009
Governability
IG classifies the societal entities according to their governance status: the object of governance (the-system-to be-governed characterized by vulnerabilities), its subject (the governing system) and the relationship between the two (governance interactions). All of these combined contribute to governability, which is defined as the capacity for gover-nance of any societal system (Kooiman and Jentoft, 2009). Furthermore, in the context of climate vulnerability, it can be argued that governability refers to the ability of the governing system to address existing vulnerabilities. To address these vulnerabilities (is-sues), it is necessary to find a match between the system-to-be-governed (needs) and the governing system (capacities). Bavinck and Salagrama (2008: 7) highlight the diversities found within both systems that have different origins and are only partially tuned to one another. They further argue that “for the features of a governing system to represent those of the system-to-be-governed, there is a need for a conscious evaluation of the diversity of the latter, and for a deliberated attunement of the governing system”.
In order to better understand governability and diversity of the governance systems, I delve into the components of IG, namely, elements, modes, and order of governance (Kooiman and Bavinck, 2005). Each of these components is further characterized based on the governing activities and structural forms. Moreover, Kooiman and Jentoft (2009: 825) present specific principles that serve as a basis for appraising the components of IG. Table2.1shows the components of IG and their related principles.
The above table highlights in blue the components that are most relevant for my research. These shed light on how the underlying values, associated resources, and so-cial capital contribute to governability. They also help understand the assessment of governability itself. I now explain these components and their relevance in detail.
Governance Elements
Images: They serve as a guiding light for how and why of governance. They relate to
and Jentoft, 2009: 820). Analyzing images of a governance system can therefore lend insight into the underlying reasons for visions, hypotheses, convictions, and goals of the governance systems. Moreover, Kooiman et al. (2008) propose transparency as a principle for appraising governance images. Transparency requires the governance system to allow disclosure and encourage dissemination to be truly interactive.
Instruments: Instruments can be seen as elements that command certain actions to
achieve a certain image (Kooiman et al., 2008). There is a broad range of instruments available to influence societal actions, which can vary depending on one’s position in society. Instruments can take the form of peer pressure or bribes, and even court cases or quotas. Efficiency in the use of instruments reflects a deeper value of frugality and protecting that which you hold dear (Kooiman and Jentoft, 2009: 825). Instruments can therefore lend insight into the priorities of a governance system and also their level of influence.
Governance Modes
Co-governance: Co-governance is about parties coming together to reach a common
goal. (Kooiman et al., 2008: 9). It comes about in the form of public-private partnerships, networks and co-management etc. With inclusiveness as the principle, co-governance refers to equal participation of relevant stakeholders from planning to implementation of decisions. This mode can be instrumental in analyzing the governability of socio-political actors and how collective action takes place.
Governance Orders
Second-order governing: This is about the institutional arrangements of people and
organizations coming together to solve societal problems and create opportunities. In-stitutions refer to the “agreements, rules, rights, laws, norms, beliefs, roles, procedures” used to make decisions (Kooiman et al., 2008: 7). Further, institutions provide a) meeting ground for the governing and the governed; b) criteria for measuring success and failure (ibid). The principle of responsiveness for appraising this level or governance relates to the ability to respond to wishes and is applied to both the governing and the governed.
Third order governing: Also known as meta-governance, it level concerns itself with
setting and applying normative governance principles. In the broadest sense, third order governing revolves around organization of conditions around governance. Kooiman and Jenroft (2009: 824) argue that it involves all those active in governance (governors and the governed) and that only by discussing the norms and values of governance measures can their real value be known. Moral responsibility lies at the heart of meta-governance. By exploring the underlying ethical and moral questions we can understand the foundations of the governance domain (ibid).
The interactive view of governance provides a broad framework for understanding governance based on multiple levels in various contexts. I discuss these components further in section2.4.3.2and Chapter8.
2 . 4 . G O V E R N A N C E
2.4.3 Principled Approaches to Urban Governance
Atmosphere is a common good open to everyone’s use so when it comes to emissions that pollute our atmosphere what type of government and authority can be held responsible? Since governments do not exist outside of specific boundaries, issues like climate change lead to multiple views about the scale and scope of governance. With the emergence of non-state actors such as businesses and NGOs that are increasingly brought into the analysis of social steering, climate governance is defined as “the upsurge of a multiplicity of actors and spheres of authority for governing climate, beyond the international arena” (Bulkeley and Newell, 2010). This implies a changing role of state that also shapes the hierarchical mode of governance. Emelianoff (2014: 1379) argues that transnational municipal networks and cities are constructing themselves as one of these new spheres that leads to a multi-level governance for coordinating climate action across scales in a non-hierarchical way. However, these horizontal networks still very much depend on national contexts (level of democracy and decentralization).
2.4.3.1 Importance of Cities in Governance and Climate Change
The idea of cities as the appropriate scale for climate policies emerged during the 1990s when strong economic lobbies were blocking national and international climate poli-cies (ibid: 1380). After the Kyoto Protocol, initiatives like Cities for Climate Protection (CCP), World Mayor’s Council on Climate Change, and C40 brought together interna-tional metropolises for climate protection and set a precedent for networked actions (Emelianoff et al., 2010). Furthermore, environmentalist associations that come up in support of local initiatives also represent a new mode of political action. The ability of local volunteers and activists to obtain support from public powers while remaining independent (Emelianoff, 2014: 1382) also represents a form of co-governance. In the context of climate change, another reason for local action on climate change is based on the opinion of place-based adaptation. The impacts of climate change experienced locally, and geographic variability, call for local, place-based approaches to climate vulnerability analysis and subsequent adaptation (Adger and Kelly, 1999). Agrawal (2008 in Measham et al., 2011: 890) advocates the role of local institutions, such as local municipalities based on three critical roles they play: 1) structuring responses to local impacts; 2) mediating between individual and collective responses to vulnerability; 3) governing the delivery of resources to facilitate adaptation.
Similarly, Jabareen (2013) puts forward a model of urban governance that is able to adapt to uncertain and unpredicted conditions that cities face as a result of climate change. The uncertainties, related to the diversity of governing systems and systems-to-be-governed play an important role here. Human societies, although cognizant of and responsive to the characteristics of natural systems, possesses their own dynamics (Bavinck and Salagrama 2008). It is therefore imperative to establish a match between the needs and capacities represented by the systems-to-be-governed and the governing
system. The model of urban governance by Jabareen (2013) has at least the following components1:
• Integrative approach: the great uncertainty that comes with climate change makes urban policy and planning too complex to be accommodated by conventional ap-proaches. There is a need to expand local capacity by increasing knowledge, pro-viding resources and giving more local autonomy in order to make planning more flexible and adaptive to the rapidly changing environment.
• Equity: This component takes the issues of poverty, inequality, and environmental justice into consideration and asserts that a more resilient city is the one with a fairer distribution of resilience resources. This can only be done through measures that not only create social equality but also care for environmental resources. While some argue that social inequality leads to environmental degradation, others argue that the reverse is also true. In any case, social and environmental stability is closely linked and I discuss this further in Chapter5and6.
Despite the importance of local action, governance at local level is also limited in its ability to deal with climate vulnerability. Their ability very often depends on the institutional contexts that need to be considered. For example, the policy framework in which local governments operate is usually imposed by higher levels of governance such as provincial, state or national government (Measham et al., 2011). Many municipal authorities have no constitutional standing of their own and merely act as agents for implementation of policies and plans made at the higher levels of governance. Due to this lack of authority, municipalities are unable to structure responses to local issues related to climate vulnerability (Agrawal, 2008; Measham et al., 2011).
2.4.3.2 Governance of Governance
While there is a widespread support for dealing with climate vulnerability at local gov-ernment level, there are several factors that may limit or enable governance measures depending on how they are exploited. I explore some of these below and use them to guide my analysis in Chapters7and8.
1) Principles of Local Governments
The principles stated by Kooiman and Jentoft (2009) such as moral responsibility, responsiveness, transparency etc. are applicable to both the governing and the governed. However, much of the governance literature focuses mostly on the responsibilities of governing systems. It is interesting to note that Swianiewicz (2001) states similar core principles for local government action: liberty, participation, and effectiveness. Liberty in this case means the existence of local government to protect the concentration of political 1For the complete model, the reader is referred to Resilient City Planning Framework by Yosef Jabareen
2 . 4 . G O V E R N A N C E
power in one center. This is similar to the accountability principle proposed by Kooiman and Jentoft (2009) listed in Table 2.1. Participation means allowing wider inclusion of citizens (related to principle of inclusiveness), and effectiveness is used for the quality of service delivery (related to the first-order governance).
Given these principles, it is straightforward to see that trust also emerges as an im-portant concept for governance, i.e., when governing institutions function according to such principles, they are in a well-placed position to gain the public trust and are hence legitimate. On the other hand, the failure to do so would potentially erode the trust of the public. It is also interesting to note that Kooiman et al. (2005), use legitimacy as a principle for second-order governing, specifically for governing systems. He argues, “a management system will have a greater chance of achieving its goals when compared to a management system that has less legitimacy” (ibid: 279-280). He further argues that legitimacy is bound to the overarching standards to rationality, reason, and justice (in other words moral responsibility). It can be argued then that a governance system can command trust by adhering to principles such as those mentioned above and is hence legitimate.
2) Inclusivity
The concept of governance itself implies the participation of a broad range of actors, which stems from the principle of inclusiveness. This inclusion is not limited to having a voice but refers to the direct involvement, as an equal participant, from planning to implementation, and evaluation of decisions (Kooiman and Jentoft, 2009: 826). More importantly, inclusion serves to balance power relations. It safeguards those who have less power by ensuring their involvement when things that are important to them are at stake (Jentoft, 2007).
3) Responsiveness of Governance Institutions
Kooiman and Jentoft (2009: 827) argue that failure of government keeps them from re-sponding to wishes of the governed. Some such failures are associated with bureaucracies of the governing-systems and shed light on the importance of responsiveness.
It is argued that modernization and production of wealth is systematically accompa-nied by social production of risks: hazards and threats that were previously unknown (Beck, 2002). Climate change can be seen as one such risk. Within this concept (called Risk Society) developed by Beck (2002), it is theorized that risks are produced in social systems. Hence organizations and institutions are themselves responsible for controlling and producing risk. Governments, due to excessive regulation, are prone to red tapism, ineffectiveness and wastefulness (Giddens, 1997). Thus, bureaucracies often become a cat-alyst for organizational deficiencies, poor performance, and eventually their own failure due to excessive rigidity and inflexibility (Fukuyama, 2013).
Furthermore, responsiveness as argued by Kooiman and Jentoft (2009: 827) is a two way street. It requires a match between the governing system and the systems-to-be-governed. Effective responses will only be designed and implemented if a) the governed entities are amenable to be governed and provide ‘breathing space’ to the governors, and
b) if the governors are flexible and receptive to the needs of the governed. Therefore, it can be claimed that responsiveness is a critical component for well-functioning governance institutions.
Given the above-mentioned approaches to governance, I now explore the role of spatial planning as a governance tool to tackle climate vulnerability.
2.5
Spatial Planning and Application of Governance concepts
2.5.1 The Role of Spatial Planning
Spatial planning can be described as the coordination of practices and policies to influ-ence the distribution of people and activities in spaces of various scales. It is becoming an increasingly influential discipline in promoting sustainability and resilience, as a provider of stewardship of both the built and natural environment (Colenbrander and Sowman, 2015). The earliest definition of Spatial Planning can be found in the European Regional/Spatial Charter, according to which, "Regional/spatial planning gives geograph-ical expression to the economic, social, cultural and ecologgeograph-ical policies of society. It is at the same time a scientific discipline, an administrative technique and a policy devel-oped as an interdisciplinary and comprehensive approach directed towards a balanced regional development and the physical organization of space according to an overall strategy” (Planning, 1983). Spatial Planning plays an essential role in determining the physical security of the built-environment by determining the socio-spatial policies of any given area. It subsequently affects the resilience of cities and has the potential to tackle climate vulnerability by regulating development in hazard prone areas. This is done through proper land use management, transportation and environmental planning etc. (Van Assche et al., 2012).
2.5.2 Spatial Planning as a Governance Instrument
Climate change has profound effects on a broad spectrum of infrastructure systems, ser-vices, the built environment, ecosystem services. The way these systems (to-be-governed) interact with other socio-economic and environmental stressors also pose risks to individ-ual and household well-being (Revi et al., 2014) and may subsequently exacerbate climate vulnerability. Spatial Planning can then be seen as an important tool to influence policy-making and also the governance structures. Moreover, in government institutions, spatial planning is generally done by means of legislation. Looking at it from the perspective of Interactive Governance it can be seen as an instrument to influence social interactions (Kooiman et al., 2008).
Furthermore, it is observed that components of climate vulnerability (geophysical, biological, socio-economic) are often treated separately instead of seeing them as one interdependent system (2.2above). Therefore, spatial planning as an instrument does not only serve to facilitate links between multiple scales and aspects of vulnerability (2.2),
2 . 5 . S PAT I A L P L A N N I N G A N D A P P L I C AT I O N O F G O V E R N A N C E C O N C E P T S
it also serves to integrate various components of a governance system. Considering a resilient city as an image, spatial planning can mobilize the local government to tackle climate vulnerability by enhancing resilience.
As explained in 2.4.2images represent the goals and ideals that actors rely on to gain socio-political support. Considering spatial planning as an instrument and urban resilience as an image, I now explore ’Sustainable Urban Form’ as a step towards building a resilient city.
2.5.3 Criteria for Evaluating Urban Resilience
While spatial planning deals with macro-level dimensions of urban planning, Sustainable Urban Form focuses on the nitty-gritty of urban design for effective public policy and governability. Since governability refers to the capacity to deal with vulnerabilities in the system-to-be-governed, Sustainable Urban Form (SUF)is an important parameter to assess governability of climate vulnerabilities. At the same time, it is also a tool for enhancing urban resilience and is based on the following concepts (as argued by Jabareen, 2006)2:
Compactness of the city: Compactness of the city refers to urban contiguity and
con-nectivity that can minimize transport of energy, water, materials, products, and people.
Sustainable transport: It is defined as “transportation services that reflect the full social
and environmental costs of the their provision; that respect carrying capacity, and that balance the needs for access, environmental quality, and neighborhood livability” (Jordan and Horan, 1997).
Density of urban infrastructure: Density is the ratio of people or dwelling units to land
area and refers to the increased used to space both vertically and horizontally in a certain area. It is also strongly associated with sustainable transport use.
Mixed land uses: It requires creation of diverse functional land uses to promotes a
greater variety of housing types, building densities, household sizes, income and cultures etc.
Greening: Greening not only embraces nature as an integral part of the city but also
contributes to appealing urban environments and sustainability. It also constitutes main-tenance of biodiversity and environmental protection and conservation.
I come back to these concepts in my analysis of spatial planning in Chapter6. With this theoretical framework under my belt, in the next chapter I proceed to give the reader some information about the research context.
2For a detailed discussion on Sustainable Urban Forms the reader is referred to the work of Jabareen
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R e s e a r c h C o n t e x t
3.1
South Africa
South Africa has a tragic past whose shadows still cast a palling influence on the fragile hopes of the present. Like most countries rising from the ashes of the social and economic destruction wreaked by colonial rule, South Africa today finds itself facing a host of prob-lems, chief among which are social and economic inequality. Further, what makes South Africa unique among post-colonial societies is its history of legalized racism–apartheid. The distrust among the classes, sowed by decades of apartheid, still persists, which is only exacerbated by the fact that in modern day South Africa, race has become tied to class (Statistics South Africa, 2011; Frith, 2011). The situation is so bleak that as recently as 2015, the New York Times published a story with the ominous title: "In South Africa, Land Apartheid Lives On" (Brophy, 2015). One of the problems, according to the authors is, "that white South Africans are receiving far more compensation than blacks." Apart from this, the adherence of successive governments (almost allAfrican National Congress (ANC)led) to the neoliberal economic agenda means that South Africa also has to struggle with all the ills associated with that agenda (Miraftab, 2004).
3.2
Cape Town
In South Africa, I did my research with the Municipal Government of the famous city of Cape Town. Cape Town is a historic city that boasts economic, social and ecological importance. In the past, it served as one of the most important economic outposts of the European empires. During the apartheid rule, Cape Town came to symbolize its oppressive nature, with the infamous racial purges of District Six. Ecologically, Cape Town is home to a broad range of flora and fauna and its coast is a meeting point between
the ’east’ and the ’west’, marked by the confluence of the Indian and Atlantic Oceans. The city’s coastline is famous around the world for its breathtaking beauty and is also its greatest economic and social asset.
Presently, Cape Town is a popular tourist destination. In 2014, the city won its bid for World Design Capital. This is a city promotion project aimed at celebrating the accomplishment of cities that have used Design as a tool to reinvent themselves and to improve social, cultural, and economic life (Worlddesigncapital.com, 2015). At the same time the city is struggling with the poverty away from its protected bays and the
Table Mountain National Park. Furthermore, accusations of racism are rampant, which are seen to play a role in the economic disparity between blacks and whites.
3.3
City of Cape Town Metropolitan Municipality
For the purpose of clarity, in this thesis I will refer to the metropolitan government by its original name i.e., ‘The City of Cape Town’ or by its initials CCT. The city itself will be called Cape Town. CCT has undergone several reforms since it first received local self-government in 1839 (Worden, Van Heyningen and Bickford-Smith, 1998). What started off as a municipality that governed only the City Bowl, expanded and drew in several other suburbs and their municipalities over time. After the end of apartheid era, the metropolitan area was divided into six distinct municipalities and a Metropolitan Administration to oversee the whole metropolitan area. However, in 2000, these var-ious structures were combined to form the City of Cape Town as single metropolitan municipality. The CCT is also sometimes referred to as the ‘Unicity’.
The legislative body of the CCT is called the City Council. Subsequent to the cre-ation of the CCT from the previous six municipalities, the city council was divided into twenty-four sub-councils that consist of three to six ’wards’. Wards are the geopolitical subdivisions of the city used for electoral purposes. Each ward elects one member for the city council (also called ward councilors) and eventually the city council elects the mayor of the City. The mayor in turn chooses an eleven member Mayoral Committee from the city council members/ward councilors. The Mayoral committee appoints the City Manager, who acts as the non-political (non-legislative) head of the city’s administration.
3.3.1 Executive Structure
Under the City Manager, is the Executive Management Team (also overseen by the may-oral committee) of the City of Cape Town. Each member of the executive management team is the head of a ’directorate’ consisting of several departments. These directorates handle various functions of the city such as Health, Finance, Social Development, Trans-port, Energy, Environment, and Spatial Planning etc. Figure 3.2 shows an example of the hierarchical structure of the City Management, focusing on the directorate of Energy, Environment and Spatial Planning.
3 . 3 . C I T Y O F C A P E T O W N M E T R O P O L I TA N M U N I C I PA L I T Y
Figure 3.1: Cape Town
Five departments/branches of the CCT were interviewed for the purpose of this re-search: i) Environmental Resource Management, ii) Disaster Risk Management Centre, iii) Storm water and Sustainability, iv) Spatial Planning and Urban Design, and v) Informal Settlements. In addition to this, several ward councilors from the Cape Flats area were also interviewed. These areas include Khayelitsha, Philippi, Macassar, and Mitchelle’s Plain.
Figure 3.2: City Management (Source: Author)
For the purpose of analysis, I make a distinction between the following two groups of officials on the basis of the ‘people’ they represent.
3.3.2 Ward Councilors
(Ward Councilor (WC)s) are CCT officials elected to represent an area (ward) on the
council. They have an important role because: a) they are elected by their wards and are therefore accountable to their community/area they represent; and b) they may be associated to a political party and serve a bigger agenda.
3.3.3 Policy-Makers/Departmental Heads
These are the key managers and departmental heads interviewed from various depart-ments of the CCT. These people may not be directly involved in policy-making but being closer to local ground realities gives them an influence over how policies are implemented, and on the feedback (on the ground) that goes back up the bureaucratic ladder.
3 . 4 . P O S T- A PA R T H E I D P E R S P E C T I V E O F S PAT I A L P L A N N I N G A N D C L I M AT E V U L N E R A B I L I T Y I N T H E C A P E T O W N
3.4
Post-Apartheid Perspective of Spatial Planning and
Climate Vulnerability in the Cape Town
Looking back at the history of Cape Town, the period from 1940-70s, referred to as ‘high apartheid’ by Harrison et al. (2008) saw implementation of many racialist policies, such as the infamous Group Areas Act. Such policies served to remove certain ethnic groups from white population areas. This ended up creating ‘semi-formal’ settlements on the urban periphery of Cape Town in areas such as Khayelitsha. The focus on spatial planning to create such a social divide is evident in these settlements. As very aptly stated by an urban designer working for the City of Cape Town, the use of modernist design and planning provided the “perfect top-down device to order, separate, divide and control the populace” (Fataar and Petzer, 2014).
Given this background, the onset of the democratic era has seen many attempts to bring down the class and racial segregation in an attempt to make a more inclusive city. Initiatives like the Integrated Development Planning (IDP) pushed by local governments have had significant impacts on urban spatial planning in South Africa (Localgovern-mentaction.org, n.d.) as a follow up on growth, development, and redistribution policies. Within these IDPs is a stipulation for (Spatial Development Framework (SDF)s) for each municipality and entails priorities and a vision based on equity and inclusiveness (du Plessis, 2013; Capetown.gov.za, 2015). The policies seek to bridge the gap between the urban and rural; the concepts are viewed as “parts of a continuous regional, national, and international system interrelated through a web of economic, social, political, and environmental linkages.”
In this context, it is relevant to analyze Cape Town Spatial Development Framework (SDF), which won the South African Planning Institute’s award for best Municipal Project. (Capetown.gov.za, 2015). According to the government’s reports, Cape Town’s land area has doubled since the mid-1980s and its population is expected to reach 4.2 million in the next 15 years. The rapid urbanization is putting a strain on the city’s resources: fresh water resources are dwindling, landfill sites are reaching their capacity, roads are con-gested and ecological systems are threatened (City of Cape Town, 2014). SDF serves as a long term plan to unite strategies for economic growth, urban development, employment, and environmental protection. Under the umbrella of the SDF, the (Climate Adaptation Plan of Action (CAPA)s) are being implemented (City of Cape Town, 2006) and will be analyzed in the following chapters.
3.5
Neoliberal Approach in the Government
As stated above, since the dawn of the democratic era, South Africa has adhered strictly to the neoliberal agenda. This has had adverse effects in multiple ways. Among other things it has led to job insecurity (Miraftab, 2004); concession of government responsibility to the private sector with negative results for the lower strata of the society (Miraftab,
2004) high levels of economic inequality, with class becoming tied to race (Statistics South Africa, 2011); and a general feeling of disillusionment on the part of many ANC supporters who had dreamt of a more equitable future post-apartheid (Hart, 2002: 1). Thus, it can be presumed that the policies and actions of the CCT too would be imbued in the neoliberal framework.
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R e s e a r c h D e s i g n
4.1
Introduction
In this chapter I present the research questions and various design challenges faced before, during, and after the research. This chapter also provides a thorough explanation of the methods and approaches that I used to conduct the research. Finally I present some ethical considerations in studying a government structure.
4.2
Research Question and Sub-questions
The main aim of this research is to understand how local governments tackle the chal-lenges climate vulnerability poses to cities. I explore this through the following research question:
How are the challenges posed by climate vulnerability governed by City of Cape Town metropolitan government, in the context of spatial planning?
Along with the theoretical framework presented in the previous chapter, I answer the main research question with the help of the four questions. The following sub-questions assist in exploring the key concepts and serve as building blocks for my re-search:
• How is climate vulnerability defined within the City of Cape Town metropolitan munici-pality (CCT)?
• Do different departments within the CCT map climate vulnerability? If so, how?
• Does the difference in understanding across departments within CCT influence spatial
demarcation of vulnerability and if so, in what way?
