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Mass urbanisation in cities of the global South, is causing cities to evolve, with informal settlements being central to this evolution. While local government is the official point of interaction for urban informal settlement dwellers, those interactions are often characterised by a lack of meaningful participation. Engaging with the co-production literature and two case studies of informal settlements in Cape Town, South Africa, this paper examines how they shed light on the shifting and constantly evolving roles and practices of local government and community actors within a co-production engagement. Based on the findings from these cases, the paper argues that co-production as a practice of collaboration between the local state and citizens can allow for the forging of new relationships, built on trust, sharing of resources and a more equal distribution of power where communities can shape the outcomes of service delivery projects to respond to their needs and demands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban citizens increasingly need to adapt to climate risk. This is especially the case in informal settlements that have limited state engagement and are particularly vulnerable to climate change. Community-based adaptation (CBA) in the informal settlement has the potential to support the transformation that re-shapes power relations as well as reducing climate risk. This paper explores how multiscalar governance in Cape Town can either empower or undermine CBA to flooding in informal settlements. Drawing on urban political ecology, the analysis reveals significant tension around differing ideas of the temporality of informal settlements, as well as token community inclusivity in participatory planning processes. While everyday governance practices have been used by the City of Cape Town at the local scale, a local community-based organisation has used insurgent planning to envision and enact a more just city. A community designed and spear-headed reblocking process (rearranging shacks in a settlement to allow for flood drainage and service delivery) is a powerful example of CBA and represents the potential of community-based organisations to take steps towards transformative action. In order to enable more widespread urban transformative CBA, it is important to address the drivers of vulnerabilities and underlying power dynamics of political decision-making to destabilise the status quo and move towards real adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most pervasive planning challenges in Southern cities is the formal housing shortage. In South African cities informal occupation of vacant buildings and land is one way in which urban dwellers meet their housing needs. This paper uses land occupations in Cape Town, South Africa, as a lens to explore conflicting rationalities. We show that there are conflicting rationalities both between the state and occupiers, as well as within the state and among occupiers. In nuancing the conflicting rationalities concept through an empirical case study, this paper concludes by outlining implications for planning theory and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the face of declining public subsidies, municipalities will have to find additional revenue to meet the expectations of growing populations that cannot afford to pay. Conventional approaches to setting user fees do not evaluate the benefits to members of society who do not directly use the service. This paper presents a study that measured the willingness of the ‘non-poor’ residents of Cape Town, to pay for the benefits of improving services in informal settlements. The respondents expressed highest preference for shared facilities followed by yard facilities, and were willing to pay USD 11.21; and USD 7.73 per month respectively. Willingness-to-pay was influenced by proximity to the informal settlement and on method of payment. The potential revenue from non-user value exceeded the installation costs for shared and yard facilities, suggesting that municipalities could finance upgrades by harnessing the non-user value among the non-poor residents. The method applied in this study could be used to improve policy planning and subsidy targeting. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]