PARTIAL FORMALIZATION AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR COMMUNITY GOVERNANCE IN AN INFORMAL SETTLEMENT.

While the state has an imperative to deliver housing, at the same time, many communities actively organize to develop housing in their areas. In the Cape Metropolitan Area alone over 220 000 families live in informal settlements and backyard shacks and qualify for state assistance (Van der Walt, 2001). Researchers have focused on many aspects of the low-income housing development process in South Africa: on state policies and financing (Bond and Tait, 1997; Bond, 1997; Tomlinson, 1998; Behrens et al., 1998), and on community participation (Miraftab, 2001).Yet, analysis of the upgrading of informal settlements through the provision of housing often stops at the stage when communities receive services and basic infrastructure. Understanding of the aftermath, the affects of housing delivery on community structures and patterns of governance, has not received the same levels of attention. This paper addresses this disparity through an empirical analysis of the after effects of partial formalization of housing on community structures and mechanisms for governance in an informal settlement in Cape Town (see Oldfield, 2000a for a theoretical exploration of these issues). In this area, residents succeeded in securing formal homes and servicing for onethird of the community, but two-thirds of the residents persist in informal structures without basic sanitation and household water supplies. The paper examines the effects of the partial formalization of the area on community structures, the articulation of residents' needs, and longer-term community development initiatives. The analysis facilitates an examination of processes of differentiation between new homeowners and those who continue to squat; processes, in this case, that are concomitant with upgrading and the physical consolidation of a community in an informal environment. By analyzing the specific roles that community-based organizations and residents play in the delivery of housing, the impacts of housing... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]