Isipingo

Housing 'Delivery' in Durban is Corrupt from the Top to the Bottom

Uganda Transit Camp, Durban: A report from the frontlines of the struggle for democracy

http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2013-02-13-uganda-transit-camp-durban-a-report-from-the-frontlines-of-the-struggle-for-democracy/

Just two decades after the dawn of democracy, an old horror is revisiting the new South Africa. Transit camps are back, and they are back with a vengeance, writes JARED SACKS.

Close to midnight and you can still hear babies wailing, couples quarrelling and house music blaring through the razor-thin zinc sheets that the eThekwini Municipality calls “walls” in Uganda Transit Camp near Isipingo, Durban. Getting a decent night’s sleep is a struggle in and of itself. And yet, that’s only the beginning.

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New Branches & New Struggles in KwaNdengezi & Isipingo

27 November 2012
Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Statement

New Branches & New Struggles in KwaNdengezi & Isipingo

On Sunday the 18th of November 120 people, mainly women, participated in the launch of the new Abahlali baseMjondolo(AbM) branch in KwaNdengezi. On Sunday the 25th of November we launched another new AbM branch in the Uganda settlement in Isipingo. We currently have 64 branches, 55 in KwaZulu-Natal and 9 in the Western Cape.

Abahlali baseMjondolo Launch at KwaNdengezi

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The Difference that Place Makes: The Economic Implications of Moving from an Informal Settlement to a Transit Camp

Submitted by Abahlali_3 on Tue, 2010-08-24 19:42. academic | Emantombazaneni | Isipingo | Mark Hunter | transit camps

The Difference that Place Makes: Some Brief Notes on the Economic Implications of Moving from an Informal Settlement to a Transit Camp

Mark Hunter, Dept. Geography, University of Toronto, mhunter@utsc.utoronto.ca. August, 2010.

This document is a very brief case study exploring the economic implications of a small informal settlement’s relocation from King’s Rest, a place close to a railway station, dock, a relatively wealthy suburb at Durban’s Bluff, to a large transit camp near Orient Hills in Isipingo.

On the face of it the move should not have adversely affected the community: Isipingo is an industrial area of Durban and not a rural peripheral location—the site of many new RDP housing settlements. Moreover, on paper, the transit camp offers a healthier environment: communal toilets and water are provided and the housing structures are formally built.

The Rising Sun: Abahlali launches new branch in Isipingo

Submitted by Abahlali_3 on Fri, 2012-12-14 12:16. Isipingo | Uganda

The article is attached, below, in pdf.

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Mercury: Temporary Camps That Become Prisons

Submitted by Abahlali_3 on Mon, 2012-10-08 12:31. Emantombazaneni | Isipingo | Mark Hunter | transit camps

The published version is attached, below. The text here is of the original version.

The Forgotten World of Transit Camps

Mark Hunter

In cities across the country there has been something of a quiet epidemic of tiny state built structures called transit camps—or amathini (tins) by those who live in them.

Transit Camps are purportedly temporary places to where shack dwellers are relocated while their RDP houses are being built. They are not designed to be inhabited for a long time; the problem is that this is exactly what has happened.

“We were told that we would get a house in 6 months” said Thembi Gumede (a pseudonym), who lived in a shack in Durban until moved to Isipingo Transit Camp in 2009. But now 3 years has passed. “They promised toilets and good houses at the Transit Camp,” said Mr. Ngcobo, “but we are left to die.” “We have been thrown away,” said Mrs. Magwaza.

Mercury: Filthy transit camp poses health risk

Submitted by Abahlali_3 on Mon, 2012-05-07 09:09. Gugu Mbonambi | Isipingo | The Mercury | transit camps

http://www.iol.co.za/mercury/filthy-transit-camp-poses-health-risk-1.1285773

Filthy transit camp poses health risk

Gugu Mbonambi

The appalling conditions under which people are living in a transit camp at Isipingo has already claimed the life of one person and more could die as a result of waterborne diseases.

This stark warning was issued by residents, who claimed that they were “duped” into moving into the R10-million transit camp by the eThekwini municipality, which assured them that new RDP houses would be built for them “within six months”.

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Here to work: the socioeconomic characteristics of informal dwellers in post-apartheid South Africa

Here to work: the socioeconomic characteristics of informal dwellers in post-apartheid South Africa

by Mark Hunter & Dorrit Posel

Government policy towards informal settlements in South Africa reflects a tension between two approaches: recognizing the legitimacy of informal settlements and aggressively removing these so-called “slums”. Drawing on nationally representative household survey data and interviews with 25 individuals relocated from an informal settlement to a “transit camp”, this paper argues that more detailed attention should be paid to the changing connection between housing, household formation and work. Whereas cities in the apartheid era were marked by relatively stable industrial labour and racially segregated family housing, today the location and nature of informal dwellings are consistent with two important trends: demographic shifts, including towards smaller more numerous households, and employment shifts, including a move from permanent to casual and from formal to informal work. This study is therefore able to substantiate in more detail a longstanding insistence by informal settlement residents that they live where they do for reasons vital to their everyday survival. The paper also highlights the limitations of relocations not only to urban peripheries but also to other parts of cities, and it underscoresthe importance of upgrading informal