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Alison Todes, Philip Harrison, and Margot Rubin (SA Research Chair on Spatial Analysis and City Planning and School of Architecture and Planning, University of the Witwatersrand
Rethinking Density at a time of COVID-19
ALISON TODES, PHILIP HARRISON AND MARGOT RUBIN SA Research Chair on Spatial Analysis and City Planning and School of Architecture and Planning, University of the Witwatersrand
Along came the virus…
The Covid-19 epidemic came to us as a rude surprise, just as it did to everyone else. We watched with a sense of dread as the crisis enfolded in Wuhan, a middle-ranking Chinese city, and then as it spread globally, including to South Africa. Again, like everyone else, our home and working lives changed and we had to adapt to our lockeddown reality in the world that had suddenly become surreal.
Covid-19 has marked almost every aspect of our lives, including, it turns out, our research. Before the arrival of the pandemic, we were busily engaged with the finishing touches to an edited book on urban densification. The book spotlights density policy and processes in Johannesburg but locates them within policy and scholarly debates globally, and in relation to the experience of a select number of other cities. We had persuaded individuals locally and internationally to contribute to the book and were trying to synthesise the key ideas into introductory chapters as the pandemic broke.
Density was of course an important topic in urban studies and planning long before Covid-19. Modern town planning (in Europe, at least) had emerged in response to the perceived overcrowding of late nineteenth century industrial cities, and for many decades planning was marked by an antipathy towards high densities, with density associated with overcrowding, disease, and various social pathologies. In the 1960s, however, Jane Jacobs famously argued that it is density which produces the vibrancy, excitement and sociality that draws people to cities. The rise of environmentalism spurred on the change in attitude, with arguments that dense and compact cities are more sustainable than others, as they use fewer resources, and produce less greenhouse gas emissions, per capita. Finally, economists pointed to the wealth-creating benefits of agglomeration, showing how the concentration of markets, skills and business relationships supports innovation and growth.
Urban policy embraced density, with international agencies such as the World Bank, the OECD and UNHabitat encouraging national and city governments to adopt densification policies. The landmark New Urban Agenda adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2017 affirmed a broad support for densification. However, the policy debate was never entirely closed with some governments, for example, supporting new city developments to de-densify historical core cities. Critics of compaction policies include
Solly Angel of New York University (NYU) who argued that metropolitan cities are dedensifying and that the most sensible approach is to plan proactively for expansion.
While the policy debate polarized into strong positions for and against densification, a more nuanced scholarly literature evolved which explores density in relation to: the multiple other factors shaping cities; the diverse meanings of density; the way design affects the experience of density; the complex mix of positive and negative effects of density in everyday life; cultural preferences in relation to density; and, the politics of density including the way economic interests are hidden behind the rhetoric on density. It is a literature which challenges simple policy mantras for or against density and requires us to pay careful attention to the management of both densification and expansion.
We had written up our chapters, reflecting these debates and insights, when Covid-19 came along. The disease spread initially along global mobility networks, connecting first to places that were strongly linked by air travel, tourism and international connections, and these were mainly large global
cities. Also, as an airborne disease, degrees of social distance are an important factor in the relative rate of transmission, and the popular association between density and contagion was quickly revived. A policy and scholarly debate also resurfaced. It began in the USA where New York, the city Jane Jacobs had used to argue for the virtues of density, but which was now the national epicenter of the disease. A study of cities in the USA by Angel and his NYU colleagues claimed a statistical correlation between
city density and Covid-19 infections. However, other studies soon countered with arguments that density was one of multiple interacting factors that explained vulnerability to infection, and that it was form that density took, rather than density per se, which mattered. International studies, such as the World Bank on East Asian cities, pointed to very dense cities that had low or managed rates of infections, while others apartheid city. the complex patterning of Covid-19 infections across places with very different degrees of density related well to our understanding of how contextually situated density outcomes are. We did however have to engage directly with a rising fear that in the global South, dense informal settlements and slums, where services are deficient and social distancing showed that in the spread of infection low density suburbs are not spared.
Even as we were about to submit the book to the publishers we had to step back and take account of these debates. Fortunately, though, our engagement with the earlier scholarly literature meant that we were not thrown off course by the claims
In the post-apartheid era in South Africa, compaction, integration and densification ” have been core to urban policies, which attempt to redress the sprawling, divided
and counterclaims. Instead, is not possible, will be overrun by the disease, recalling older public health concerns about density. This was, of course, a fear resonant in South Africa, the context to which we now turn.
Density in South Africa In the post-apartheid era in South Africa, compaction, integration and densification have been core to urban
policies, which attempt to redress the sprawling, divided apartheid city. The City of Johannesburg has been a leader in this regard, with its Growth and Development Strategies and Spatial Development Frameworks which express these intentions. Policies have been continually updated to refine and further develop these strategies, including the recent Corridors of Freedom (since 2013), densifying and encouraging affordable housing along Transit Oriented Development routes integrating the city, the Nodal Density Review (2019), the Inclusionary Housing Policy (2019), and the new Land Use Management Scheme (2018) which adopts a more flexible approach to land use management, and enables densification.
The book shows that densification is occurring in this city, although the promotion of compaction-integration has faced challenges. Although development has largely occurred within the confines of Johannesburg’s urban growth boundary, there has been significant urban growth close to the city’s edge, where large parcels of cheaper land are available. This takes the form of both publicly provided low-cost housing schemes (offering mainly detached housing) generally close to existing townships once reserved for black people, and gated estates developed by the private sector, largely for those who can afford to purchase housing, from lower-middle to upper income. While these developments are generally more dense than older suburbs, the main forms of densification have occurred through informal processes, and/or have been enabled through a loosening of planning controls. Some densification has occurred through the development of townhouse complexes and apartment blocks in existing suburbs in/close to economic nodes, including developer built ‘affordable’ rental housing along the Corridors, but this does not reach the urban poor, who constitute 50% of the city’s population. New inclusionary housing policy is also unlikely to reach this grouping.
The book notes the significance of forms of ‘informal densification’ in Johannesburg, including informal settlements, backyard housing in former townships, increasing occupancy in rental housing in the inner city – in both apartment blocks and houses. These are ways in which some groups of the urban poor/lower income groups are accessing the city, and especially better located areas. The chapters in the book show that the nature of ‘informal densification’ and people’s experiences of it can vary substantially – depending, for example, on its history, physical form,
design, management, levels of infrastructure and services available. While it is a major way in which densification is occurring in Johannesburg, municipal policy to address/ support/manage it is weakly developed. Some chapters look at how this could change. It is particularly important to do so in the context of the Covid-19 epidemic, where the fear is that it will run rife in such dense, often poorly serviced, low-income areas.
It was this fear that in part drove the Department of Human Settlements, Water and Sanitation (DHSWS) to start a discussion on “dedensification” or thinning of informal settlements. A day after the announced State of National Disaster, Minister Sisulu provided her own strategy to curb infection in highly vulnerable sites. The DHSWS identified 29 what it called priority areas for de-densification. Initial proposals argued for relocating households into new settlements not far from their homes, which were touted as being safer and healthier for informal dwellers.
Plans were made to fasttrack the development and construction of units, either in existing projects or on new land parcels. The number of units across the country but especially in Gauteng and the Eastern Cape ran into the thousands, with an implied completion date of just a few months. Provincial officials in Gauteng were also asked to allow 14 000 people to move into units that had been completed but lacked services - with the DHSWS stating that these too could be fast-tracked.
The announcement was unsurprisingly met with concern from numerous quarters: civil society organisations, academics, informal dwellers and practitioners expressed anxieties over the proposed plans. Not least of which were concerns around how people would be moved and what the procedure would be to select those who would be relocated. Further concerns circled on issues of the breakdown of social networks and the unintended destruction of social capital that would be absolutely imperative for poorer households in times of crisis. Given the Department’s record of a slowdown in housing delivery over the last few years, there was also some pessimism about their ability to delivery on these units and particularly within the very short time frames that would be needed. The state has also been criticised for a number of years for the provision of poor quality accommodation in Temporary Relocation Areas (TRAs) which are, notoriously constructed from material similar to those found in informal settlements but often with fewer
amenities and worse locations. Many housing commentators feared that the sites COVID refugees would be settled in would closely resemble these units, and so would hardly be an improvement on the original spaces that informal dwellers were inhabiting and would have less well-entrenched social networks and income generating opportunities. More skeptical voices also raised the view that Minister Sisulu was using the COVID crisis as “cover” to camouflage her long-standing intention to “eradicate” inform settlements and the pandemic was merely an excuse to unlawfully evict informal dwellers.
The Ministry has engaged with at least some of the criticisms and there has been a slight pulling back from the grand plans for mass relocations. A more nuanced model has emerged of some reblocking in line with the existing Informal Settlement Upgrading Programme, and more extensive engagement with residents concerning their potential relocation. Greater emphasis has also been placed on the provision of services, sanitation and facilities for handwashing as there has been a shift in understanding how best densities can be managed. The newer approach (albeit not adhered to in all contexts) recognizes both the social importance of density for poorer people in handling crises and the benefits of agglomeration that accrue through social ties but also notes the impossibility of social distancing and how these dangers need to be mitigated by better access to water and sanitation.
When the Covid-19 pandemic came along, it not only stripped away and laid bare the areas of our cities to which more attention should have been paid but also complexifies the position on density.
The contributors have edited the book Densifying the City: Global Cases and Johannesburg, which was published in 2020 and edited by Margot Rubin, Alison Todes, Philip Harrison, and Allie Appelbaum. This work provides an indepth exploration of the complexities of densification policy and processes, bringing the important experiences of densification in Johannesburg into conversation with a range of cities in Africa, the BRICS countries and the Global North.
