Green Economy: A Strategy to Alleviate Urban Poverty and Safeguard the Environment? KwaZulu-Natal,South Africa

The global failure to develop in a sustainable manner has led to attempts to adopt green economy approaches in the context of poverty alleviation and sustainable development. Given South Africa’s high carbon footprint and other negative environmental externalities, the government, in partnership with civil society and the private sector, is taking steps to green its economy. The efforts range from large-scale solar installation projects to small-scale grassroots level projects where green jobs are created for the poor, predominantly women, by paying them for environmental services. This paper addresses if and how green economy can be used to alleviate poverty and protect the environment at a grassroots level. In a project under the management of a local environmental non-governmental organisation (ENGO), poor urban women in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, are utilising the concept to generate income, improve their livelihoods and contribute to environmental sustainability. Green economy is in some ways addressing the gendered social and environmental externalities of urbanisation, wherein women are differentially poor and the environment is neglected in economic development. Left with few other options, the urban poor are using an ENGO and its green economy programme as a mechanism to lift themselves out of poverty, while indirectly managing the environment.     

Moving to Opportunity? An Examination of Housing Choice Vouchers on Urban Poverty Deconcentration in South Florida

The increase in socioeconomic disparity between households runs counter to federal housing goals to improve the prospects of the poor. One goal of the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program, which provides rental assistance to low-income families, is the deconcentration of poverty. This study is a longitudinal analysis of the HCV program's deconcentration effectiveness in Broward County, Florida. The movement of HCV households before and after voucher assignment is examined. Spatial statistics reveal that HCV recipients are highly clustered in low opportunity areas both prior to and after receiving a voucher. Factors that significantly relate to the likelihood that a voucher recipient will or will not move to an area of higher opportunity are assessed. Results from an opportunity index derived from principal components analysis and an ordinary least squares regression model indicate that being non-Black, having a larger household, and originating from economically distressed areas with high poverty and unemployment relates more strongly to relocation to neighborhoods with greater opportunity.     

Growing Out of Poverty: Does Urban Agriculture Contribute to Household Food Security in Southern African Cities?

The literature on urban agriculture (UA) as a food security and poverty alleviation strategy is bifurcating into two distinct positions. The first is that UA is a viable and effective pro-poor development strategy, and the second is that UA has demonstrated limited positive outcomes on either food security or poverty. These two positions are tested against data generated by the African Urban Food Security Network’s (AFSUN) baseline food security survey undertaken in 11 Southern African cities. At the aggregate level, the analysis shows that (1) urban context is an important predictor of rates of household engagement in UA—the economic, political, and historical circumstances and conditions of a city are key factors that either promote or hinder UA activity and scale; (2) UA is not an effective household food security strategy for poor urban households—the analysis found few significant relationships between UA participation and food security; and (3) household levels of earnings and land holdings may mediate UA impacts on food security—wealthier households derive greater net food security benefits from UA than poor households do. These findings call into question the potential benefits of UA as a broad urban development strategy and lend support to the position that UA has limited poverty alleviation benefits under current modes of practice and regulation.     

Valuing Social Resources or Capitalizing on Them? Limits to Pro-poor Urban Governance in Nine Cities of the South

Drawing on research in nine cities of Africa, Asia and Latin America, evidence of local-level networks and associational life is analysed, to assess where benefits accrue when they are harnessed in the interests of city governance. Adopting a critical approach to the concept of social capital, it is concluded that the social resources of the urban poor (family, kinship, social networks and community-level organization) are as much an asset for urban development institutions and processes as they are for the poor themselves. Although urban government and other development agencies may draw upon the social resources of poor communities and benefit from or respond to public action, this does not mean that they depend on them. Although public action is important to ensure local democracy, social capital, it is concluded, does not guarantee pro-poor governance.     

Johannesburg (South Africa) Inner City African Immigrant Traders: Pathways from Poverty?

By deploying various perspectives on urban informality as an analytical lens, this paper explores why African immigrant traders in the Johannesburg (South Africa) inner city have resorted to informal street trading, in the midst of challenges relating to, among others, harassment by regulatory authorities and lack of the necessary trading licences. Using a qualitative study of 40 African immigrant traders, this study suggests as simplistic the explanation that African immigrant traders continue to set up businesses and trade in the Johannesburg inner city, because they were only escaping from, among others, poverty and exploitation. Insights from this study seem to suggest that they also engage in street trading because of the lure of less or no stringent controls and the possibility of earning higher incomes. Such insights seem to complicate the perception by African immigrant traders that they engaged in street trading simply because of discrimination, xenophobia and the devaluing of their qualifications. This raises implications regarding the complexity of reasons why African immigrants in a setting like the Johannesburg inner city engage in street trading.     

Reconsidering the ‘Letsema Principle’ and the Role of Community Gardens in Food Security: Evidence from Gauteng, South Africa

In the face of a dire food security challenge in South Africa, high food price spikes in 2008 revitalised a governmental emphasis on the value of urban agricultural responses, especially at the local and household level. Limited empirical evidence casts doubt on this as a suitable response. This paper fills that gap to some extent and confirms a modest impact of an urban agriculture-based programme implemented by the former Gauteng Department of Agriculture, Conservation, and Environment, which established community gardens for the poorest of the poor. Prior reviews finding modest impacts elsewhere have lead to a polarised academic literature, criticism of urban agriculture as a response to food insecurity and development at large contrasts widespread advocacy. In this paper, a new insight is gleaned by opening up the implementation of ‘black box’ to reconfigure the polarised debate thus far. In one sense, the findings reiterate the potential but ambiguous and modest benefits of urban agriculture as a response to the complex food-insecurity problem due to government systems and processes. The implementation of community-based programmes, if pursued further, requires far greater institutional integration and contextual backing, especially considering a more sophisticated understanding of urban food systems. For example, the blurring between income-based and subsistence rationales within programme and policy provisions frustrate the overall success of community gardening, with implementation processes failing to achieve either. Gardens therefore fail to find a niche within wider systems of production, marketing and availability, or as safety nets and social protection. In another sense, the discussion suggests a more critical review of the continuing (misplaced) discursive biases of urban agriculture within policy and practice. This means that although there is more to be researched in terms of the ‘practice of urban agriculture’ and its implementation in specific contexts, we cannot forego critical evaluation of (discursive) policy dynamics, their institutional effects and their manifest praxis.     

The Formal and Informal Worlds of State and Civil Society: What Do They Offer to the Urban Poor?

In recent years, a positive developmental role has been increasingly expected of civil society organizations. Focusing on non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and grass-roots organizations (GROs), the extent to which these organizations exist, adopt pro-poor strategies and have a positive influence in governmental processes in nine cities in Africa, Asia and Latin America is analysed. The findings demonstrate that a number of issues identified from the wider literature about the internal governance arrangements of NGOs and GROs, their commitment and ability to represent and address the needs of the poor, and their relationships with wider political and administrative processes are also a matter for concern at city level. While there are some successful development NGOs, many only operate on a small scale and many do not empower poor people and their organizations. Formal interactions between government and civil society organizations are apparently becoming more common, but informal exchanges between GROs, politicians and officials continue, and may in some circumstances be more productive in terms of delivering practical benefits to poor areas. However, such clientelist relations reinforce undemocratic leadership at community level and perpetuate differential treatment of low-income settlements.     

Planning for Inclusion in South Africa: The State’s Duty to Prevent Homelessness and the Potential of “Meaningful Engagement”

In South Africa, evictions which lead to homelessness are unlawful. Municipalities are required to plan proactively to prevent homelessness, yet they persist in failing to do so. This need not be so. The courts have not only clearly delineated the circumstances in which municipality will be required to accommodate evictees, they have set out on what terms, and have given some guidance—through their “engagement” jurisprudence—on how this may be achieved. This article sets out the law applicable to evictions which lead to homelessness and the precise nature of the duties which fall on local authorities to prevent them. It then explores a case study in which, under court-supervision, desperately poor people living in slum-like conditions have been successfully and consensually re-accommodated in safe, clean and sustainable housing.     

What do we know about effects of desert dust on air quality and human health in West Africa compared to other regions?

This study aims to compare, on the one hand, the geographical distribution of the desert dust source areas, their contribution to quantities emitted into the atmosphere, the trajectories and the quantities deposited, with on the other hand the areas of research interest focused on the desert dust impacts on air quality and/or human health. Based on a systematic review of the literature using the ISI Web of Knowledge database, we found 231 articles published over the last decade on the desert dust impacts on air quality. Of these, 48% concerned Asian dust and 39% Saharan dust, with the remaining 13% divided between the other dust source areas. However, only one of these studies addressed the worsening air pollution in West Africa, even though it is very close to the Sahara, the greatest contributor to the global dust budget. Moreover, there have been very few studies (41) looking at the direct links between desert dust and human health; in this context too, no interest has been shown in West Africa. Yet this region is also among the areas in which morbidity rates have been noted to be far higher than those found in other regions of the world, and where respiratory infections alone account for more than 20% of the causes of infant mortality. This survey highlights a clear imbalance between those areas most exposed to dust and the most studied areas in terms of dust impacts. Given these findings and the often alarming results published about other regions of the world, we advocate a revival of interest in research on West Africa in order to achieve a better understanding of the desert dust impacts on air quality and health among the populations of this region.     

Urban Design,Public Space and the Dynamics of Creative Milieux: A Photographic Approach to Bairro Alto (Lisbon), Gràcia (Barcelona) and Vila Madalena (São Paulo)

Drawing on some results of a broader research project, this paper aims to discuss the relation between urban design and creative dynamics in cultural districts. Appropriation and production of public spaces in three ‘creative quarters’ are analyzed, through a photographic approach, covering material aspects, human appropriation and symbolic dimensions in these areas. Discussing the boundaries of public spaces and their relevance for creative activity (through the conviviality and sociability they promote), it is argued that urban design characteristics and specific place morphologies significantly influence the appropriation of these areas and the development of specific creative dynamics.     

Gyoji Banshoya (1930–1998): a Japanese planner devoted to historic cities in the Middle East and North Africa

Gyoji Banshoya (1930–1998) was a Japanese urban planner whose life-work was urban planning in the Middle East and North Africa. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of his work, which still remains unknown. His early masterpiece, the ‘Square House’, shows how he was influenced by Kiyoshi Seike to apply historic spatial composition to realize width and convertibility in low-cost housing. Following this, Banshoya studied under the supervision of Gerald Hanning and George Candilis at Ateliers de Bâtisseurs in Paris, and went to Algiers to engage in the study of ‘evolutionary habitat’. As a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) expert, he began working with Michel Ecochard in 1962 in Beirut, Damascus, and Aleppo. They were responsible for the elaboration of master plans for these three cities, and that of Damascus still remains as a legally active master plan today. Coupled with the Syrian political struggle since the 1980s, there has been some reaction against their modernist policies. However, the case is made for a detailed examination of Banshoya's work, and re-evaluation of its legacy for the urban planning history of the Middle East and North Africa.     

Dichlobenil and 2,6-dichlorobenzamide (BAM) in the environment: what are the risks to humans and biota?

Dichlobenil is a herbicide widely used for weed control, mainly in non-agricultural areas and in the aquatic environment. When released into the environment, dichlobenil can undergo many processes such as vaporization to air, binding to soil and sediment, as well as degradation to a number of new compounds. The main metabolite is 2,6-dichlorobenzamide (BAM) which is water soluble and causes ground water contamination. It is frequently found in levels exceeding maximum allowed concentrations of pesticides and metabolites in ground water (0.1 μg/L) set by the European Commission. The environmental distribution of both dichlobenil and BAM was outlined and the risk quotients were calculated for biota and for humans. For organisms living in aquatic habitats, risk quotients were low for both dichlobenil and BAM, approximately 0.02 for dichlobenil and 2.4 · 10^− 4 to 1.3 · 10^− 3 for BAM. For humans, a margin of safety above 15,000 was estimated for dichlobenil. The most unusual and extreme concentration of BAM ever found in ground water is 560 μg/L. Even at this concentration, the margin of safety for humans was 313 for a 70 kilo man and 56 for a 25 kilo child. The results clearly demonstrate that the risks to biota and humans are very low.     

Ozonation of secondary treated wastewater reduces ecotoxicity to Gammarus fossarum (Crustacea; Amphipoda): are loads of (micro)pollutants responsible?

Ozone application is an effective tool to reduce loads of (micro)pollutants in wastewater, however, its ecotoxicological implications are largely unknown. Therefore, the feeding rates of a leaf-shredding invertebrate (Gammarus fossarum) exposed to secondary (=non-ozone) or ozone treated wastewater were investigated to assess potential ecotoxicological effects. Two repetitive experiments resulted in significantly higher feeding rates for gammarids exposed to ozone compared to non-ozone treated wastewater sampled from a treatment plant equipped with a full-scale ozonation. A further experiment confirmed these results also for wastewater from the same treatment plant, when ozonation was conducted at the lab-scale. However, the deviations in dissolved organic carbon profiles of ozone and non-ozone wastewater did not seem to be the driving factor for the effects observed. Two additional experiments displayed on the one hand a higher feeding rate of G. fossarum if exposed to ten-fold enriched eluates from solid phase extraction cartridges loaded with ozone compared to non-ozone treated wastewater. On the other hand, the mean feeding rate of gammarids exposed to non-ozone treated wastewater, which contained hardly any (micro)pollutants (i.e. pharmaceuticals), was at the same level as wastewater from the same source additionally treated with ozone. These results suggest that not an alteration in the organic matrix but a reduction in the load of micropollutants most likely triggered the effects in the bioassay applied. Hence, the feeding rate of G. fossarum appears to be a well-suited bioassay to indicate alterations in ecotoxicological properties of wastewater due to the application of advanced oxidation processes like ozonation.     

Sources of growth and competitiveness of local tourist production systems: an application to Italy (1991–2001)

Local development can assume many forms, depending on the environmental characteristics of places and the way they evolve historically. Tourist resorts are concentrated on space, forming a well-defined geography of local productive systems which show very different growth rates. The aim of this paper is to establish a geography of local tourist production systems in Italy, and to explore their sources of growth and competitiveness. Results suggest that higher levels of growth are not based on natural endowments but on localization economies, especially on the presence of all the phases of a “tourist filière”, a chain of economic activities directly related to tourism production, in the local production system.     

Rethinking tourism narratives on the cultural landscapes of Asturias (Northern Spain) from the perspective of Landscape Archaeology: do archaeologists have anything to say?

As in other rural areas in Spain, the Asturian countryside suffers from a profound demographic and economic crisis. Since tourism emerged as one of the main hopes for the reactivation of rural economy, the regional government has made a particular effort in promoting rural tourism. This paper intends to assess the effects that naturalistic and atemporal narratives of Asturian landscapes exert on the rural farming communities, which define the ‘tourism imaginaries’ as they become established as identity referents not only for visitors, but for the inhabitants of the region themselves. Archaeology can enhance the local communities’ agency through the appreciation of cultural values attached to these landscapes. To this end, the diachronic depth of the social and productive processes which shaped the Asturian landscapes is emphasised by relying on Landscape Archaeology. The relevant role played by farmers and herders in these activities merits their involvement in actively designing future policies.     

From Greater London to Greater Valencia: a case of British influence on regional planning and neighbourhood units in Spain (1939–1952)

Starting in 1945, Pedro Bidagor, the National Chief of Urban Planning in Spain, attempted to replicate the British regional urban model based on Abercrombie’s proposals of the County of London Plan and the Greater London Plan. The Greater Valencia Administrative Corporation, with its supramunicipal approach, was the principal representative of this urbanistic transposition. This article analyses the transmission of British planning ideas and practices in the years following the Spanish post-war period, and the important role that the architect Pedro Muguruza – key figure in early Francoism – played in it. The study also demonstrates the influence that the contemporary British urban models based on neighbourhood units had for the satellite town centres projected in Valencia (Burjasot and Manises, 1952).     

Does mercury interact with the inhibitory effect of dichlorvos on Palaemon serratus (Crustacea: Decapoda) cholinesterase?

Mercury is one of the most hazardous metals that may contaminate estuarine ecosystems and induce toxic effects on wildlife organisms. It has been suggested that impairment of cholinesterase (ChE) activity may be involved in the resulting mercury toxicity. Following Palaemon serratus exposure to mercury chloride (HgCl₂), no effect on ChE activity was observed whatever the concentration used (to 37.5 µM) or the time of exposure (to 7 days). By contrast, following 24 h exposure to dichlorvos, an organophosphate insecticide with a well-characterised anti-ChE action, decrease of ChE activity was observed until 30 to 40% basal activity, which seems to be the minimum activity required for prawn survival. In addition, HgCl₂ does not affect dichlorvos toxicity and treatments with a mixture of both compounds can be interpreted as the sum of the two independent toxicities. Therefore, mercury and insecticide toxicities are independent and ChE activity from P. serratus eyes seems to be a reliable and sensitive biomarker for organophosphate insecticides even when organisms are simultaneously exposed to mercury.