ABSTRACT
Over half of South Africa's 42.1 million people live in urban areas. South Africa's cities are centres of employment, production and innovation, and provide opportunities for a better life for millions of people, but they are also characterized by poverty, marginalization and poorly managed urban growth. Lower-income neighbourhoods are often marked by acute poverty and are at once overcrowded and under-serviced. This is particularly so in the sprawling informal settlements that have become a ubiquitous feature of South Africa's urban landscape. Estimates on the proportion of the urban population living in informal settlements vary, from 26 per cent (Boraine et al, 2006) to 33 per cent (UN-HABITAT, 2006), but it is likely that such figures substantially underestimate the number of people living in informal settlements.
