Engaging the Informal and Formal in an Expanded Notion of Urban Infrastructure: How Healing Human and Ecological Networks Could Lead to a More Equitable City

Abstract

This chapter reviews the processes and findings from the alternative infrastructure work stream within the larger international, trans-disciplinary workshop Transforming Johannesburg: Reshaping Socio-ecological Landscapes Through Collaborative Practices (12–25 September 2015). The five parallel work streams making up the workshop (rethinking infrastructure, eco-incremental housing, place making, alternative economics and governance for collaborating upgrading) aimed at producing a master plan for the in situ upgrading of Kya Sands informal settlement in Johannesburg, South Africa. The Rethinking Infrastructure work stream focused on service provision through cross-examining the connections between different scales and different systems: the local and the regional scales, and the human and natural systems. After initial site visits, the group chose to concentrate on the concerns of water (drinking, waste, storm and river) and waste management. Inputs from data collection, Kya Sands Residents, City officials and external experts, were explored through the lens of dialogue and debate and distilled into three pragmatic regenerative strategies towards settlement upgrading. The chapter is constructed as both an account of and a reflection on the specific results and experiences of this work stream.