The impact of urban renewal projects for enhanced sustainable livelihoods in Soweto

Abstract

The study basically deals with the impact of Urban Renewal Programme (URP) in Soweto. URP is part of a national urban renewal strategy, which focuses on areas of greatest deprivation, including investment in economic and social infrastructure, human resource development, enterprise development, the enhancement of the development capacity of local government, poverty alleviation and the strengthening of the criminal justice system. URP was spearheaded as a local economic development initiative to reinvent andre-image Soweto. South African cities have inherited a dysfunctional urban environment with skewed settlement patterns that are functionally inefficient and costly, there are huge service infrastructure backlogs in historically underdeveloped areas. Approximately 58% of the South African population lives in urban areas. Thousands of people from around the world and South Africa flocked to Johannesburg to seek their fortunes and to offer their labour. As the gold mining industry developed, more than half the population lived in mine compounds; other workers had to find their own accommodation often in appalling conditions. In Soweto, the demand for labour led to urban decay caused by the development of informal settlements in vacant land and vandalism of public places. The hypothesis for the study was as follows: the increasing factors caused by urban decay in Soweto makes urban renewal projects a necessary tool to enhance sustainable development. To realise the objectives of this study, literature study and as well as an empirical research was employed. The empirical research comprised the use of questionnaires to examine the perceptions of residents based on the impact of URP in Soweto. The research findings revealed that: * URP plays an important role in developing the lives of Soweto residents; * The capacitation of the SMMEs played a role in the local business industry; and * • Public participation is lacking. Members of the communities are not aware of the intended goals and objectives. The study also provides recommendations to enable local authorities to fast-track URP initiatives and for further research.