In all areas of academic or practical work related to disaster risk, climate change and development more generally, community and its adjunct community-based have become the default terminology when referring to the local level or working ‘with the people’. The terms are applied extensively to highlight what is believed to be a people-centred, participatory, or grassroot-level approach. Today, despite, or because of, its inherent ambiguity, ‘community’ tends to be used almost inflationarily. This paper aims to analyse the way the concept of ‘community’ has come into fashion, and to critically reflect on the problems that come with it. We are raising significant doubts about the usefulness of ‘community’ in development- and disaster-related work. Our approach is to first consider how ‘community’ has become popular in research and with humanitarian agencies and other organisations based on what can be considered a ‘moral licence’ that supposedly guarantees that the actions being taken are genuinely people-centred and ethically justified. We then explore several theoretical approaches to ‘community’, highlight the vast scope of different (and contested) views on what ‘community’ entails, and explain how ‘community’ is framing practical attempts to mitigate vulnerability and inequity. We demonstrate how these attempts are usually futile, and sometimes harmful, due to the blurriness of ‘community’ concepts and their inherent failure to address the root causes of vulnerability. From two antagonistic positions, we finally advocate more meaningful ways to acknowledge vulnerable people’s views and needs appropriately.

This article is based on field research in two South African host cities of the Men's Football World Cup 2010 (eThekwini and Johannesburg). The discussed work is part of the research project "Festivalisation" of Urban Governance: The Production of Socio-Spatial Control in the Context of the FIFA World Cup 2010 in South Africa. In the context of mega-events, impacts and changes on urban development can vary on a spectrum of festivalisation between opposing poles, either-driven by the event‖, or on the other hand where existing configurations of actors and established policies are-driving the event‖. By drawing on a theoretical framework which is inspired by an analytical understanding of urban governance, our assumptions are that (a) different configurations of governance promote different ways of handling the challenges associated to the hosting and (b) that different types of-festivalisation‖ have different consequences and effects for the lived realities of the residents at a local level. The latter is an arena in which urban governance policies are translated, adapted, renegotiated or rejected. We argue that the bringing together of both spheres (local and metropolitan) provides a profound understanding of the process of mega-event implementation and its relation to urban social sustainability.

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This paper describes the importance of rural-urban links for many of the inhabitants of Botswana's cities. This is described in more detail for Old Naledi, a low-cost, self help settlement in Botswana's capital, Gaborone. A third of all households there own cattle, half retain land in the village from which they come and the proportion of households with such rural assets does not decline with people's length of stay in the city. These rural assets are valued both in monetary and social terms and serve as a valuable safety net for households with low incomes and uncertain livelihood prospects within the city. Dr. Fred Krüger is Associate Professor at the Institute of Cultural Geography, University of Freiburg. His main fields of research are urban, social and development geography, with a focus on theoretical approaches to social vulnerability as well as empirical studies on urban development, survival strategies of the urban poor, and drought and famine issues in sub-Saharan Africa (and especially Southern Africa).