Towards Measuring the Informal City: A Societal Metabolism Approach

Abstract

Summary The rapid growth of urban informal settlements, or slums, poses a particular challenge for balancing developmental and environmental goals. In South Africa, high levels of inequality, poverty, and unemployment contribute to widespread migration. The influx of migrant workers to cities, however, is rarely matched with adequate housing and infrastructure, resulting in the formation and growth of urban informal settlements. Despite the persistence of the slum phenomenon, very few studies provide an in‐depth understanding of the metabolic processes that link these spaces, and informal economies, to the broader urban environment and economy. This article therefore utilized a multiscale integrated assessment of the societal and ecosystem metabolism approach to examine human activity and land use in Enkanini, an urban informal settlement in Stellenbosch, South Africa. The results highlight a number of issues to be addressed through spatial, developmental, and local economic policy, such as the need for improved transport linkages. The time‐use results show that Enkanini is a net provider of labor to the surrounding area. Further, geographical mapping indicates Enkanini as a small, but vibrant, informal economy, while being grossly underserviced in terms of water, waste, and sanitation infrastructure. Key implications are discussed in terms of the theoretical, methodological, societal, and policy impact of the study, including the need for city observatories that conduct regular data collection and analysis.

Advancing urban metabolism studies through GIS data: Resource flows, open space networks, and vulnerable communities in Mexico City

“…Previous spatially explicit UM studies have illustrated spatiotemporal dynamics of materials and resource flows and infrastructure at multiple scales (Guibrunet et al, 2016;Smit et al, 2019;Spierre Clark & Chester, 2017;Yeow & Cheah, 2019), building stocks (He et al, 2020;Lanau & Liu, 2020;Mao et al, 2020;Miatto et al, 2019), energy and water urban-harvesting scenarios (Agudelo-Vera et al, 2012) and integrated the spatial dimension of environmental and socio-economic information (Caputo et al, 2019;Choe & Thorne, 2019;González et al, 2013;Juwet & Ryckewaert, 2018;Leduc & Van Kann, 2013). However, these studies mainly focused on the quantification of resource flows/stocks, their circulation and location in urban systems, and the relations of power among stakeholders, without considering the use of space as a means to improve the resource efficiency of the system being studied.…”

Mediating household energy transitions through co-design in urban Kenya, Uganda and South Africa

“…According to an enumeration study of the settlement in 2012, the settlement was home to an estimated 4082 residents who began settling in the area in 2006 [55]. However, the population nearly doubled to 8000 people as at 2015 [56]. Enkanini is not formerly connected to the national grid but 10% of householders are indirectly connected to metered households in nearby Kayamandi area (Authors, upcoming).…”

Building capacity towards what? Proposing a framework for the analysis of energy transition governance in the context of urban informality in Sub-Saharan Africa

“…The second case study is the upgrading programme promoted by iShack, a local NGO in the Enkanini informal settlement, Stellenbosch, South Africa. The upgrading programme was conceived and coordinated by the iShack project, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and implemented with the support of Stellenbosch Municipality (Kovacic et al 2016;Smit et al 2019). The project started in 2012 with a specific focus on the Enkanini informal settlement and the NGO has, since 2018, expanded to other informal settlements in Stellenbosch.…”