The Inclusive City of Johannesburg and the Challenge of Affordable Housing

Johannesburg, as South Africa’s largest city and the most important economic center, still suffers under the patterns of inequality of the past. Although the spatial change has been rapid since 1994 after the post-apartheid era, the spatial divisions along class lines still remain. Strategic spatial planning strategies of the last two and a half decades were targeting the reduction of spatial patterns of inequality and exclusion by fostering compact and integrated spatial development on national, regional and urban level and currently the local provision of inclusionary housing. This study, based on literature review and census data evaluation, investigates the current challenges of Johannesburg, such as growing population, existing inequalities and the affordable housing backlog. Moreover, the current affordable housing programmes and new policy requirements in Johannesburg are described and analysed. Despite the release of numerous city-wide policies, such as the Spatial Development Framework 2040 (2016) or the Inclusionary Housing Policy (2019) the research shows that the situation has not significantly improved yet, which is indicated by a lack of restrictions in the requirements, implementation deficiencies and limited policy uptake in planning practice