Sustainable land use and development: perspective on Cosmo City, Johannesburg, South Africa

The rapid growth in housing demand since 1994 represents a mammoth task for both the present and future housing policy in South Africa. The new Developmental Local Government in an effort to address this challenge has placed high premium to informal settlement formalization and mixed income housing development. The rationale behind these two approaches is to address urban poverty, segregation and redevelopment. The goal of this paper is to appraise mixed income housing development as it relates to sustainable land use with the objective towards integration along racial and social grounds. The problem associated with South African housing policy in creating separate residential development based on income group has reached a crisis point in addressing housing challenge facing the country. The poor remain located on the peripheries of the cities where the land is cheap and far from their places of work and have to travel long hours to and from work. The City of Johannesburg is characterized by fragmented housing development that lack harmonious integration and this impact on infrastructural provision and access to job opportunities. Hence, this investigation tends to appraise the development of mixed income housing development in addressing these challenges. This investigation will be based on an exploratory research and will reviewing the success and challenges of mixed income housing development. Both published and unpublished literatures were equally use in this study as well as focus group discussion and interview with the beneficiaries as well as the principal developers and City of Johannesburg representatives. Integration of the poor into the urban system is achievable with effective and efficient Public Private Partnership