Social Movements and Ecosystem Services
Exploitation and degradation of urban green areas reduce their capacity to sustain ecosystem services. In protecting and managing these areas, research has increasingly focused on actors in civil society.
Papers
South Africa’s Informal Economy: A Statistical Profile
This report presents a statistical profile of informal employment in South Africa from 2005 to 2007, using September Labour Force Surveys.
Urban Food Security Series No 5: The HIV and Urban Food Security Nexus
Considerable attention has been devoted to the impact of the HIV and AIDS epidemic on small farmers and the food security of the rural poor.
Urban Food Security Series No 6: Urban Food Insecrutiy and the Advent of Food Banking in Southern Africa
In most African cities, there is sufficient food to feed everyone and considerable wastage of fresh and processed foodstuffs. Poor households are food insecure because they cannot afford to purchase enough quality food and are unable to access the surplus food that exists.
Learning to Swim: Strengthening Flooding Governance in the City of Cape Town
Vulnerability to flooding is a growing concern in cities of the South, where resources are concentrated and poor people often settle in flood prone areas.
Socio-Technical Regimes and SustainabilityTransitions: Insights From Political Ecology. Progress in Human Geography 36 (3): 354 – 378
Sustainability is increasingly becoming a core focus of geography, linking subfields such as urban, economic, and political ecology, yet strategies for achieving this goal remain illusive.
Beyond the Food Desert: Finding Ways to Speak About Urban Food Security in South Africa
Urban food security is a significant development challenge in sub-Saharan Africa. However, the field is current- ly under-researched and under-theorized.
Cities and Biodiversity Outlook: A Global Assessment of the Links Between Urbanization, Biodiversity, and Ecosystem
CBO – Action and Policy provides the summary of a global assessment of the links between urbanization, biodi- versity, and ecosystem services.
Flows, Friction, and the Sociomaterial Metabolization of Alcohol
Political ecologists have considered the sociomateriality of diverse hybrids and the metabolism and circulation of urban flows such as water, food and waste. Adding alcohol to this list enhances our understanding of the geography of alcohol as well as the theory of sociomateriality.
Brokering Communities of Knowledge & Practice: Reflections on The African Centre for Cities’ Citylab
Calls for greater engagement between academia and society to address mounting societal problems per- sist. The African Centre for Cities, a University of Cape Town research entity, set up the CityLab pro- gramme to broker interdisciplinary engagement, both across academic disciplines and between academia and broader society, to engage with the issues pertinent to sustainable urban development in Cape Town.
The National Budget & What This Means for Smaller Municipalities
In thinking about the capital financing of municipal infrastructure it is important to sub-divide municipalities into groups as there is such a range of socio-geographic circumstances occurring in South Africa,
Growing Communities: Integrating the Social & Economic Benefits of Urban Agriculture in Cape Town
There has been growing interest in the use of urban agriculture to address food insecurity and poverty in Cape Town. This reflects debates on urban agriculture in the global south. In the North, growing food in cities has been tended to be framed in terms of its social benefits.
A Participatory Approach to Data Collection for GIS for Flood Risk Management in Informal Settlements of Cape Town
Urbanization is a global multidimensional process paired with increasing uncertainty due to climate change, migration of people, and changes in the capacity to sustain ecosystem services. This article lays a foundation for discussing transitions in urban governance, which enable cities to navigate change, build capacity to withstand shocks, and use experimentation and innovation in face of uncertainty.
The Changing Spatial Economy of Cities: An Exploratory Analysis of Cape Town
The spatial economy of South African cities is generally believed to be experiencing selective deconcentration, which may exacerbate social inequality because of the physical disconnection between jobs and population.
Weaving Protective Stories
With rapid worldwide urbanization it is urgent that we understand processes leading to the protection of urban green areas and ecosystems. This is illustrated in the Stockholm National Urban Park.