Abstract: The presentation first addresses the policy and governance contexts for the scalability of community-led slum upgrading that uses the methodology of the Shack/Slum Dweller International (SDI)
(sdinet.org
). The methodology is based on that of the Indian Alliance (NSDF, Mahila Milan, and SPARC) and (simplifying) comprises community-based organizations and NGOs, in partnership with government, delivering municipal services, securing tenure and promoting slum upgrading. Examples are drawn from Pune and Mumbai. The presentation continues with the role of these examples serving as ‘precedents’ for South-South knowledge exchange and also ruminates on the potential for scalable informal sector upgrading in South Africa.
Bio: Prof Richard Tomlinson is Chair in Urban Planning in the Faculty of Architecture
Building and Planning at the University of Melbourne. Before going to Australia he served as an urban policy consultant in Southern Africa and as an academic in South Africa and the
USA. His clients included the post-apartheid South African government, and provincial and local governments, The World Bank, USAID, UN Habitat a number of international and local
NGOs, and also the private sector. As an academic he has served as a Visiting Professor at the University of the Witwatersrand (Johannesburg), Columbia University, a Visiting Scholar and SPURS Fellow at MIT, and a Guest Scholar at the Brookings Institution. His most recent publications, research and teaching concern the effects of Google and social media on urban policy knowledge products; urban policy processes and ‘international best practice’; slum upgrading in Mumbai and Cape Town; the BRICS and the urban legacy of sports mega events; and housing and the Australian city. His most recent book is an edited publication on
Australia’s Unintended Cities: The Impact of Housing on Urban Development
. His research awards include a Robert S McNamara Fellowship, a Fulbright Scholarship and Resident
Scholar at the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center.