Critical planning advocacy in solidarity in the pursuit of informal settlement upgrading in Harry Gwala and Slovo Park, Greater Johannesburg

The in situ upgrading of impoverished, unsanctioned neighbourhoods in South Africa is envisaged in an Upgrading of Informal Settlements Programme in the National Housing Code. However, implementation is obstructed by a unitary planning system, reinforced by the dominant programme under the housing subsidy system. This paper critically reflects on technical planning assistance the author and close colleagues lent to the representative committees of two neighbourhoods, officially deemed ‘unplanned’, Harry Gwala in Ekurhuleni and Slovo Park in Johannesburg, over more than a decade. To frame the complicated trajectories and multiple approaches that emerged in this praxis, the paper adopts the frame of ‘critical planning advocacy in solidarity’. It derives this from a review of mainly Anglo-American positions on engaged planning, from advocacy and radical to insurgent and solidarity-based approaches. While the approaches the paper presents yielded some advances in a hostile context, more is needed to unlock in situ upgrading in South Africa.