Shack Settlements Research Paper

Shack settlements began to emerge in and around the city centres of Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban in the 1940s and 1950s. A shack settlement as defined by the Oxford English dictionary is, “an area where many shacks are set up, with or without the consent of the owner of the land.” These settlements began to emerge for many reasons and inadequate housing was just one of many. This essay will show that the inadequacy of formal housing was one of the explanations for the shack settlements but there were other contributing factors that were just as important to the development of shack settlements. The essay will also show that the dynamics of the three urban centres, Durban, Johannesburg and Cape Town were similar except the manner in which
Much of the African population began to move to the urban areas prior to the 1920s, some reports state as far back as 1905, from their homelands in the rural areas. They came in search of money and opportunities to better themselves and better their families back
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