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On July 2, 2026, the Constitutional Court of South Africa issued a \u201clandmark decision\u201d, a decision that should be read by every housing, anti-eviction, labor activist as well as every city planner and elected official in Cape Town, across South Africa, around the world, dominated as the world is by the brutality and complexity<\/a>, by the logic and practice of expulsions<\/a>, of global cities<\/a> on a planet of slums<\/a>. The decision begins, \u201cAt its core, this case raises a fundamental constitutional question: how do we, as a society, in a free, democratic dispensation, address the enduring legacy of spatial apartheid? The submissions in these matters have highlighted the crucial distinction between merely distributing resources and ensuring that those resources are distributed in a manner that actively dismantles historical inequalities shaped by race and class along geographical lines. A city\u2019s architecture tells the story of its soul.\u201d<\/p>\n A city\u2019s architecture tells the story of its soul.<\/p>\n Where do you live? What is your city\u2019s architecture? How has that soul baring, soul bearing architecture changed in the last ten, twenty, thirty years? In the past half century or so, when the world economy spawned both a planet of slums and a planet of global cities marked by mcmansionsa and, even more, formally and informally gated communities? A city\u2019s architecture tells the story of its soul.<\/p>\n The judgment continues: \u201cIn Cape Town, as in most, if not all, South African cities, that story remains one of division \u2013 where the echoes of apartheid\u2019s spatial planning continue to reverberate through its streets and suburbs. Every morning, thousands of Cape Town\u2019s workers board buses, taxis and trains in the pre-dawn darkness, travelling for hours from the city\u2019s periphery to its centre. Their daily journey is not just a commute \u2013 it is a living testament to the enduring legacy of spatial injustice that this case glaringly exposes before this Court. The main question in this matter is whether the State, as custodian of public land, has a legal obligation to address spatial divisions within Cape Town, or whether, through its actions, it is perpetuating divisions without breaching any legal duty.\u201d<\/p>\n While many tumble from bed into their home-based workspaces and others commute perhaps a half hour to an hour or so to work, around the world it is considered normal that those who work the most hours and are paid the least spend the most time, inordinate amounts of time, getting to work and returning home. The impact of those treks is, at best, deeply corrosive, for both individual and community. And, of course, the impacts of these dire conditions are worsened by gender. This is urban design, and the feeling in too many places has been, \u201cYes, it\u2019s `unfortunate\u2019, but really, what can we do?\u201d The Constitutional Court answered, as did activists and organizers, from movements such as Ndifuna Ukwazi and Reclaim the City who have been organizing and mobilizing on this particular case since 2016. A wild patience took them to this decision.<\/p>\n The decision goes on to explain the concept of social housing: \u201cPervasive spatial inequality could only be combatted by housing schemes seeking to ensure that access to areas of opportunity is more evenly distributed across the population so as to cure the deep geographical divides. This includes subsidising people\u2019s occupation in areas they were previously excluded from, thereby fostering integration and improving the prospects of occupants. Government could bring this about by acquiring, developing, converting or upgrading buildings for integrated housing schemes. By placing segments of the population closer to economic opportunities and social services, social housing is exactly such a scheme. It strives to ensure that well-located, affordable and quality rental homes are made available to segments of the public in locations that enable them to benefit from greater proximity to economic opportunities and to health and educational facilities and social amenities. The importance of social housing, therefore, cannot be understated.\u201d<\/p>\n The importance of social housing cannot be understated.<\/p>\n From there, the decision enters into the details of the case, which I won\u2019t go into here. The decision is here<\/a>; summary responses are here<\/a> and here<\/a>. They\u2019re all fascinating. The key is that the Constitution assures the right to adequate and dignified housing, and that means, among other things, housing that supports a dignified life, dignified in and of itself, dignified in the context of the general society. It\u2019s not enough to build a house \u201csomewhere\u201d. The location matters \u2026 as a matter of law.<\/p>\n Further, pipeline plans and projects that [a] did not emerge from any consultation with the disenfranchised communities, [b] continue to stick social housing in the far peripheries of the city, and [c] generally don\u2019t materialize anyway are \u201cnot in compliance\u201d. Translate: mean less than the paper they\u2019re written on. The City of Cape Town was told to get serious about providing real, affordable, dignified housing in \u201camenity-rich\u201d neighborhoods, to provide detailed plans which will be monitored by the court, and to rethink its approach to housing and, perhaps even more, to those in need of decent housing.<\/p>\n The final point is that the right to decent, dignified and adequate housing is and must be a codified, Constitutional right. If it\u2019s not \u2026 make it so.<\/p>\n A city\u2019s architecture tells the story of its soul. What\u2019s in yours?<\/p>\n (by Dan Moshenberg)<\/p>\n (Photo Credit: Matthew Hirsch \/ GroundUp)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On July 2, 2026, the Constitutional Court of South Africa issued a \u201clandmark decision\u201d, a decision that should be read by every housing, anti-eviction, labor activist as well as every city planner and elected official in Cape Town, across South Africa, around the world, dominated as the world is by the brutality and complexity, by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[139,6858,114,556,5107,6736,6857,83],"class_list":["post-27782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-cape-town","tag-constitutional-court-of-south-africa","tag-dan-moshenberg","tag-haunts","tag-housing","tag-right-to-housing","tag-social-housing","tag-south-africa","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27782"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27782\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27784,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27782\/revisions\/27784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}