Master of Urban Studies in the field of Housing and Human Settlements

This course enables candidates to engage critically with housing and human settlements policy from historical, economic, and theoretical angles with local, regional and international perspectives. It addresses diverse forms of housing from individual to collective and facilitates the understanding and application of global agendas and concepts, such as inclusion and sustainability. Housing finance regimes and the regulatory environment for state and private sector housing finance are also covered. Candidates gain a core understanding of the entire policy cycle, which incorporates policy implementation, challenges of appropriate capacity building in human settlements institutions, policy analysis and evaluation as well as the long-term management and maintenance of housing stock.

This course enables candidates to engage constructively with unplanned and incremental housing and human settlement approaches from the perspective of physical, social and governance challenges. It does so through the analysis of local, regional and international examples. The course enables candidates to critically consider the role of temporary solutions against mainstream and alternative entry points to a trajectory of permanence for unplanned occupation and adaptation, whether of land or existing buildings. Candidates will gain a critical understanding of relevant infrastructure and incremental construction processes, incremental finance mechanisms that support this, as well as applicable human rights, land regularisation and tenure approaches.

The course introduces procedural and analytical techniques used in planning and involves the practical application of appropriate technologies, including Geographic Information Systems (GIS), computer based mapping and computer packages for data analysis and the presentation of graphics.

The course has three distinct aims: Firstly, the course hopes to create enthusiasm for research. Secondly, the course familiarises students with research in the urban/built environment field, various approaches and techniques, pitfalls etc. The course equips students with the workplace skills of preparing appropriate research briefs for others, of engaging in a wide range of research types, and of judging appropriateness and soundness of research carried out by themselves and others. Thirdly, the course prepares students for the process of research proposal writing and carrying out of a substantial research piece that meets the standards required of the degree.

Each student is individually guided in their search of a relevant housing research topic, and supervised throughout the proposal writing, research and report-writing process. The 25-30 000 word research report is externally examined.

This course has two components and covers various forms of environmental management and planning, including Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), Integrated Environmental Management (IEM), and Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA).

1) The first component introduces and provides a critical perspective on the concepts of sustainability and sustainable development and with the notion of the “sustainable city.”

2) The second component, environmental planning, introduces candidates to ecological fundamentals, environmental ethics, the idea of environmental risk and. thereafter the course deals with the basics of environmental and resource economics.

The course critically engages with development and planning theories, ‘good governance’ discourses and political literature (from the local to the global levels), and question them in particular through the study of the practices of community participation and the various types of challenges these practices entail with a particular focus at empowering students to communicate their findings to different audiences, using different methodologies and in particular graphic devices.

The course covers five key topics:

1) Global and urban energy mix and challenges

2) Urban scale EE and RE strategies

3) Operational building-scale EE and RE strategies

4) Embodied energy strategies

5) Markets, policies, programmes, legislation and institutional structures

This course focuses on municipal planning within the context of ‘developmental local governance’ and covers the following topics: municipal powers; structure and functions; municipal budgeting systems; the international experience with municipal planning; South African forms of planning; planning process; sectoral plans and integration of these plans; the planning and delivery of municipal infrastructure; project packaging; and performance management.

This course introduces the field of urban management through four critical dimensions: managing the politics of policy, managing change in participatory ways, effecting relevant integration, and navigating between theory and practice. This course cuts them to four dimensions and engages critically with the urban economy. This interactive course explores its themes through case studies of urban management practice in selected cities across the world, with an emphasis on the Global South. Through a local field trip and engagement with urban managers, the course connects candidates with real life praxis in a reflective manner. It allows candidates to develop their own position on urban management and provides a critical frame for the remaining modules in the MUS (Urban Management) field.

This course supports candidates in actively building conceptual insights relevant to the diversity of urban contexts across the globe. It involves candidates in theoretical critique and concept development, focusing on (a) extended urbanisation, (b) city regions, and (c) the diverse, fragmented, and dispersed form of urban settlements on city edges. The implications of this for urban governance is also covered. The course develops skills in linking empirical evidence and research to evolving concepts. It focuses on a particular context, examining the complex ways in which actors and organisations involved in urban development operate. Core skills in the ethics of urban development policy through pedagogy and practice are covered, which support the engaged and collaborative production of urban knowledge, policy, and interventions.