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Cato Manor, located on the outskirts of Durban, South Africa, was the focus of massive development efforts led by the Cato Manor Development Association (CMDA)-an agency that partnered with community-based organizations in facilitating redevelopment of this poor, underserviced area-from 1993 to 2003. The aim of the project was to create an area spatially and functionally integrated with metropolitan Durban in ensuring that poor urban residents have access to employment as well as social and infrastructure services. Implementation of the project was beset with enormous difficulties, many of which related to the massive transformational changes that the country was experiencing during this time. Innovation was often contextually driven, but some argue that the nature of the CMDA, as an independent agency free of the institutional constraints of government, as well as the nature of the collaboration with local community organizations together with the vision and commitment of the development team, led to innovative practice. This article aims to understand the extent to which innovation was achieved and uncovers the dynamics underpinning this.
Keywords: innovation; urban development; developing countries; integrated development planning; agency; transition
The notion of innovation is not often associated with urban development in developing countries. If anything, it is the problematic aspect that gets emphasized: the megacities out of control (Mexico City, Sao Paulo), the cities in crisis (Harare), and the crime-ridden terror zones (Johannesburg, Nairobi). Yet crises or transition often breed innovative practice, creativity, and approaches to urban development not documented in the headlines. For example, the indigenous knowledge that gets deployed in environmental management; the use of information and communication technologies to educate, mobilize, and market; and the small-scale responses to urban poverty.
This article examines the notion of innovation in relation to urban development in the South African context. The Cato Manor Development Project (CMDP) was an award-winning initiative focused on providing an integrated living environment to a projected population of about 140,000 people (presently 90,000) on the outskirts of central Durban, South Africa's main port city (population 3 million). The project was managed by a special purpose vehicle, the Cato Manor Development Association (CMDA), a nongovernmental organization tasked with facilitating development in the area. By all accounts, the project was celebrated as an example of innovative practice as reflected...