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Municipal Housing and Community in Cape Town: Lessons from the Bloemhof Flats<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In this talk I explore how experiences and memories of a Cape Town municipal housing project sustained people who were forcibly displaced from that project under apartheid in South Africa. \u00a0Archival study of the Bloemhof Flats in Cape Town\u2019s District Six, and group interviews with its former residents, inform an exploration of the relationships between municipal housing and community formation, and its impact on people\u2019s lives, both under apartheid and in its wake of material hardships. \u00a0Against the political motivations that underpin the ongoing stigmatisation of municipal housing, evidence from the Bloemhof Flats demonstrates how municipal housing can serve as a cradle for dignity, family, reciprocity, kinship, and hope. \u00a0I trace how residents appropriated state mechanisms of social control to form a community so strong that it has lasted well beyond the apartheid system, even though the spatial and material dimensions of that community were taken so brutally from its members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Speaker<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tom Slater<\/strong> is Professor of Urban Planning at Columbia University. \u00a0Trained as\u00a0an urban geographer, he works in the style of institutional political\u00a0economy and researchers a range of urban issues, particularly gentrification and displacement, territorial stigmatization, critical urban theory, and housing justice movements. \u00a0He is\u00a0the author\/co-author of 6 books and over 75 scholarly articles, and over the last decade, he has delivered lectures in 20 different countries. His work has been translated into 9 languages, and he has held Professorial Fellowships at the University of Trento, Italy; the University of Cape Town, South Africa; and the University of Chile-Santiago. \u00a0He sits on numerous editorial\u00a0boards and is a former Editor of the\u00a0Journal of Urban Affairs\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0The Sociological Review.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n *The link will be sent to you after your registration<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.sciencespo.fr\/research\/cities\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/IMG_1954-copie-769x1024.jpg\")
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