Since 1990, South Africa has been undergoing a paradigm shift from authoritarian rule to a new democratic society. Typically, the process of transition has been conditioned and shaped by historical circumstances which are unique to South Africa but nevertheless, shaped and patterned in predictable ways. The building industry has an important role to play in the political transition process, basically because of the need for reconstruction and socio-economic development, giving rise to the struggle between the contending visions of redistribution and growth. All the contending visions for the new South Africa identify the four inner-related objectives of the need for growth, for equity, for political participation and for stability. The affordable housing market has an aura of destiny and paradox about it. On the one hand, the housing backlog of some 1,14-million units appears to be an unsurmountable problem and on the other, it provides an amazing and historically important opportunity. Through the provision of affordable housing at scale for the under-privileged, many of the objectives of a new South Africa can be achieved, in creating massive employment in redistribution income, in wealth-creation and in promoting stable family life, which underpins a healthy society and promotes nation-building. Nevertheless, the affordable housing problem is bedeviled by many complex issues which defy simple analysis and which require a systems approach. In the search for leverage, a systems model, using the ithink soft-ware package was developed of the building industry in South Africa. It related activity per market segment, to affordability, the need for and effect of subsides, employment creation, housing stock and backlog and home-ownership. The model challenged and clarified the mental models of participants in a scenario building process, identified the major obstacles and the major leverage for a trend-break in the building and for breaking the housing log jam. In the model, it was possible to link hard data such as building activity, gross domestic product, housing backlog and need, home-ownership, employment and subsides. with 'soft issues' such as the need for leadership and vision and for establishing a Housing Accord. The Systems Model enabled the participants to see the impact of alternative strategies over a 20 year planning horizon. Sensitivity analysis was applied to varying levels of subsides demonstrating the impact on the housing backlog and building industry activity. The “ithink” strategic modeling package provides an extremely useful tool in scenario building and in challenging the mental models of leading influences and decision-makers in the building industry. In particular, it highlighted the need for a gradually phased increase (and timeous decrease) in affordable housing delivery, in order to avoid "over shoot" and "over correction", with the potential of putting the system into dangerous fluctuation. In the scenario planning process, the use of the model information enabled some 60 participants in a Think Tank process, to obtain a much clearer view of the future of the building industry and to use the process in 'creating a memory of the future' and thus, to have some influence on housing policy and strategy in South Africa.

This is the whole item.

Date created

• 1994

Type

• Document

Processing Activity

• Processing documentation available at: https://wiki.albany.edu/display/SCA/Processing+Ingested+Digital+Files

License

• Creative Commons BY-NC-ND Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International

  
  Contact Us for questions or additional rights.

ITEM CONTEXT

Part of

fe35db792b573af835d96e6eba4759cd

Scope and Contents

Part of

c060552994c1527f70693734935660f1

Scope and Contents

Part of

23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8

Scope and Contents

Collection

System Dynamic Society Records

Scope and Contents

Collecting area

• This collection is part of the University Archives