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This chapter provides a critical examination of the urban renewal process currently taking place in inner-city Johannesburg. It evaluates the effects of an approach to providing social housing which blends commercial, market-based practices with state intervention and regulation and discusses the implications these competing imperatives have for the area and academic understandings of urban renewal.

Findings are based on a qualitative research process, carried out over 9 months in inner-city Johannesburg. Research involved interviews with property developers, housing providers, government officials, and tenants living in renovated social and affordable housing developments.

The process is contradictory and overburdened, and attempts to fulfill competing goals and agendas. Some developmental ambitions are being realized as the supply of social and affordable housing is expanding. However, the benefits are limited, as poor communities are being displaced and, in many cases, commercial concerns trump social and developmental considerations.

Findings highlight the ways in which a range of political circumstances, policy decisions, and spatial conditions combine to create an approach to renewal which is neither entirely neoliberal nor developmental. The case study complicates narratives which stress the global dominance of neoliberal approaches to urban renewal and demonstrates that alternative developmental ambitions exist alongside commercial practices.

The chapter highlights the ambiguity and hybridity of localized approaches to housing provision. In doing so it adds nuance to debates about urban processes around the globe and draws attention back to the uncertainty, agency, and diversity which are continuously shaping urban societies.

Our Dublin correspondent telegraphed last night:

In formulating his theory of land rent, Ricardo did not take into account the fact that in the Europe of his time relationships between landlords and tenants were often regulated by customs that kept rents below marginal product, sometimes even in the long term. Since all those customs had a number of points in common, understanding the logic governing one of them can be a very useful way to gain an overall understanding of the phenomenon. This chapter analyses a case of such customs in the area of market-gardens surrounding the city of Valencia, eastern Spain. Here, tenants were by custom the owners of the improvements they carried out, agricultural efficiency increased, and land rents stagnated. The chapter addresses issues such as cooperation among large groups of people, definition of rights and the creation of property rights by means of social conventions that clashed with law.

Dublin, Wednesday, 1 a.m., Aug. 9, 1882.

This research aims to analyze how companies in the industry act as orchestrators and manage participants in their networks. The service industry has received little attention from scholars in this field, and this research gap was investigated in this study. Qualitative case study research with an exploratory approach is applied in this research so that in-depth insights can be obtained. Mamikos.com, a platform for room rent in Indonesia, was used as the research subject. Mamikos does not only facilitate tenants to find rooms to live in but also manages how landlords can serve tenants better and help tenants understand what the landlords want. In other words, Mamikos seeks to smoothen the value stream from landlords to tenants and vice versa. This research has implications that the value orchestrator must be able to facilitate the parties in the ecosystem to obtain the fundamental values needed and other side values so that they are loyal to the ecosystem managed by the orchestrator.

This chapter appraised customary tenancy and Post COVID-19 agricultural development in Nigeria. In doing this, it discussed customary tenancy as an incident of customary tenure and the impact of Land Use Act 1978 in its evolutionary trend as a sustainable means of accessing land for long term agricultural business in Nigeria. The study made use of socio-legal research methodology involving doctrinal research method and an analysis of social context for information gathering. The primary source of law included the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as altered); the Land Use Act 1978 and related statutes as well as judicial precedents. The secondary sources included books, journal articles, conference proceedings, magazines, newspapers and the internet. The outcome of the study indicated that customary tenancy was a recognized method of accessing land for agriculture on long term basis among many ethnic groups in Nigeria, including but are not limited to Yoruba of Southwest and the Igbo of Southwest, Nigeria. That the method was predominantly used for agricultural purposes, and in agricultural communities. Third, that the Land Use Act 1978 did not stop the customary land practice, but rather recognized and encouraged its use through customary right of occupancy. Fourth, customary tenancy was found to have promoted access to land resources and reduction of tension and bitter acrimonies which could have been attendant to request for land resources in rural communities. It was recommended that efforts should be made by Governors who are trustees under the LUA to use their powers in the interest of the people and that reforms be undertaken to resolve latent contradictions in the Act. It was concluded that customary tenancy should be harnessed for sustainable Post COVID – 19 land use in Nigeria.

The position of these Irish agitators is illogical and untenable; the remedy they propose is no remedy at all – nevertheless they are talking about the tenure of land and the right to land; and thus a question of worldwide importance is coming to the front.³

This chapter compares programmes for urban housing regeneration in France and England, showing how ideological similarities reflected in policy ideas and programmes played out differently in significantly different contexts.

The chapter draws on results of several major research programmes, including in-depth extensive fieldwork in a number of cities and regions in France and England. Field research included participant observation in participatory planning events, interviews, home visits, guided walks in the districts, etc. These enabled a multi-site and multi-perspective understanding of urban housing renewal at different sites.

In both contexts, early promises for participation in housing renewal gave way to an imperative for demolition, justified on purely technical grounds that were not shared with participants. The linking of social mix and demolition for local ‘improvement’ also then appeared to be a contradiction between different policies that few residents could endorse, other than selected beneficiaries. Participation, social mix and demolition thus formed an unholy trinity in urban renewal policies.

Housing renewal requires much greater commitment to the experience of residents, to avoid exacerbating social problems rather than relieving them.

The chapter reflects on a wealth of in-depth research over more than a decade to consider the broader implications and outcomes of housing renewal programmes in two countries. It highlights the different balances of power in the two cases and the trajectories of respective urban social politics, including the overlaps between policy objectives and similarities in the government of housing renewal. It also highlights the determination and commitment among residents to the value of housing that is judged from the outside to be ‘poor’.