Mainstreaming disaster resilience into planning practice in South Africa: challenges and champions

Abstract

This paper outlines a conference presentation on disaster resilience in South Africa. The paper presents disasters caused by the combination of a hazard and vulnerability. An emphasis on resilience, rather than just disaster response and recovery has become a mainstream idea in disaster reduction. As vulnerability to disasters progressively increases, an urban risk divide is developing in cities that is unjust, polarised, divided and fragmented. The poor are largely priced out of safe areas and are concentrated in severely vulnerable and unsafe spaces where they struggle to survive along the fault lines of urban risk.