Disability and Universal Access: Observations on housing from the spatial and social periphery

Abstract

This chapter is based on work undertaken for an international comparative study on 'enable environments' which included case studies in Pretoria (South Africa) and New Dehli (India), with the focus being the four case study settlements in the South African case study. Both the Indian and South African national governments have kept pace with current international trends in responses to disability, have adopted disability rights measures and have made attempts to move away from the traditional medical model of disability to a social model. The challenge facing both countries is to realise those rights through policy and practice. Both countries present an opprotunity to study the translation of rights into practice at the micro-level.