What is it like to be born dirt-poor in South Africa? Clinton Chauke knows, having been raised alongside his two sisters in a remote village bordering the Kruger National Park and a squatter camp outside Pretoria. Clinton is a young village boy when awareness dawns of how poor his family really is: there’s no theft in the village because there’s absolutely nothing to steal. But fire destroys the family hut, and they decide to move back to the city. There he is forced to confront the rough-and-tumble of urban life as a ‘bumpkin’.

He is Venda, whereas most of his classmates speak Zulu or Tswana and he has to face their ridicule while trying to pick up two or more languages as fast as possible. With great self-awareness, Clinton negotiates the pitfalls and lifelines of a young life: crime and drugs, football, religion, friendship, school, circumcision and, ultimately, becoming a man. Throughout it all, he displays determination as well as a self-deprecating humour that will keep you turning the pages till the end.

Clinton’s story is one that will give you hope that even in a sea of poverty there are those that refuse to give up and, ultimately, succeed.

Amid evictions, raids, killings, the drug trade, and fire, inner-city Johannesburg residents seek safety and a home. A grandmother struggles to keep her granddaughter as she is torn away from her. A mother seeks healing in the wake of her son’s murder. And displaced by a city’s drive for urban regeneration, a group of blind migrants try to carve out an existence.

The Blinded City recounts the history of inner-city Johannesburg from 2010 to 2019, primarily from the perspectives of the unlawful occupiers of spaces known as hijacked buildings, bad buildings or dark buildings. Tens of thousands of residents, both South African and foreign national, live in these buildings in dire conditions. This book tells the story of these sites, and the court cases around them, ones that strike at the centre of who has the right to occupy the city.

In February 2010, while Johannesburg prepared for the FIFA World Cup, the South Gauteng High Court ordered the eviction of the unlawful occupiers of an abandoned carpet factory on Saratoga Avenue and that the city’s Metropolitan Municipality provide temporary emergency accommodation for the evicted. The case, which became known as Blue Moonlight and went to the Constitutional Court, catalysed a decade of struggles over housing and eviction in Johannesburg.

The Blinded City chronicles this case, among others, and the aftermath – a tumultuous period in the city characterised by recurrent dispossessions, police and immigration operations, outbursts of xenophobic violence, and political and legal change. All through the decade, there is the backdrop of successive mayors and their attempts to ‘clean up’ the city, and the struggles of residents and urban housing activists for homes and a better life.

The interwoven narratives present a compelling mosaic of life in post-apartheid Johannesburg, one of the globe’s most infamous and vital cities.

The uplifting true story. A Sunday Times bestseller, shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize.

The story of the couple who lost everything and embarked on a journey, not of escape, but salvation.

Just days after Raynor learns that Moth, her husband of 32 years, is terminally ill, the couple lose their home and their livelihood. With nothing left and little time, they make the brave and impulsive decision to walk the 630 miles of the sea-swept South West Coast Path, from Somerset to Dorset via Devon and Cornwall.

They have almost no money for food or shelter and must carry only the essentials for survival on their backs as they live wild in the ancient, weathered landscape of cliffs, sea and sky. Yet through every step, every encounter, and every test along the way, their walk becomes a remarkable journey.

The Salt Path is an unflinchingly honest, inspiring and life-affirming true story of coming to terms with grief and the healing power of the natural world. Ultimately, it is a portrayal of home, and how it can be lost, rebuilt and rediscovered in the most unexpected ways.

Housing matters, no matter when or where. This volume of collected essays on housing in colonial and postcolonial Africa seeks to elaborate how and why housing is much more than an everyday practice.

The politics of housing unfold in disparate dimensions of time, space and agency. Depending on context, they acquire diverse, often ambivalent, meanings. Housing can be a promise, an unfulfilled dream, a tool of self- and class-assertion, a negotiation process, or a means to achieve other ends. This volume analyzes housing in its multifacetedness, be it a lens to offer insights into complex processes that shape societies; be it a tool of empire to exercise control over private relations of inhabitants; or be it a means to create good, obedient and productive citizens.

Contributions to this volume range from the field of history, to architecture and urban planning, African studies, linguistics, and literature. The individual case studies home in on specific aspects and dimensions of housing and seek to bring them into dialogue with each other. By doing so, the volume aims to add to the debate on studying urban practices and their significance for current social change.

This timely book provides readers with a detailed comparative survey of tenure innovation and diversification in Europe. Alternative and intermediate tenures, i.e., housing options beyond tenancy and homeownership, are examined as remedies to address the growing European housing crisis. Starting with an introduction to national housing systems and their development, contributions from experienced legal academics explain the potential of alternative and intermediate tenures used in individual countries. Divided into groups reflecting not only geographical vicinity, but also roughly similar types of welfare states, the book examines 14 jurisdictions all over Europe. Taken together, the national models constitute what can be labelled a European acquis of housing options. The final comparative evaluation focuses on selecting best practice models, potentially capable of being transferred to, and used beneficially in, other countries. Addressing the European Housing Crisis will be of great interest for academics in European law, property law and public administration and management. It will also be a key resource for policy makers and experts associated with political institutions, civil society and housing associations, both at European and national levels.

Elgar Advanced Introductions are stimulating and thoughtful introductions to major fields in the social sciences, business and law, expertly written by the world's leading scholars. Designed to be accessible yet rigorous, they offer concise and lucid surveys of the substantive and policy issues associated with discrete subject areas. This timely Advanced Introduction explores the links between housing and households, including the complex process of how people sort themselves into houses and neighborhoods. It covers the choices that households make, why these choices are made, and the constraints faced in achieving housing aspirations, with a particular focus on the contemporary difficulties facing young adults and those unable to buy a house despite a reasonable income. Key features include: using the concept of the life course to analyse residential decisions and choices discussing tenure choice, affordability and social housing, as well as how neighborhoods matter in urban studies reviewing what is known about how the housing market operates, and how families and individuals engage with the process of becoming homeowners providing new information on the urban housing environment in a time of rising inequality, low income growth and extensive regulation in the housing market. Advanced students and professionals of geography, planning, demography and economics will find this an invigorating read on how housing markets operate and the role of individual decisions about homeownership and residential space.

Point Place stands near the city centre of Durban, South Africa. Condemned and off the grid, the five-storey apartment building is nonetheless home to a hundred-plus teenagers and young adults marginalised by poverty and chronic unemployment. Emily Margaretten draws on ten years of up-close fieldwork to explore the distinct cultural universe of the Point Place community. Her sensitive investigations reveal how young men and women draw on customary notions of respect and support to forge an ethos of connection and care that allows them to live far richer lives than ordinarily assumed. Her discussion of gender dynamics highlights terms like nakana - to care about or take notice of another - that young women and men use to construct `outside' and `inside' boyfriends and girlfriends and to communicate notions of trust. Challenging the idea that Point Place's residents need `rehabilitation', Margaretten argues that these young men and women want love, secure homes and the means to provide for their dependents - in short, the same hopes and aspirations mirrored across South African society.

The loss of a home can lead to major violations of a person's dignity and human rights. Yet, evictions take place everyday in all countries across Europe. This book provides a comparative assessment of human rights, administrative, procedural and public policy norms, in the context of eviction, across a number of European jurisdictions. Through this comparison the book exposes the emergence of consistent, Europe-wide standards and norms. With contributions from experts across Europe, the chapters provide an assessment of eviction procedures in 11 jurisdictions, including Germany, France, Spain, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Each chapter examines a number of factors relating to evictions in the respective jurisdiction, such as, the human rights and legal framework, nature and extent of evictions taking place, risk factors leading to evictions and relevant best practice guidance. All together, this book will make a significant contribution to the understanding of the similarities and differences between eviction policies across European states. As the first work of it?s kind to provide an in-depth comparison of eviction policies across Europe, Loss of Homes and Evictions Across Europe will be of great interest to those who are researching European housing law and human rights law and policy. Housing law and public policy makers, and those working within associated European institutions, will also find the data and accompanying analysis invaluable for informing their work. Contributors include: E. Bargelli, W. Borysiak, P. Decker, G. Donadio, R.M. Garcia, M.F. Hrast, C. Hunter, P. Kenna, S. Nasarre-Aznar, S. Nikolic, N. Pleace, C.U. Schmid, P. Sparkes, N. Teller, D. Vermeir, J. Verstraete, M. Vols

Elgar Advanced Introductions are stimulating and thoughtful introductions to major fields in the social sciences, business and law, expertly written by the world's leading scholars. Designed to be accessible yet rigorous, they offer concise and lucid surveys of the substantive and policy issues associated with discrete subject areas. This timely Advanced Introduction explores the links between housing and households, including the complex process of how people sort themselves into houses and neighborhoods. It covers the choices that households make, why these choices are made, and the constraints faced in achieving housing aspirations, with a particular focus on the contemporary difficulties facing young adults and those unable to buy a house despite a reasonable income. Key features include: using the concept of the life course to analyse residential decisions and choices discussing tenure choice, affordability and social housing, as well as how neighborhoods matter in urban studies reviewing what is known about how the housing market operates, and how families and individuals engage with the process of becoming homeowners providing new information on the urban housing environment in a time of rising inequality, low income growth and extensive regulation in the housing market. Advanced students and professionals of geography, planning, demography and economics will find this an invigorating read on how housing markets operate and the role of individual decisions about homeownership and residential space.

Tenancy law has developed in all EU member states for decades, or even centuries, but constitutes a widely blank space in comparative and European law. This book fills an important gap in the literature by considering the diverse and complex panorama of housing policies, markets and their legal regulation across Europe. Expert contributors argue that while unification is neither politically desired nor opportune, a European recommendation of best practices including draft rules and default contracts implementing a regulatory equilibrium would be a rewarding step forward. Despite the lack of EU legislation, policies and legislation in areas ranging from anti-poverty, energy, and tax to consumer law and human rights have generated important, though largely unnoticed, collateral effects on the field. This book opens by presenting a representative picture of the social, economic and legal embeddedness of this sector in Western, Central and Eastern Europe. Contributions then deal more narrowly with the legal regulation of different jurisdictions? tenancy contracts. Tenancy Law and Housing Policy in Europe makes a significant contribution to our understanding of issues in tenancy and housing that will be welcomed by academics and advanced students in law across Europe. Contributors include: S.N. Aznar, E. Bargelli, R. Bianchi, M. Drofenik, M.O. Garcia, M. Habdas, M.E.A. Haffner, J. Hegedus, V. Horvath, A. Hussar, M. Jordan, J. Juul-Sandberg, A. Klopp, I. Kull, S. Meznar, H.S. Moreno, P. Norberg, G. Panek, E.M. Roig, C.U. Schmid, K. Xerri

In this illuminating examination of our national welfare policy, award-winning veteran reporter and writer LynNell Hancock offers an intimate, heart-wrenching, and beautifully rendered portrait of three women and their families as they struggle to find their way through the new rules and regulations of the public assistance system.

Hands to Work takes us on a journey within the day-to-day struggles of these women, describing their hopes, regrets, and deepest dreams. Hancock demystifies contemporary misconceptions of poverty and illustrates how welfare policy and reform have been conceived, offering a thought-provoking look at the most divisive questions about America's neediest citizens.

Both growth and unevenness in the distribution of housing wealth have become characteristic of advanced societies in recent decades. This book examines, in various contexts, how central housing property ownership has become to household well-being as well as in reshaping social, economic and political relations. Expert contributors analyze the critical interactions between housing and wealth that lie at the heart of contemporary forms of capitalism, especially its global, neoliberal incarnation. Comparing and contrasting case studies from across the European continent, this book illustrates how these interactions are reshaping the function of housing as a welfare object, including how the financialisation and commodification of housing in the twenty-first-century has transformed its role and amplified distributional outcomes. Practical and engaging, Housing Wealth and Welfare is a must-read for researchers and students of housing studies, social policy, sociology, social geography and political science. It will also appeal to policy makers within national and supra-national organisations and institutions such as the European Union, Housing Europe and the International Monetary Fund. Contributors include: B. Bengtsson, S. Buchholz, C. Dewilde, J. Doling, T.P. Gerber, K. Kolb, S. Koeppe, C. Lennartz, S. Mandic, M. Mrzel, M. Norris, R. Ronald, H. Ruonavaara, B.A. Searle, A.M. Soaita, J. Sorvoll, A. Wallace, J.R. Zavisca

Tony is facing eviction instead of enjoying retirement; Limarra isn't 'homeless enough' to get help from the council; and for Kelly and her asthmatic son Morgan, another new rented house is a matter of life and death. This is twenty-first century Britain, where millions are trying to build lives in privately rented accommodation, which creates profit for landlords but not safe and stable homes for tenants. This fierce and moving account tells their stories, and the story of how we built a housing system where homelessness is a constant threat. Award-winning housing journalist Vicky Spratt traces decades of bad decisions to show how and why the British dream of homeownership has withered and the safety net of social housing has unravelled. She has spent years talking with those on the frontline all around the country. Here, she illuminates the ways this national emergency cuts across generations, class and education and is devastating our health, destroying communities and transforming the social, economic and political landscape beyond recognition. But it is not irreversible. The Covid-19 pandemic showed that radical action is possible, and there are real steps we can take to give everyone the chance of a good home. This urgent, ground breaking book leads the way.

A Daily Telegraph Book of the Year 2022 'I can't tell you how refreshing it is in these polarised times to read a book on politics that doesn't have an axe to grind . . . an essential read.' The Sunday Times 'Subtle, sophisticated . . . compellingly told . . . This is a gentle and intelligent book, refreshingly unpolemical and reflective.' Observer Book of the Week Jason Cowley, editor-in-chief of the New Statesman, examines contemporary England through a handful of the key news stories from recent times to reveal what they tell us about the state of the nation and to answer the question Who Are We Now? Spanning the years since the election of Tony Blair's New Labour government to the aftermath of the Covid pandemic, the book investigates how England has changed and how those changes have affected us. Cowley weaves together the seemingly disparate stories of the Chinese cockle-pickers who drowned in Morecambe Bay, the East End Imam who was tested during a summer of terror, the pensioner who campaigned against the closure of her GP's surgery and Gareth Southgate's transformation of English football culture. And in doing so, Cowley shows the common threads that unite them, whether it is attitudes to class, nation, identity, belonging, immigration, or religion. He also examines the so-called Brexit murder in Harlow, the haunting repatriation of the fallen in the Iraq and Afghan wars through Wootton Bassett, the Lancashire woman who took on Gordon Brown, and the flight of the Bethnal Green girls to Islamic State, fleshing out the headlines with the very human stories behind them. Through these vivid and often moving stories, Cowley offers a clear and compassionate analysis of how and why England became so divided and the United Kingdom so fragmented, and how we got to this cultural and political crossroads. Most importantly, he also shows us the many ways in which there is genuine hope for the future.

A JUDGE MURDERED IN A CITY PARK
Mickey Haller, the Lincoln Lawyer, defends the man accused.

A HOMELESS PERSON BURNED ALIVE
Detective Renée Ballard catches the case on the LAPD's notorious graveyard shift.

AN UNSOLVED HOMICIDE FROM A LIFETIME AGO
Harry Bosch is left a missing case file by his mentor who passed away. He was the man who taught Bosch that everybody counts, or nobody counts. Why did he keep the case all these years? To find the truth - or bury it?

IN L.A. CRIME NEVER SLEEPS
But in Ballard, Bosch and Haller: the fire always burns. Will it light the way - or leave their lives in ashes?

Good Company: A Tramp Life, is a vivid portrait of a lifestyle long part of America's history, yet rapidly disappearing. The author traveled extensively by freight train to gain rich insights into the elusive world of the tramp.Richly illustrated with 85 photographs by the author, the book presents the homeless man as an individual who "drank, migrated, and worked at day labor" rather than the stereotype of a victim of alcoholism. The tramps with whom Harper shared boxcars and hobo jungles were the labor force that harvested the crops in most of the apple orchards in the Pacific Northwest. They were drawn to the harvest from across the United States and migrated primarily on freight trains, as had hobos in the 1930s. Although not without its problems, the tramp way of life is a fierce and independent culture that has been an integral part of our American identity and an important part of our agricultural economy. Since the first edition of this classic book was published by the University of Chicago Press, the tramp has virtually disappeared from the American social landscape. The agricultural labor force is now made up of Hispanic migrants. This significantly revised and updated edition contrasts this disappearing lifestyle with the homelessness of the modern era, which has been produced by different economic and sociological forces, all of which have worked against the continuation of the tramp as a social species. The new edition richly documents the transition in our society from "tramps" to urban homelessness and the many social, political, and policy changes attendant to this transformation. It also includes an additional thirty-five previously unpublished photographs from theoriginal research.

An autobiography of Big Issue seller, Graham Walker.

This book explores how cities are shaped by the lived experiences of inhabitants and examines the ways they develop strategies to cope with daily and unexpected challenges. It argues that migration, livelihood, and public health challenges result from inadequacies in the hard city-urban assets, such as land, infrastructure and housing, and asserts that these challenges and escalating vulnerabilities are best negotiated using the soft city-social capital and community networks. In so doing, the authors criticise a singular knowledge system and argue for a granular, nuanced understanding of cities-of the interrelations between people in places, everyday urbanisms, social relationships, cultural practices and histories. The volume presents perspectives from the Global South and the Global North, and engages with city-specific cases from Africa, India and Europe for a deeper understanding of resilience. Part of the Urban Futures series, it will be of great interest to students and researchers of urban studies, urban planning, urban management, architecture, urban sociology, urban design, ecology, conservation, and urban sustainability. It will also be useful for urbanists, architects, urban sociologists, city and town planners and those interested in a deeper understanding of the contemporary and future city.

Fixing Broken Cities explores the planning, execution, and impact of urban repopulation and investment strategies that were launched in the wake of two crises: late twentieth-century economic disinvestment and the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Because past practices could no longer serve as a reliable guide to future outcomes in this uncertain environment, any new initiatives had to involve a significant level of risk-taking. Based on the author's experience as a policymaker and practitioner, this book provides detailed insights into the origins and outcomes of these high-risk strategies, along with an explanation of why they succeeded or failed. This new edition examines policy initiatives from a fresh perspective, based on an awareness that (1) real estate ventures are best evaluated over the long term, rather than shortly after the completion of construction activity; (2) policies that had guided the allocation of public-sector resources during past decades of urban disinvestment need to be reconsidered in light of the economic resurgence that many American cities are now experiencing; and (3) the places described in this book are representative of other municipalities, of all kinds, where the pandemic has led to a fundamental rethinking of the relationship between home and workplace. A key theme of the book is equitable development, the question of who should benefit from the allocation of scarce public capital, and what investment policies are most likely to support this principle over the long term. The author provides realistic guidance about pursuing the best opportunities for improvement in highly disadvantaged, resource-starved urban areas, with reference to several key issues that are pressing concerns for members of urban communities: enlivening downtown and neighborhood commercial areas, stabilizing and strengthening residential communities, eliminating industrial-age blight, and providing quality public education options. This new edition will be of great use to planning, housing and community development professionals, both regionally and nationally, as well as to students on Urban Politics and Planning courses.

The struggle for the right to housing is a battle over property rights and land use. For housing to be provided as a human need, land must be recognised as a common right. Property, Planning and Protest is a compelling new investigation into public opposition to housing and real estate development. Its innovative materialist approach is grounded in the political economy of land value and it recognises conflict between communities and real estate capital as a struggle over land and property rights. Property, Planning and Protest is about a social movement struggling for democratic representation in land use decisions. The amenity groups it describes champion a democratic plan-led system that allocates land for social and environmental goals. Situating this movement in a history of land reform and common rights, this book sets out a persuasive new vision of democratic planning and contributes a powerful insight into the global affordability crisis in housing.

This book examines the growing trend for housing models that shrink private living space and seeks to understand the implications of these shrinking domestic worlds. Small spaces have become big business. Reducing the size of our homes, and the amount of stuff within them, is increasingly sold as a catch-all solution to the stresses of modern life and the need to reduce our carbon footprint. Shrinking living space is being repackaged in a neoliberal capitalist context as a lifestyle choice rather than the consequence of diminishing choice in the face of what has become a long-term housing 'crisis'. What does this mean for how we live in the long term, and is there a dark side to the promise of a simpler, more sustainable home life? Shrinking Domesticities brings together research from across the social sciences, planning and architecture to explore these issues. From co-living developments to the Tiny House Movement, self-storage units to practices of 'de-stuffification', and drawing on examples from across Europe, North America and Australasia, the authors of this volume seek to understand both what micro-living is bringing to our societies, and what it may be eroding.