The South African Civil Society Information Service
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
Visit the archives.
Jan Gehl, architect, urban planner, and author of Cities for People, discusses what he calls "bird shit architecture," a trend in urban planning that originated in the 1950's and persists to the present day. This type of architecture, he explains, is designed to look good from a plane, but is not practical for the actual residents of a city.
He uses the example of the city of Brasilia, capital of Brazil, one of the most famous modernistic cities, to illustrate his point. "From...
Jane Duncan -
A significant debate has arisen between Deputy Minister of Correctional Services Ngoako Ramatlhodi and the University of Cape Town’s Pierre de Vos on the appropriateness of South Africa remaining a constitutional state.
In an article in The Times newspaper, Ramatlhodi argued that the supremacy of the constitution is disempowering the democratically elected government, whose decisions are second-guessed by a judiciary that still remains largely untransformed.
Ramatlhodi...
Michael Greenberger, Professor at University of Maryland, School of Law, contends that the world is in a dangerous moment. Greenberger talks about the risk of a global recession, arguing that we are in a 50/50 proposition of whether we are going to go into a second steep recession or worse.
Greenberger provides a fascinating account of the root causes of the current crisis, talks about where we are in the current moment and what the best remedy would be to overcome the full blown crisis of...
