Neighbourhood revitalization : the case of Austerville, Durban, Republic of South Africa.

1 Austerville and its decline The problems of neighbourho od decay and decline, neighbourho ods rife with vandalism, plagued with violence, blighted with crumbling structures and untended open spaces are not isolated to one country or city.Rather this phenomena of neighbourho od decay has emerged international ly as an unfortunate symbol of the changing nature of urban life.Such were the conditions in Austerville during the I late 1970s and early 1980s.Living conditions in Austerville, home to approximate ly 60% of the coloured 1 population of Durban during the 1980s, degenerated due to overcrowdin g and a lack of maintenance on the part of the State as well as the residents.Austerville displayed all the '... social pathologies and malaise associated with neighbourho od decay ... ' (Wickham, 1977:237).With the introduction of the racially based tricameral parliamatary system in 1984, the Labour Party, being the majority party in the former House of Representati ves for the coloured community in South Mrica, undertook the task of redeveloping Austerville.The broad aims of the redevelopme nt were to upgrade and improve the quality of life of the residents by improving the infrastructur al, environment al, socio-econo mic as well as the.housing conditions of the residents.(See Chapter 4 for a summary of all the This is a race classification term introduced by the former National Party government, to denote people of mixed racial origins.