More recently, media reports have set the country's upper classes aflutter about the possibility of apartmentblocks filled with "low-income" earners invading their leafy suburbs. On the other end of the spectrum the poor are near the end of their tether with confused housing lists, slow infrastructure delivery and chaotic transport facilities.

Urban discontent is brewing, and there is general consensus that informal settlements are at the heart of it.

But how big is the problem of squatter camps? According to a recent Statistics SA presentation to the parliamentary portfolio committee on housing, SA has 1176 informal settlements, housing about 1,8-million households. About 16% of all households live in informal dwellings and 17% of all households share only one room.

Fortunately, however, this percentage of total households living in informal dwellings has not increased since 1996, due largely to the 1,6-million houses that have been or are being built by government or via a government subsidy.

Encouragingly, in many areas this relatively rapid delivery of housing has been matched in pace by the delivery of other social goods. The 2004 State of the Cities Report shows that in SA's nine largest cities there has been a dramatic improvement in the level of service delivery particularly waste management, electrification and water provision.

But not all urban areas can boast such successes neither in the building of houses and the provision of services, nor the provision of other social goods like public parks, schools, clinics and community centres.

Wallacedene, a site and service settlement about 30km inland from Cape Town along the N1, is a case in point. In 2001 fewer than 10% of the dwellings were more than temporary structures. The rest of the households lived in shacks without water, sewage or refuse removal services. Only 5% of the shacks had electricity, and the area was partly waterlogged. One journalist remarked that the leaking sewage and piles of rotting rubbish smelt so bad that one could actually taste the stench; part of Wallacedene was named Mooitrap, reflecting the need to step carefully around the sewerage.

So despite the numerous advances in creating sustainable urban communities in certain parts of the country the challenges continue to loom large. In many informal settlements poverty, social dislocation, deprivation and environmental degradation have been the result of urbanisation.

During the first decade of democracy, SA's urban development strategy appeared preoccupied with targets: the number of houses built; households given water, sanitation and electricity; the numbers of jobs created; the percentage of people provided with waste removal; the amount of land restituted; the numbers of roads tarred.

More recently urban development policies, in theory at least, appear to be shifting subtly away from a focus solely on numbers as an enumerator of success, and towards a more holistic quantitative and qualitative evaluation of progress. This represents a shift from building houses, roads or schools to a drive to build communities. This is a departure from previous approaches, but not just a shift from numbers to quality but also a shift in development planning and implementation.

To this day there is often a lack of communication and co-ordination between spheres of government and parastatals. Yet all make and execute decisions that can undermine or promote urban development. The result is often a discordant urban development strategy that has sometimes duplicated and even been counterproductive. This has been recognised by, among others, the provincial and local government department, which is working to put a national urban development strategy together.

But is this shift enough to give hope to the millions of South Africans living in shacks and to whom the smell of decaying rubbish and sewerage and the stench of coal fires are nothing new? Is the eminent urban dilemma solvable or are we facing an ongoing crisis?

Some are optimistic. A positive, though critical voice is that of Andrew Boraine, CE of the Cape Town Partnership. The former adviser to Provincial and Local Government Minister Sydney Mufamadi and former Cape Town city manager argues that SA's cities can meet the challenges of urbanisation head on.

"Part of the key is well located assets," he says. "The other part is medium-density housing that is socially beneficial."

Boraine believes well-planned and well-located development is crucial. He argues that the city can be the locus at which "various efforts become one strategy". Such a strategy should be wideranging, but should choose three or four key issues to attack so-called "changelevers". Singapore spent 20 years developing the biggest digital harbour in Asia. Bogota focused heavily on mobility, including nonmotorised transport getting people onto bicycles.

Melbourne used a strategy of marketing itself as an "events" destination.

In the case of Cape Town various options come to mind: tourism, transport, the harbour?

The infrastructure is there, the private and public finances can be made available, but three major obstacles stand in the way of a successful "South African urban century". According to Boraine they are "complacency amongst all stakeholders; the near-sightedness of policy makers and civil servants; and the disjuncture between long-term visions and actual action on the ground".

Others are more sceptical of government's chances of success at fulfilling its ambitious housing promises, never mind dealing with urban decay, the results of the collapse of the rural economy and the remains of apartheid-era racial segregation.

The cynics among us would comment that a new theoretical approach and a new set of targets will not create sustainable settlements. Others are quick to point out that the solutions to some problems are often the cause of others.

A boom in employment opportunities is obviously a good thing. The construction of the Saldanha Steel Mill provided many from the local community with work, but also drew in many newcomers. But when construction was complete many could not find other work and had nowhere to go, so contributing to unemployment in the area.

New squatter camps had to be built, and an extra burden was placed on local resources.

Urban development and economic planning that fails to take into account the implications of the interventions can be as damaging as doing nothing.

Dealing with urbanisation is not easy. But the disaffected public cannot be expected to be silent for much longer. The Diepsloot riots signal this.

Will SA's cities be able to improve the living conditions in the squatter camps, draw the excluded into the economic mainstream, halt the current slide into environmental decline and create spaces where people can live in dignity?

Karin Lombard is project co-ordinator for the Institute of Justice and Reconciliation (IJR). Andrew Boraine and Tony Ehrenreich will be the main speakers at an IJR-hosted debate at the University of Cape Town tomorrow on the theme Can we avert an urban crisis?