When Joe Slovo was housing minister during the Mandela presidency, he hosted his counterpart from India. The visiting Indian delegation was subjected to a number of presentations on the history of apartheid spatial planning, the backlog in housing and various policy proposals that were being considered. On the second day of the visit one of the SA officials cheerfully asked the Indian minister his opinion of SA’s approach to housing. He said we were behaving like the person with an itch in the ear, spending time thinking about which hand to use to scratch it.