Divergent development in South African cities: strategic challenges facing Cape Town (original) (raw)
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The imprint of the inequalities and uneven development of both the colonial and the apartheid eras has a long history and has had a profound impact upon the South African urban form. Chapter 1 provides an overview of the Mangaung urban morphology and argues that the evidence from the Bloemfontein example suggests that fundamental changes to the settlement landscape are highly unlikely-especially with regard to informal settlements and to the places where poor people reside. This reality requires far more creative ways of planning. In addition, it is argued that there are many inherent contradictions in government planning frameworks, which are not conducive to the establishment of a coherent approach to the spatial restructuring of Bloemfontein and the Bloemfontein-Botshabelo-Thaba Nchu region (BBT region) (Figure 1). Chapter 2 elaborates on some of these concerns, examining the changing patterns of inequality in Bloemfontein mainly by making use of census data. These changing patterns of inequality in Bloemfontein are mirrored against international and national trends in respect of inequality. The results show increasing inequality for the three areas under consideration between 1991 and 1996, but decreasing inequality between 1996 and 2001, and between 1991 and 2001. Two main reasons for the decrease in inequality since 1991 are advanced. The chapter first suggests that both increased mobility and increased access for domestic workers is probably a significant reason. However, more importantly, the second reason is probably related to the fact that increased service delivery ensured that the comparative infrastructure situation was significantly better in Mangaung in 2001 than in 1991. Considering this decrease in inequality, it is suggested in this chapter that two longer-term questions should be asked in this respect. The one relates to the financial sustainability of the provision of infrastructure with infrastructure standards which are unaffordable for a large percentage of the population. In addition, the need to maintain these standards will place increasing pressure on municipalities to ensure efficient technical maintenance of the engineering plants that support water and sanitation provision. Secondly, it probably overemphasises development as something to be delivered by the state. ATKINSON, D. 2002. A passion to govern. Third generation issues facing local government in South Africa, Centre for Development and Enterprise, Johannesburg.
Although Spatial Development Frameworks are regarded as the key spatial restructuring tool of local municipalities, the investment of public resources through the municipal capital budget is of equal importance. Public-sector capital investment plays a key role in the reorientation of spatial priorities by guiding private investment and restructuring historically inefficient spaces. The alignment of spatial development strategies and municipal capital budgets provide a potentially effective restructuring mechanism for local municipalities. This article analyses the degree of alignment of these instruments through the case-study investigation of three local municipalities: Johannesburg, Cape Town, and Rustenburg. The findings indicate that spatial development frameworks significantly influence budgetary capital spending patterns and address growth management and connectivity. However significant resources were committed in marginalised fragmented settlements, a trend that reinforced ...
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Addressing the racially divided, sprawling and socially inequitable spatial form of South African cities has been key to strategic spatial planning and urban spatial frameworks in South African cities, including in Johannesburg. These ideas were included in the Johannesburg 2006 Growth and Development Strategy (GDS), and in the 2011 GDS, which focused more strongly on resilience, but making strong links to spatial form. They have also been a consistent element of various rounds of Johannesburg Spatial Development Frameworks (SDFs). However, despite several of these concerns being embodied in national urban and city policies, objectives to restructure cities spatially have proven to be very difficult to achieve, and there is a growing frustration and questioning of whether some of these objectives are still appropriate. At the same time, the urban restructuring agenda, and the areas that spatial policy addresses have been constrained in practice, and there are several gaps and silences in the issues that are addressed. This paper provides a discussion of the choices, tensions, and trade-offs facing spatial policy in Johannesburg. It considers whether the policy objectives expressed in existing spatial policies (including the Johannesburg GDS and SDF) are still relevant, and address key spatial dynamics and issues. It does this by exploring several key areas of debate around the spatial form of cities and spatial policy internationally, examining how they manifest in Johannesburg, and highlighting these choices, tensions and trade-offs. It recognises, as a starting point, that while urban spatial policies have some power to shape spatial change, spatial trends and dynamics occur in a complex environment, where there are many drivers and shapers of spatial change. As emphasised in the position paper on 'Strategic Planning in a Turbulent and Uncertain Context', spatial policies that hope to influence spatial change need to understand the (shifting) key trends and drivers that affect space, including demographic, economic and social patterns that influence the demand for space. There are many examples of spatial plans which missed key trends, vastly over-or underestimated population growth, and consequently planned for spatial forms which proved to be inappropriate. The spatial form of cities is also shaped by markets of various forms. Planning may attempt to engage with and regulate or direct these markets in the interests of its social and spatial goals and objectives, but it does not have completely free reign. Further, there are frequently disjunctures between strategic spatial planning and implementation, reflecting limits in terms of capacity, political will, institutional cooperation/integration and other factors.