Abstract
The occurrence of urbanisation is a global trend with a scale and pace, across various dimensions, that is unprecedented (Seto, Dhakal, Bigio, Blanco, Delgado, Dewar et al. 2014:927) and more than half of the global population already resides in urban areas (Grubler, Bai, Buettner, Dhakal, Fisk, Ichinose et al. 2012:1310). Cobbinah, Erdiaw-Kwasie and Amoateng (2015:62) and Jung and Threlfall (2017:14), nonetheless, believe that urbanisation is not occurring uniformly worldwide, and that Africa is experiencing it keenly. Approximately 1,3 billion people (nearly a quarter of the global population) will have to be housed by 2050. The effect and extent of urbanisation are simultaneously diverse and substantial, captivating the imagination of planners worldwide, specifically in Africa (Dodman, Leck, Rusca and Colenbrander 2017:13). One of the world’s largest construction projects is on the horizon, unlike anything that has been seen during the past few decades, and there is an urgency among researchers to analyse the phenomenon correctly and suggest workable solutions (Sietchiping, Permezel and Ngomsi 2012:188).
This awareness emphasises that authorities (and planners) in Africa will face unique challenges (Güneralp, Lwasa, Masundire, Parnell and Seto 2017:1–4). Güneralp et al. (2017:2) elaborate that the inherent processes that drive urbanisation in Africa differ substantially from what is experienced elsewhere. South Africa is no exception and migration and urbanisation patterns are largely grounded in colonial planning during the apartheid era and its aftermath (Todes, Kok, Wentzel, Van Zyl and Cross 2010:332). Christiansen (2013:226) and Hall and Posel (2019:2) highlight that the apartheid regime marginalised black South Africans (who at that time made up 71% of the South African population) in homelands with few to no jobs, in intercepting the high levels of migration to former and prominent “white” urban areas where opportunities were abundant. The concomitant abolition of apartheid legislation was a further impetus that significantly accelerated this process. This unique urbanisation process, coupled with a government policy of spatial transformation and social justice, as well as authorities’ inability to meet the demands of accelerated urban growth, inevitably resulted in disorderly urban growth (Cobbinah et al. 2015:69; Güneralp, McDonald, Fragkias, Goodness, Marcotullio and Seto 2013:438). Dodman et al. (2017:8) and Seto, Fragkias, Güneralp and Reilly (2011:1) explain that this urban growth occurs in the form of unwanted urban sprawl rather than the desired compact urban forms. It gives rise to a decrease in density and an increasing change in land use, that could not be attributed to the natural population growth rate only. Researchers agree that a next dimension should be linked to the phenomenon of urbanisation in SA, namely Differential Urbanisation (DU) (Geyer Jr., Geyer, Du Plessis and Van Eeden 2012:2941). The phenomenon interprets the cyclical relationship between the phases of (i) urbanisation (increasing urban growth in metropolitan areas – will henceforth be referred to as primate cities), (ii) reverse polarisation (urban growth in primate cities stagnates but increases in adjacent intermediate cities), and (iii) counter-urbanisation. Counter-urbanisation implies an event where smaller peripheral towns, in turn, experience drastic urban growth (Petrişor, Ianoş and Tălângă 2010:766). In essence, DU integrates the mentioned phases to rationalise the intrinsic migration patterns in the ever-changing urban morphology of South African urban areas (Geyer Jr. and Geyer 2015:1).
The article is therefore intended to (i) examine real urbanisation and DU and (ii) review current spatial planning directives to determine whether they provide for the phenomenon of DU and if forward planning events, indeed, capture the implications of the unique patterns of DU. In determining the latter, a qualitative research approach (Cleary, Horsfall and Hayter 2014:711) was elected that employs a comprehensive literature study (Almalki 2016:291). In conducting the literature study, a thematic analysis (Xiao and Watson 2019:101) is attempted to abstract the indicators of urbanisation and DU from planning literature, and to provide a comprehensive overview of current spatial planning directives. A process of open, axial and selective coding (Joubert, Hartell and Lombard 2016:222–9) is employed to organise and categorise the qualitative data into indicators. Coding is interpreted by Cohen, Manion and Morrison (2018:668) and MacCallum, Babb and Curtis (2019:145) as a systematic process where segments of written data are organised and reduced based on relevant criteria, by linking these words or phrases to unique labels or codes, which will be referred to as “indicators” in this article. The selected indicators will ultimately be utilised and aggregated into a theoretical matrix (Xiao and Watson 2019:98).
Findings from the literature illustrate that SA was in the Early Primate City sub-phase of urbanisation during the apartheid era, due to urban areas that presented economic dominance and inherently created strong centripetal forces. It was during the immediate aftermath of the apartheid era that SA further entered the successive Intermediate Primate City and Advanced Primate City sub-phases of urbanisation, attributed to the increasing migration of the non-white sub-population from former homelands to former white urban suburbia. In the more recent context of SA, the significant pace of urbanisation has decelerated, and migration is instead channelled towards intermediate cities, triggering the Early Intermediate City sub-phase known as reverse polarization. However, early signs of counter-urbanisation have been noted, but only apply to the white sub-population.
Assessed spatial planning directives are divided into three components, namely policy, legislation and guidelines. Present spatial policy, amongst others, cautions that the various urban typologies in urban areas (primate cities, intermediate cities and small towns) will experience varying and accelerated growth rates. According to the National Development Plan, spatial policy further seeks to co-ordinate the crucial decisions that create and shape urban areas and to promote functionality (National Planning Commission 2012:278). This includes the co-ordination of, inter alia, the Municipal Systems Act 32 of 2000, requiring the preparation of a Spatial Development Framework (SDF) as a sector plan, embodied in the Integrated Development Plan (IDP) for a municipality. The co-ordination further includes the Spatial Planning and Land Use Management Act 16 of 2013 that determines the essential components of a municipal SDF, including, amongst others, (i) a spatial representation for the 5-year plan and subsequent 10 to 20 years of the municipality’s spatial form and expansion, (ii) housing needs, and (iii) a population forecast for the municipality for the next 5 years (Padarath 2015:36).
Through these findings, it is noticeable that future spatial planning (amidst unique urbanisation trends) at the municipal level is primarily reliant on SDFs. However, since spatial policy merely identifies certain unique urbanisation trends and fails to, for example, identify the specific phases and sub-phases of DU, this article questions the level at which SDFs address DU in South-Africa. In determining the aforementioned, a theoretical matrix is developed, by employing the technique of coding in dealing with copious data in the literature study, and indicators deemed inherent to DU are synopsised. The theoretical matrix may serve as a possible and exceedingly helpful guideline to investigate the presence of the indicators of DU in municipal SDFs, especially in those regions where rampant urbanisation is continually experienced and housing backlogs are increasing, beyond what was anticipated in prepared municipal SDFs. However, the theoretical matrix in its current state is not deemed exhaustive and could serve as an interim guideline, but subject to modification with ongoing studies regarding the subject. It is finally recommended that the provided theoretical matrix should be further augmented and ultimately expounded into an assessment matrix that could readily evaluate prepared SDFs to determine their efficiency and accuracy in anticipating the actual phenomenon of DU.
Keywords: differential urbanisation; migration; migration patterns; spatial planning directives; urbanisation