May 31, 2004
By Lucille Davie
A NEW report that looks at the "good, bad and ugly" of South Africa's cities predicts that the Gauteng region will be the 12th largest city in the world by 2015, making it a "global mega city", larger than Los Angeles.
This mega city will be created by the spill-over of the municipalities of Tshwane, Ekurhuleni and Johannesburg into one another, says Andrew Boraine, chairperson of the South African Cities Network (SACN), the body that released the State of the Cities Report 2004 last week.
"The report takes a hard look at the forces that have transformed the country's largest cities over the decade since 1994 and asks, if the current trends continue, whether cities can expect positive or negative things in the years to come," says Boraine.
The SACN is a Section 21 organisation established in October 2002 to promote good governance of South African cities, the study and analysis of the challenges them, and a learning partnership between cities.
The SACN does not represent the cities, but is rather a knowledge management and information body that works for their benefit. The cities contribute to SACN, with additional funding from government and foreign donors.
The 200-page report collates a range of indicators from the nine cities that are part of the network: Johannesburg, Cape Town, Buffalo City (greater East London), eThekwini (Durban), Nelson Mandela (greater Port Elizabeth), Mangaung (greater Bloemfontein), Msunduzi (Pietermaritzburg), Ekurhuleni (the East Rand) and Tshwane (greater Pretoria).
The report - a special edition that is the SACN's contribution to marking the decade of democracy - measures how far cities have come over the past 10 years.
The nine cities show relatively slow growth: 2,8 percent growth compared to cities in other developing countries. It's a good sign, says Boraine, as this means the cities are more manageable.
The emphasis in the past decade has been on tackling apartheid backlogs and on restructuring of municipal institutions but the focus in the coming decade will have to change.
"For the next 10 years it cannot be business as usual. We need a more differentiated, nuanced approach, to think beyond municipal structures to ways of linking national and provincial structures," says Boraine.
He is at pains to point out that the economic and demographic statistics "contain a degree of sampling error". The report draws on the 1996 and 2001 censuses, which contain a 10 percent and 16 percent undercount, respectively.
The report does three things. It "consolidates available data from many sources into a 'statistical almanac' covering the nine SACN cities". It analyses key trends that affect the cities, how these trends are likely to evolve over time and what challenges and opportunities will arise.
Secondly, the report "assesses how city stakeholders are responding to these winds of change and acknowledges the important efforts that city leaders and decision makers are already making".
And thirdly, the report "speculates on how various trends may unfold, and what the likely medium to longer-term outcome of these may be". Through this the report hopes to set an agenda for further research, planning and action necessary for strategic planning.
Key findings
These were some of the demographic findings:
- the size of cities grew particularly rapidly after apartheid ended, with population growth of around 4,4 percent between 1991 and 2001. But growth has slowed considerably in the 1996 to 2001 period.
- not all the nine SACN cities are growing at the same rate. Four of the cities are growing at a rate of 1,4 percent, while some cities are growing at a super fast rate of 8 percent a year, and others are de-populating at a rate of -3 percent a year.
- current growth trends can be explained by migration, but - surprisingly - permanent migration to the cities has been relatively small, balanced by migration from urban to rural areas. At the same time, city-to-city migration is increasing.
- the impact of HIV/Aids on urban centres is not yet visible although cities "may be worse affected if late stage Aids drives migrants to seek family care and more dignified deaths back in rural areas". The fertility of women between the ages of 25 and 34 years may be affected by Aids.
- the end of apartheid has in some cities led to "household decomposition", in other words, a splitting of households within the same city. About 8,9 percent of people surveyed in the 2001 census had been living elsewhere in the same city five years previously.
Certain economic challenges face cities and rural areas. Among the findings were the following:
- the report confirms that in the manufacturing sector in particular there has been a long-term decline in employment.
- there has been a surprising decline in employment amongst professionals of 8,3 percent between 1996 and 2001, possibly driven by emigration.
- unemployment rates vary between the cities, but on average while unemployment in the nine cities is 3,31 percent lower than the country's average, some cities reflect unemployment rates far higher than most rural do. This suggests, says the report, that the unemployed would be better seeking employment in the rural areas.
- a lack of skills is becoming "chronic". In 2001 only 26,9 percent of the residents of the nine cities had matriculated and only 11,9 percent had any form of tertiary education.
A negative conclusion of the report is that the nine SACN cities are "more unequal today that they were 10 years ago".
A positive finding, however, is that more households are receiving "an acceptable level of service" than they did 10 years ago. This is often not noticeable because of migration to the cities For example, the number of households using electricity for lighting increased by 928 368 between 1996 and 2001, but at the same time of the number of households increased over that period, so the increase reflects only a marginal figure.
Challenges
The report outlines a number of challenges for South African cities:
- cities with fast-growing populations will have to manage those people by assimilating new residents, providing services and managing informal settlements.
- although local authorities can't influence economic fundamentals, they can "direct the nature of responsiveness of city services, prioritise city infrastructure and lead economic development partnerships".
- cities must put poverty reduction strategies in place, develop social safety nets and help the poor through periods of vulnerable periods.
- in the long-term there is a need to "shape appropriately located development, improve public transport, mitigate environmental health risks, anticipate possible disasters, and invest in bulk infrastructure capacity".
- cities need bold, proactive interventions in which each stakeholder is prepared "to think outside the box of their traditional powers and functions, and work collectively to accomplish agreed city strategies".
Boraine wishes national, provincial and local governments would work together more closely. "Poverty reduction programmes are far too fragmented." An integrated approach is needed for public transport and skills development too.
He also admits better data collection is needed, suggesting that cities collect their own data.
Boraine sees the report and its recommendations as just the beginning of a consultative process. "The process is not stopping there, we will be inviting comment and feedback on an ongoing basis."
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