SA cities were designed to exclude: TAU

[LazyLion]

Cities in South Africa were designed to exclude and segregate, posing a challenge to town planning and bringing citizens closer to urban amenities, Johannesburg mayor Parks Tau said on Friday.

"We've had to deal with this reality over the past 20 years," Tau said in a speech at the Banking Association of SA summit in Sandton, Johannesburg.

"In many ways, in the past 20 years, we might have inadvertently reinforced some of these inefficiencies in the urban system and we need to confront this reality in a slightly different way."

Poor households deployed the majority of their resources in transport and food and this needed to be addressed.

Another aspect was the high proportion of Johannesburg's population living in rental accommodation -- at around 41 percent.

Rental accommodation offered residents the opportunity of upward mobility and getting them plugged into the city economy.

Moving investment from the peripheries of the city to transport corridors, with amenities dotted along the way, to bring populations closer to resources as they moved between home and work, was also something the City of Johannesburg was addressing.

"The way we've been responding and the emphasis on at least the public development side on home ownership might not be responsive to what the market demands and what the reality is," Tau said.


Source : Sapa /aw/jje/ar/lp
Date : 31 Oct 2014 11:58

 

[sox63]

Reading the thread title I though what does the Transvaal Agricultural Union want to do with city planning now

 

[Albereth]

In other words the City Planning Department is failing.

Who is the mayor again?

 

[XennoX]

In other words the City Planning Department is failing.

Lol. The Apartheid government intentionally designed the cities with the best infrastructure, amenities and facilities for the white population and situated said population in those areas. The non-white, in particular the black areas, were poorly serviced and designed to segregate and exclude. Industrial zones and open spaces were used as buffer zones.

It's not an easy process nor a cheap process to redirect infrastructure and rezone areas. Add to the fact that certain areas, e.g., Fourways; circumvented Johannesburg's Spatial Development Plan due to a loop hole in the laws governing property acquisition, development and land use. A recent landmark case thankfully put a stop to that and all new developments are supposed to meet the requirements as set out by Johaannesburg's SDP.

Now it might seem like I'm defending the local government, but that couldn't be further from the truth. The truth is Parks Tau is right and it is going to be a major nightmare fixing this problem whether the government is competent or not.

 

[Polymathic]

I think one of the biggest failure of government is that there are no new cities created in the post apartheid era

 

[Africaner]

I think one of the biggest failure of government is that there are no new cities created in the post apartheid era

+1 The ANC is all about taking and renaming. That should have worked if South Africa had 10x more whites to begin with.

 

[Albereth]

Lol. The Apartheid government intentionally designed the cities with the best infrastructure, amenities and facilities for the white population and situated said population in those areas. The non-white, in particular the black areas, were poorly serviced and designed to segregate and exclude. Industrial zones and open spaces were used as buffer zones.

It's not an easy process nor a cheap process to redirect infrastructure and rezone areas. Add to the fact that certain areas, e.g., Fourways; circumvented Johannesburg's Spatial Development Plan due to a loop hole in the laws governing property acquisition, development and land use. A recent landmark case thankfully put a stop to that and all new developments are supposed to meet the requirements as set out by Johaannesburg's SDP.

Now it might seem like I'm defending the local government, but that couldn't be further from the truth. The truth is Parks Tau is right and it is going to be a major nightmare fixing this problem whether the government is competent or not.

No, I don't think you're supporting them at all. And the realities have little do with apartheid. All of our cities are older than apartheid. What apartheid did bring was influx control and that allowed cities to grow at a sustainable pace. Open border policies have compromised sustainability and city planning is just another victim of this misguided policy.

 

[Vrotappel]

Look at how the people from EC is flogging to Cape Town. Just no way any city can plan for it. This is a failure by national government to get economic activity going in the greater SA. Blaming this on apartheid is rich.