Search

Postmasburg, a small mining town, has been an agricultural centre for the past 120 years, the iron ore mining being the only diversifying factor to the local economy. Mining endeavours resulted in the traditional boom-town cycle in Postmasburg over the past ten years with one significant exception to most of the rural towns in South Africa, which experienced the same expansions in mining operations. Whereas the other towns ran into a bottleneck after the initial rounds of urban development, mainly as a result of insufficient bulk infrastructure and capable human resources, the Tsantsabane Local Municipality, within which the town of Postmasburg is located, together with the two listed mining companies Kolomela and Assore’s Beeshoek, formed a tripartite partnership that approached service delivery in an exceptional manner. This paper critically assesses the Tsassamba Partnership against the background of the need for a partnership approach of governance against the background of the emphasis of planning theory on partnerships and local context. Data was collected by conducting interviews with representatives of the mining companies, municipality, business sector and civic organisations and quantitative questionnaires were applied in a household survey of 1,024 households. All the interviewees highlighted the success of this partnership approach. The survey also found that the partnership participated and cooperated successfully in the development of bulk infrastructure and land for housing for the mining employees, which had posed a major challenge to the local municipality

South Africa has a long and well-documented history with regard to the design and implementation of national development and regional policy. With the first official policy initiatives in the 1960s, it was decided by the then National Party that a policy of separate development (apartheid) of ethnic groups had to be implemented in the national space economy. In this sense, there is no doubt about the explicit nature of this policy, as it had very specific spatial objectives and implications from the national level down to neighbourhood level. With the democratisation of the Government in 1994, this negative policy connotation led to the establishment of numerous spatial development policies without any significant ‘spatial’ application. At the moment, however, numerous national government departments implement spatial investment programmes on a spatially explicit basis, with little coordination between these spheres and sectors of government. Research has shown that, on a global level, national and regional development policy increasingly has to be focused on a selected number of cities with inherent economic agglomeration benefits. This article aims to provide a scientifically based perspective on what the policy approach of the Presidency’s envisaged National Spatial Framework (RSA, 2012) should include, i.e., an explicit and spatially selective approach focused on cities with existing agglomeration economies, Suid-Afrika het ‘n lang en goed-gedokumenteerde geskiedenis met betrekking tot die formulering en implementering van nasionale- en streekontwikkelingsbeleid. Die eerste amptelike beleidsinisiatiewe is in die 1960’s deur die Nasionale Party daargestel toe ‘n beleid van aparte ontwikkeling (apartheid) van die verskillende etniese groepe in die nasionale ruimte geïmplementeer is. Daar is geen twyfel aan die eksplisiete aard van dié beleid nie, aangesien dit spesifieke ruimtelike doelwitte op nasionale tot plaaslike vlak gehad het. Met die verkiesing van ‘n demokratiese regering in 1994, het die negatiewe konnotasie wat eksplisiete beleid dra, die gevolg gehad dat menige beleide intussen daargestel is sonder enige noemenswaardige ruimtelike fokus. Tans is daar egter verskeie nasionale regeringsdepartemente wat ruimtelik-eksplisiete programme implementeer, met min koördinasie tussen hierdie verskillende sfere van die regering. Navorsing toon dat, op globale skaal, nasionale en streekbeleid toenemend op ‘n beperkte aantal stede met inherente ekonomiese agglomerasievoordele gefokus moet wees. Hierdie artikel het ten doel om ‘n wetenskaplik-gefundeerde benadering daar te stel wat in die Presidensie se voorgestelde Nasionale Ruimtelike Raamwerk ingesluit kan word (RSA, 2012). Die raamwerk behoort gebaseer te wees op ‘n eksplisiete en ruimtelik-selektiewe benadering, gefokus op stede met bestaande agglomerasievoordele

The development of sustainable urban landscapes challenges all stakeholders, including local governments as the major custodians thereof. The majority of urban ecological research done describes European and North American cities. South Africa's position in the global South underlines the potential that local research has in contributing to global knowledge. South African urban landscapes are rich in biodiversity and characterized by cultural diversity and steep socio-economic gradients. Spatial inequality, specifically access to resources and green areas, greatly influences the perceived importance and need of urban green space to citizens and policy makers. This legacy is a major challenge to the implementation of sustainability oriented contemporary urban planning and environmental management practices in South Africa. Sustainable solutions call for transdisciplinary approaches, in which the contributions of both non-academic and academic role players are integrated. Therefore, we investigated the possible interface between urban ecology, urban planning, and environmental management, within current policy and legislation frameworks and within practice in South Africa. We highlight certain aspects of the three disciplines that could contribute to transdisciplinary planning approaches, such as mapping and valuation of ecosystem services, strategic and integrated thinking, prediction and scenario building, governance, and decision-making and participatory planning. We believe that awareness of the major contributions of each discipline would refine the linkages between social and ecological issues proposed by several existing conceptual frameworks, leading to a transdisciplinary approach to plan for sustainable urban landscapes. The South African perspective presented in this paper could guide other (similar) global scenarios with regard to transdisciplinary planning approaches that could enhance the development of sustainable urban landscapes.

The Platinum Spatial Development Initiative (SDI) in the North West Province was initiated 10 years ago to address the spatial economic development challenges of the region. This revised commentary aims to re-evaluate development, and intends to provide an objective overview of the successes and failures of the Platinum SDI. The aim is to provoke a debate on the matter in order to assess whether or not the Platinum SDI is to the advantage of the economic development of the country and its people, and especially the poor. This paper considers the historical context and evaluates a number of arguments, either in support of or questioning the viability of the Platinum SDI. The paper concludes that after more than a decade there is still little evidence that the Platinum SDI will in the near future be efficient. At present, the Platinum SDI has very little to offer. To succeed will require more effort by all concerned, and especially much more commitment from the relevant governmental structures.