Abstract
Abstract
This article employs the decolonial thinking paradigm to dispel the long-held myth that Local
Economic Development strategies are universal panacea that can result in the development of all
local economies globally. It is opined in this article that the growing literature celebrating the
salience of Local Economic Development strategies often downplay how these strategies at times
result in the reproduction of economic inequalities. This is primarily so in cities of the Global
South which remain weighed down by the burden of colonial and apartheid history. For these
repressive systems of governance relegated the colonised to the zones of non-being where
opportunities for economic development and self-realisation were deliberately foreclosed. As
will be made apparent below, the burden of colonial and apartheid history did not miraculously
disappear with the advent of political independence. Instead, the spectre of coloniality – defined as
the continuation of economic, socio-spatial and epistemological domination of the hitherto colonised,
still looms large. The primary argument advanced here, therefore, is that Local Economic
Development strategies implemented in highly socio-spatially fragmented and economically
uneven societies can further exacerbate these inequalities. The case of post-apartheid South
Africa is used to highlight how Local Economic Development strategies implemented in highly
divided societies often reproduce economic and socio-spatial inequalities.