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Unpacking the concept of urban resilience in the face of urban change : the case of Maboneng precinct

- Letlape, Bonolo Helen

  • Authors: Letlape, Bonolo Helen
  • Date: 2019
  • Subjects: Sustainable urban development , City planning - Environmental aspects , Infrastructure (Economics) - Planning
  • Language: English
  • Type: Masters (Thesis)
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/297308 , uj:32409
  • Description: M.A , Abstract: We are living in changing times marked with an increased sense of uncertainty, and continuous reminders of the unpredictability of what might be lurking around the corner; whether it is a catastrophic credit crunch, climate change, terrorist attacks, youth riots or mass redundancies. Globally, this sense of uneasiness has been intensified by an era of continuous change and recurrent attacks on the urban form of cities. This is particularly so in old cities that have experienced trends of transformation due to urban decay. Such developments have resulted in structural changes leading to urban decline. A classic example is the Maboneng precinct, which has experienced a decline, with the upper and middle - class populations moving outwards into the suburbs and most industries as well since the 1970s. The concept of urban resilience has been adopted by the city of Johannesburg to deal with disturbances within the urban system. The city is reorganizing while experiencing change, so as to still retain the same function, structure, identity and feedbacks. There are no explicit studies that inform the impact of urban resilience in Maboneng, and there are limited documented studies that inform the urban structural changes that have taken place in the precinct over the past 10 years. Consequently, this study aims to evaluate how the concept of urban resilience has been applied in Maboneng. The work expresses the extent to which it has been implemented and also evaluates the drivers that have influenced urban resilience in Maboneng. This work adopted a case study research design and a qualitative research approach. Data were collected through structured in-depth interviews, with key informants involved in the development of Maboneng together with observations, map surveys and photographic surveys of the precinct. The results reveal that there are currently various historical land uses and urban activities that exist in Maboneng. It shows the various distinctive changes that have occurred over the past 10 years, and the drivers that have influenced urban resilience in Maboneng. Although urban resilience has led to a lot of beneficial structural changes, these have come with challenges such as urban decay, urban morphological structural changes and changes in urban form. The study concludes by recommending that all community members be consulted during the transformation and renovation of buildings within the precinct.
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The variables influencing developmental local governance to promote sustainable communities and cities in South Africa

- De Wet, Martha Maria Marthina

  • Authors: De Wet, Martha Maria Marthina
  • Date: 2017
  • Subjects: Sustainable development , Sustainable urban development , Local government - South Africa , Municipal government - South Africa , Cities and towns - Growth
  • Language: English
  • Type: Doctoral (Thesis)
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/272071 , uj:28949
  • Description: D.Litt. et Phil. , Abstract: The aim of this study was to gain an understanding of the nature and problems for developmental local governance to promote the sustainability of communities and cities in metropolitan municipalities in South Africa. Undeniably, urban governance has far-reaching consequences for local governance because urban population will continue to grow over time. Importantly, migration to urban areas can be expected to skyrocket as economies grow and cities provide more opportunities for the landless poor in the hope of finding employment. According to the National Development Plan (NDP) (National Planning Commission (NPC) 2012:260), “by 2030 South Africa should observe meaningful and measureable progress in reviving rural areas and in creating more functionally integrated, balanced and vibrant urban settlements”. The dual guiding research question of the thesis encapsulated the problem: What is the essence of the nature and challenges of good developmental urban local governance and how can innovative strategies promote the sustainable development of communities and cities in South Africa? The thesis provided a broad systematic conceptualization and contextualization of developmental and sustainable good local governance, urban resilience, new city governance and ‘smart cities’, the regulatory and institutional framework defining and regulating local governance and the theories and theoretical approaches underpinning developmental and sustainable local/urban governance. The emphasis of the thesis is placed on the functioning, problems, challenges and pressures of the sphere urban of local governance (within its constituent structures i.e. metropolitan municipalities) within given regulatory and structural parameters. This enquiry is premised on the view that in studying urban governance and implementation in general, and in South Africa in particular, specific factors, and structural and regulatory parameters have a profound effect on the sustainability of metros that should be taken into account. In the light of the above argument, the overarching perspective in which this study was grounded was that of a documentary and conceptual analysis using qualitative research techniques to explore and analyse the specific requirements that are set for the service delivery needs of the citizens in...
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Practitioners perspective for the implementation of sustainable construction in the Ghananian construction industry

- Ametepey, Simon Ofori, Aigbavboa, Clinton

Monitoring sustainable urban development using builtup area indicators: a case study of Stellenbosch, South Africa

- Musakwa, Walter, Van Niekerk, Adriaan

Local state constructions of urban citizenship : informal settlement and housing

- Groenewald, Liela

  • Authors: Groenewald, Liela
  • Date: 2013-04-10
  • Subjects: Squatter settlements , Squatters - Housing , Urban poor - Housing , Sustainable urban development , Community development, Urban , Sociology, Urban
  • Type: Thesis
  • Identifier: uj:7437 , http://hdl.handle.net/10210/8295
  • Description: D.Litt. et Phil. (Sociology) , This study explores local state constructions of citizenship for the residents of informal settlements in urban South Africa during the first decade of local democracy, with a focus on the last electoral term of this period. While many studies in the social sciences have reported on citizenship experiences and self-help strategies of various categories of residents of post-apartheid South Africa, few have directed their gaze at the state, or studied up by investigating powerful respondents or sites and processes of power. Given that the state has its most direct dealings with the grassroots at local government level, and that compared to ordinary people it holds a disproportionate amount of power over citizenship, the character and strategies of the local state in South Africa are critical for a comprehensive understanding of post-apartheid urban citizenship. The study focuses on the policy area of housing as a key response to informal settlement. A constrained developmental local state has emerged in the post-apartheid period in South Africa, exhibiting both Weberian and non-Weberian qualities in its political-administrative interface. While very little evidence of a skills shortage or limited capacity has surfaced in the policy area of housing in the metropolitan municipalities of Johannesburg and Tshwane, respondents in both sites reported that the available funds from the central state were vastly insufficient for addressing the identified housing need. This severely limited local state capacity to respond to the priorities identified by community consultation and systematic needs assessment and resulted in a perceived imperative to limit responsibility and supplement funds. Consequently, the two local authorities have managed their level of responsibility by changing definitions of informal settlement. In an attempt to lower dependence on the local state, they have also moved some responsibility for responding to informal settlement and housing need away from the local state. Although the lack of funds was deplored in both cities, their specific strategies have differed in important ways. In the City of Johannesburg, the local state recognised that housing shortages and informal settlement could not be adequately addressed if categories of nonqualifiers such as foreigners were excluded from city programmes. Elected councillors therefore argued for a relaxation of the criteria in the national Housing Code. To access more funds, the local state has relied heavily on the private sector, but this is likely to push the poor out of the urban centre and to isolate them from economic opportunities, which reinforces the apartheid spatial distribution. In order to reach a larger proportion of the population in need of assistance, the City of Tshwane preferred to focus its efforts on the provision of serviced sites rather than on housing. This strategy was implemented in addition to severe repression in the form of eviction and destruction of informal settlements as well as a policy of zero tolerance of new informal settlement, for which two related rationalisations were offered by respondents: the high portion of non-qualifiers who live in informal settlements and, in particular, the presence of foreigners, for whom they would not accept responsibility. While the City of Johannesburg’s outsourcing of low-income housing serves to extend the disproportionate influence of the private sector over elements of urban citizenship, the City of Tshwane’s exclusion of non-qualifiers and its forced removal of informal settlements represent a unilateral approach to constructing citizenship. In both cases, the result is a degree of continuity with the early colonial administrations and the apartheid government. Both methods have also inflated the achievements of the cities. The overall result has been the construction of a narrow, shallow and punitive urban citizenship for residents of informal settlements in South Africa since the advent of local democracy in 2000.
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Implications of land use change for the sustainability of urban areas: A case study of Stellenbosch, South Africa

- Musakwa, W., Van Niekerk, A.

Green commercial property development in urban South Africa : emerging trends, emerging geographies

- Rogerson, Jayne M.

  • Authors: Rogerson, Jayne M.
  • Date: 2014
  • Subjects: Green Building Council of South Africa , Green buildings - Sub-Saharan Africa , Sustainable urban development , Ecological houses
  • Type: Article
  • Identifier: uj:5506 , ISSN 17324254 , http://hdl.handle.net/10210/13672
  • Description: Within sub-Saharan Africa South Africa is one of the leaders in greening and initiatives for sustainable urban development. Notwithstanding the central role of climate change impacts and of the green challenge for the future, the greening of urban development has not been a major focus in local geographical research. The task in this paper is to investigate one aspect of reorienting the economy towards a pathway of low carbon growth and of addressing the green urban challenge. Specifically, issues around the greening of commercial property developments in South Africa are explored. Under the ratings of the Green Building Council of South Africa 50 green buildings existed by early 2014. Geographically these properties cluster in South Africa’s major cities, in particular Johannesburg, the country’s economic powerhouse and centre for corporate headquarters, and Pretoria, the administrative capital. New proposals for building retrofitting may result in a greater spatial spread of green buildings in the near future.
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Earth observation for sustainable urban planning in developing countries: needs, trends, and future directions

- Musakwa, Walter, Van Niekerk, Adriaan

Developing an urban sustainability toolbox using earth observation data and GIS for monitoring rapid urbanisation in developing countries

- Musakwa, Walter

  • Authors: Musakwa, Walter
  • Date: 2013
  • Subjects: Urban planning , Sustainable urban development , Earth observation , Decision consequence analysis , Geographic Information systems
  • Type: Article
  • Identifier: uj:4951 , http://hdl.handle.net/10210/13051
  • Description: Urban planners require data to monitor sustainable urban development. Accordingly this study is a synthesis of a studies by Musakwa (2013) and Musakwa and Van Niekerk (2013) who evaluated the potential of earth observation (EO) for monitoring and modeling sustainable land use in urban centers using Stellenbosch, South Africa as a case study. The unavailability, unreliability, outdatedness and unstandardised nature of urban land use planning data in developing countries was the motivation for the investigation. Many local authorities are inadequately equipped to plan for sustainable development in hyperchanging environments. Because sustainable land use, like sustainable development, are elusive concepts to put into practice in routine decision-making, an emerging structured framework, decision consequence analysis (DCA) was proposed to aid decision making for sustainable urban land use planning. DCA breaks complex problems, such as sustainable urban development, into increasingly smaller units until the particular component can be accurately analysed and understood within the context of the overall problem. Therefore, sustainable urban land use was divided into three themes, namely land use change and land use mix, urban sprawl and the urban built-up area.
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An assessment of urban expansion on a Wetland Ecosystem in Braamfischerville, Soweto, Gauteng Province, South Africa

- Ntsanwisi, Musa Casper

A roadmap for smart city services to address small business challenges

- Du Plessis, Haydn

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