A systematic review of gated communities and the challenge of urban transformation in African cities

Globalization and the spread of neo-liberal models of urban restructuring have resulted in the rise in gated communities worldwide, including in Africa. The on-going scholarly debate revolves around the drivers of gated communities, their impacts and implications on the planning and management of cities. To contribute to and advance scholarly debate on gated communities and the challenge of urban transformation, we used standard systematic procedures to synthesize findings from 31 peer reviewed journal articles from 1990 to 2020, that examine the phenomenon of gated communities in African cities. Despite the differences in study settings, key findings emerge from gated community studies in Africa. Majority of the reviewed studies attribute the emergence of gated communities to the rise in crime and the search for good quality living environment. Globalization also plays an important role in facilitating new market-oriented gated communities. The globalization of lifestyles of the urban elite has also found expression in African cities. Reviewed studies are critical of gated communities for promoting spatial fragmentation, privatization of public space and local governance and for propagating socio-economic inequality and urban segregation. These issues have implications for the planning and management of cities; in terms of balancing between the need for secure neighbourhoods and promoting inclusive urban societies. The systematic review makes a case for re-thinking urban models that inform the production of new urban spaces; with a view to balance between private capital interests and the need for spatial justice.

     

Are South Africa’s cities too small?

Are South African cities to small? Given the history of South Africa’s spatial development, one might expect that South African cities might be under-sized, and not over-sized as in many other developing countries. It is found that the rank-size distribution explains the sizes of South Africa’s cities but that Zipf’s Law does not hold for the country’s cities. The so-called q-coefficient was found to be equal to −0.75 for the 123 places with population in excess of 100 000. It was also found that urbanisation in South Africa over the past decade seems to have taken the form of the parallel (slow, 1.04%) growth of five large cities. Finally, calculating the “H-measure” for 19 metropolitan areas in South Africa yields an inverse H-measure of 11.3. This suggests a reasonable degree of dispersal, which would only be consistent with optimal city size if transport costs were low and manufacturing not in need of scale economies; two conditions unlikely to apply to South Africa. Finally, the primacy ratio for South Africa’s largest urban agglomeration was found to be 38%. This suggests that the size of the Johannesburg-East Rand urban agglomeration (the primate city) may be relatively too large, whereas more efficient growth may come from larger harbour cities.     

Major events and urban development: exploring the spatial impact of China's expositions in the early twentieth century

ABSTRACT

Urban developments steered by major events have a long history. Already from the second half of the nineteenth century, World Expositions were mobilized as opportunities for urban upgrading. This article highlights the spatial effects of three Chinese major expositions on their host cities in the early twentieth century (1906–1929). It will in particular highlight the impact on urban development and planning, such as the construction of modern public complexes, the promotion of new urban districts, and the catalysis of structural urban transitions. Considering the significant historical, political, and social analogies, we argue in this article that expositions were adopted under the influence of foreign examples as a model of planning interventions to prompt the modernization of the host cities in China. However, while there was an important transfer of spatial concepts and models, we contend that Chinese authorities played a leading role in importing and exploiting these expositions as strategic instruments. They did so by actively and consciously mobilizing multiple urban actors such as social elites, but also civil society leaders and merchants. This article based on archival research on three expositions, provides novel insights into the urban history of the host cities during the exposition period.     

Forces shaping urban morphology in Southern Africa Today: unequal interplay among people,practice and policy

ABSTRACT

This article explores public participation and its impact on urban structures in Southern Africa. Often, public participation stands in opposition to existing legislation and prevailing urban policies. Using textual analysis and case studies of Harare, Zimbabwe, Johannesburg, South Africa and Luanda, Angola, this study concludes that the urban fabric and structure of Southern African cities are in a state of instability. The rise of public participation–“right to the city”–has given way to “cities of rebels” in which citizens react or rebel against urban policies and legislation. These forces threaten sustainable urban morphology and service delivery, complicating the roles of urban planners and managers.     

Advances in Spatial Analysis to Support a more Nuanced Reading of the South African Space Economy

This paper illustrates how advances in spatial analysis contribute not only to an enhanced understanding of the complex dynamics of social and economic spatial patterns, but also to exploring the implications thereof for development policies. The paper reflects on a set of incremental advances in spatial analysis achieved recently in South Africa, illustrating the value to a project undertaken to inform national urban policy development. The unique challenge of the project was to conduct a more nuanced, national level spatial analysis, moving beyond administrative boundaries, to enable the identifying, describing, and comparing of a range of settlement types in South Africa in terms of key characteristics and functional roles. The paper illustrates how recent advances in spatial analysis have enabled identifying and defining the wide range of densely settled clusters, local towns and service centers, regional service centers, cities, and bigger city-region areas, all forming part of a polycentric network (or backbone) of towns and cities. In conclusion, it is argued that advances in spatially nuanced and relational analysis are not only invaluable in generating a more nuanced understanding of the space economy, but also in enabling commensurate and context-specific investment and policy responses, contributing to development and urban management discourses.

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A Critical Reflection on Urban Spatial Planning Practices and Outcomes in Post-Apartheid South Africa

The spatial planning and policy framework and associated implementing tools in South Africa have undergone fundamental changes since the onset of the democratic era in 1994. The effectiveness and influence of urban spatial planning on restructuring South African cities are however increasingly being questioned and there remains a surprising paucity of empirical evidence to evaluate the impact of these plans. Seven key challenges are identified as impacting on the effectiveness of urban spatial planning in the democratic era. The responses to these challenges as reflected by the urban spatial plans of a cross-section of cities indicate moderate levels of progress with improving the horizontal and vertical alignment of spatial planning processes and with the integration of sustainability principles into spatial planning. Some limited improvement was noted with the understanding of the urban space economy and the alignment of infrastructure development and capital investment with spatial planning. However, very little progress is evident with the principle of physical and social economic integration of cities, considering the informal sector in mainstream spatial planning processes, and with the use of appropriate indicators and quantified targets to monitor the implementation and impact of spatial plans. The application of innovative spatial and statistical techniques will not only greatly enhance the understanding of these issues, but will also provide the basis for formulating appropriate and robust indicators and targets to monitor the impact of spatial plans.     

Methods and Considerations for Determining Urban Growth Boundaries—an Evaluation of the Cape Town Experience

Urban growth boundaries (UGBs) or “urban edges” as they are known in South Africa have been widely implemented by cities internationally with the intention of curbing urban sprawl. However, technical complexities and high levels of contestation frequently present challenges for their implementation. In particular, it is important to ensure that their demarcation includes appropriate land reserves to accommodate urban growth. Drawing the boundary too tightly can stifle economic growth and lead to land price increases, while including too much land within the UGB may result in unchecked urban sprawl and its associated environmental, social and financial costs. The aims of this paper are firstly to review international and local literature with reference to the merits and appropriateness of UGB policies and secondly to consider methods used by cities internationally to determine UGBs and describe the method used by the City of Cape Town to review its UGB in 2010. The Cape Town method evaluates land reserves against urban growth forecasts and is consistent with methods generally used by US cities. However, a number of adaptations for local and rapidly urbanising third world environments are outlined. The Cape Town method is evaluated with reference to the literature and lessons learnt are discussed. Key findings include the value of rigorous, defensible methods and clear policy guidelines in a contested environment, the value of integrating UGB reviews within broader land-use planning processes, the usefulness of information generated for broader urban planning processes and the utility of accurate information on past trends in moderating growth expectations.     

The Film Industry and South African Urban Change

Internationally there has been considerable discussion on the role that creative industries play as a strategy by which post-Fordist cities can revive stagnant urban economies. Among those sectors of the economy that form part of the creative industries, the filming sector counts as one. On the whole, these debates have been conducted with reference to the post-industrial cities of the north. Little attention has been placed on the role of the filming sector in the developing south generally, its spatial distribution, and its relationship to other economic and social geographies in those urban places. The paper provides a spatial analysis of the filming industry in urban South Africa and relates it to general economic and social geographies in two South African cities that have identified the filming industry as a key development strategy. In addition, an agenda for future research, in particular pertaining to urban South Africa is outlined. It is concluded that there is a broader urban planning and geography project at hand. Questions need to be asked about how the filming industry interacts with other government programmes and the ongoing transformation of physical and symbolic spaces in urban South Africa.     

在南非进行城市规划的新方法

随着南非1994年向民主国家进行过渡，服务于种族主义与种族隔离政策空间社会管理几十年的传统的总体与空间规划开始被视为完全丧失信誉的规划手段。     

Effects of urban form on air quality in China: An analysis based on the spatial autoregressive model

Understanding how urban air quality depends on urban form can have important implications for improving urban air quality by optimizing urban planning and management policies. This study employed the spatial autoregressive model to explore the effect of urban form on urban air quality in 288 prefecture-level cities in China. Information on the air quality (AQI) and six criteria pollutants (PM_2.5, PM₁₀, CO, SO₂, NO₂, O₃) were obtained from the hourly observation data of 1333 in-situ air monitoring stations throughout 2015. Urban form is characterized by five metrics, including urban size, shape, sprawl, fragmentation and traffic accessibility, and it is calculated based on land cover data. Results show that urban shape complexity and population density have a significant negative impact on urban air quality. Large city size is strongly related to comparatively poor air quality for cities in Southern China and only shows a slight association with emissions in Northern China. In general, lower-sized, scattered, polycentric cities provide better air quality in China. It is suggested that higher air quality and fewer pollutant emissions can be achieved through urban form planning and management policies, which aim to restrict the blind expansion of urban land and encourage moderately scattered, polycentric urban development.     

The urban grid and entangled planning cultures in Senegal

ABSTRACT

In Western (Eurocentric) research traditions of urban and planning histories, sub-Saharan Africa is generally denied an urban past, an urban settlement design culture, and especially an indigenous practice of grid planning. It is against this historiographic background that indigenous grid pattern settlements in Senegal are analysed, with relation to the gridded tradition of colonial settlement design. In light of both cultural sensitivities inherited in African studies and the diffusionist paradigm which seeks a supposed singular ‘origin’ for the grid plan – it is demonstrated that urban grid planning emerges independently in Senegal, before European colonization. In shifting the discussion from morphological essentialism regarding the genealogy of the grid towards a more interactive and processual approach of ‘entangled histories’, this article also provides insights into the dynamic criss-crossings between top-down and bottom-up cultures of urban planning. This Western-cum-indigenous formalistic entanglement is exemplified by analysing how such important contemporary Senegalese cities as Dakar, Touba, and Diourbel have been built. On the methodological level, we utilize a variety of secondary and primary sources, including archival material, an analysis of recent maps, satellite imagery, and direct observation.     

Cities and memory: a history of the role of memorials in urban design from the Renaissance to Canberra

ABSTRACT

In recent decades, there has been a significant revival of interest and growth in numbers of public memorials – sculptures and structures in public spaces that convey information and social attitudes about past persons, events and ideas. This renaissance has been most marked in national capital cities. To better understand this recent revival of interest in memorials, and their potential to reproduce or transform social and spatial relationships within cities, this paper examines the historical evolution of the role and form of memorials within the overall planning and development of Western capital cities, both existing and new, from their origins in Ancient Rome and through their later development from the Renaissance to the beginning of Modernism. It charts memorials’ ongoing contribution to the role of the capital city as a diagram that defines and communicates national history, identity and politics, contrasting this to ways that memorials have adapted to changing technological and political realities of land development and management.     

Reshaping Cities, Rebuilding Nations: The Role of National Urban Policies

The challenges of rapid urbanisation in large parts of Africa are beyond the capacity of local government to manage. The paper explores the arguments for a national urban policy to complement local strategies, reflecting the unique power of the central state and the special circumstances of cities. With appropriate support, urbanisation could become a more positive force for economic and human development. Recent experience in South Africa illustrates some of the difficulties and possibilities for agreeing a systematic approach to planning and managing urban growth and transformation. Key stakeholders in the policy process have focused on urban poverty as an immediate priority and broadened the traditional economic argument for nations targeting cities to spell out a long-term environmental and economic development agenda. This paper draws on work for the South African Cities Network on preparing the ground for a National Urban Development Framework that was led by the African Centre for Cities, University of Cape Town.

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Community planning and urban design in contested places. Some insights from Belfast

Although social conflict due to the presence of different groups divided by cultural, religious or ethnic issues plagues many contemporary cities, community and participatory planning methods still pay little attention to segregation in contested spaces as a specific matter of concern. This paper aims to contribute to filling this gap through the development of a novel tool to be implemented during community planning processes in contested cities, particularly in (visual) mapping processes. The pilot area for developing the lexicon has been selected within the city of Belfast, which has been struggling for years with problems related to inter-religious sectarian conflicts. The material effects on the urban structure of the long process of defensive planning during the so-called Troubles and within the post-conflicts peace programmes have been investigated by analysing urban artefacts including edges, borders, barriers, doors, visual control points. The paper suggests that a simple, recognizable lexicon may contribute to honing community planning methods in contested places by integrating the traditional methodology of visual mapping with a tailored taxonomy of elements of urban conflict, which may be used at many stages of the planning process, including developing a visual map, design and planning, and developing and implementing an action plan.     

Transport and mobility in sub-Saharan African cities: An overview of practices,lessons and options for improvements

Urban mobility is increasingly becoming one of the planning and development issues for cities in the sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) region. Sub-Saharan cities are growing fast, outstripping the current transport infrastructure. Despite the population and spatial growth, many cities are defined by inadequate planning, rapid urbanisation and deteriorating transport infrastructure and services. In most sub-Saharan African countries, modes of urban mobility are highly dependent on income. Transport options are limited. In fact, walking and cycling are often the main means available for the majority of city commuters. Little effort is made to develop a range of transport options or to improve bike or walking paths. Combined with traffic jams, poor governance and the increasing cost of living, public transport mobility in sub-Saharan cities is having a tremendous impact on their liveability and citizens development aspirations. This paper argues that inclusive and broad ranging transport planning must be prioritised in SSA cities to improve the capacity of citizens to participate in work opportunities as well as to fulfil their daily domestic needs. Using observations and comparing progress in other countries and regions, we note that the majority urban poor, women in particular, are often bearing the brunt of inadequate planning and transport provision. We note that urban planning and transport infrastructure should therefore be (re) designed with particular focus on the wellbeing of the poor. The paper thus ends with a range of suggestions on what planning, design and policy options might be available to better integrate various commuting modes into urban planning infrastructure. In doing so, the paper notes that safety and security are critical elements of improving urban and spatial transport planning in the sub-Saharan Africa region.     

Urbanizing India’s frontier: Sriganganagar and canal-town planning on the Indus plains

ABSTRACT

Irrigation projects implemented by British colonial engineers transformed environment, economy, and society in the Indus basin during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In addition to constructing canals, headworks, and distributaries, colonial officers designed new cities to facilitate administration and global commerce in South Asia’s frontier areas. By the 1920s, canal development had formally reached India’s princely states and decades of town and regional planning experimentation yielded reproducible planning codes and development strategies that balanced competing impulses. Sriganganagar (Ganganagar), a city of some 250,000 on Rajasthan’s northwestern border with Pakistan, illustrates these development schemes, the nexus of town and regional planning in colonial India, and its enduring influence on South Asia’s linked urban and regional systems. Like the goddess river with which it shares its name, Ganganagar took many differing forms through its planning and development: as a place of celebration, of production, of modern technological achievement, of ecological and social transformation, of expanding state power, and of ethnic division, imperialism, and repression.     

Understanding the Hobrecht Plan. Origin,composition, and implementation of urban design elements in the Berlin expansion plan from 1862

ABSTRACT

The nineteenth-century master plans for European cities influence their development beyond their intended lifespans and provide a variety of robust urban fabrics to this day. The Hobrecht Plan for Berlin's urban expansion (1862) was intentionally conceived to adapt to an uncertain future, remaining influential even today. For a considerable time, the Hobrecht Plan was disregarded and considered irrelevant across the spectrum of development plans in Europe. This article presents a comprehensive re-assessment of the Hobrecht Plan with an emphasis on its intrinsic value. The plan defined a new set of urban patterns, forms and spaces in 15 section plans and a range of public space typologies defining Berlin's cityscape. The plan developed a spatial and structural framework using three different urban design elements: the ring boulevard, the harbour square, and the neighbourhood square. These key organizing elements have helped public spaces remain the effective planning units of Berlin's neighbourhoods. This analysis provides insight on how contemporary master plans can better formulate long-term strategies to address complexity, adaptability, and flexibility. The article presents novel outlooks on Berlin's city structure and new knowledge of Hobrecht's contribution to the planning discipline.     

Borrowing from the past to sustain the present and the future: indigenous African urban forms,architecture, and sustainable urban development in contemporary Africa

Urban spatial expansion resulting from urbanization in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is not going to stop or stabilize in the near future. Efforts should therefore be concentrated on accommodating this phenomenon through the promotion of sustainable urban planning and development. Relying on secondary data, this paper examines models of indigenous African urban forms and architecture to understand these forms and their characteristics, and how these models and associated management, design, and planning principles can be adopted in contemporary SSA urban development in the quest to achieve sustainable urban development. This paper argues that planning is culturally and contextually defined and the specificities of a place are critical in planning. Developing strategies based on indigenous urban forms which embody local peoples’ culture, aspirations, experiences, and values is consistent with the concept of sustainable urban development. The article concludes that there exist clear elements of socially, politically, economically, culturally, and environmentally sound and responsive sustainable planning principles to be derived from indigenous urban forms and architecture which can inform current urban development process in SSA.     

Durban’s Back of Port Project: a Local Spatial Knowledge Production Process Framed by Urban Entrepreneurialism

Cities position themselves to compete in the global economy using large-scale entrepreneurial interventions, which have the potential to significantly alter urban landscapes (Harvey 1989). Within this broad urban entrepreneurial approach, it is useful to reflect on localised knowledge production processes and the actors and power embedded in them, which result in particular urban development outcomes in cities. This paper analyses a spatial planning exercise, the Back of Port (BoP) Project, initiated in Durban in 2007 by its administrative entity eThekwini Municipality, and produced by local consultants, which reflects a particular form of urban entrepreneurialism. The BoP Project aimed to increase the competitiveness of the Durban port through improving city infrastructure, addressing congestion at the port-city interface and ensuring economic growth in the city, in a highly contested and political space. The resultant knowledge production process and the spatial framework that was produced, were shaped by global urban policy and the politics and practices of local government, civil society organisations and the knowledge fields of specialist consultants. The BoP spatial planning exercise reveals how urban policy is unfolding in a city in the South, in response to global processes of urban economic development, national imperatives and local challenges. The research reveals that knowledges associated with an economic and functional discourse-coalition became hegemonic, whilst counter-hegemonic knowledges around social and environmental justice struggled to frame the spatial plan.     

Co-production as an Alternative Planning Approach in the Cities of the South: the Case of Kampala (Uganda)

The rising critical voices on conventional settlement interventions and continued reliance on imported planning ideas from the North in the cities of the South mean that planners and other urban development actors need to question their methodologies and approaches. The inherent tendency for conventional settlement interventions to ignore power complexities, social diversity and conspicuous conditions of poverty and deprivation in cities of the South further draws into question urban development interventions in Africa and the entire global South. Based on the case of Kampala (Uganda) co-production processes and engagements, the paper reveals tension points, networked and multiple community power bases that have strong and influential claims to urban space. The paper argues that a conscious combination of organised community resistance and collaboration could lead to reforms in the way actors and agencies understand and seek to improve living conditions in the cities of the South. The paper argues that planning and development intervention in these cities should be seen as both a collaborative and conflicted process.