Capturing Land Value Increment to Finance Infrastructure Investment—Possibilities for South Africa

In the globalisation age, cities are the drivers of economic growth. However, sustainable economic growth demands considerable investment in infrastructure. South African cities face a triple challenge of eradicating historical infrastructure backlogs inherited from the Apartheid era, servicing and maintaining existing infrastructure and providing new infrastructure to stimulate economic growth. In the South African context, the provision of municipal infrastructure plays a critical role in eradicating sociospatial inequalities as part of an overall poverty reduction strategy. This places a huge burden on local governments in South Africa in particular as they face capacity constraints and challenges in terms of raising sufficient own revenue in order to finance infrastructure projects. This paper argues that in light of the South African government’s current infrastructure drive and the significant amount of public resources being spent on transport infrastructure upgrades, it is an opportune time to consider the impact of transport infrastructure investment in particular on land value and how this value can be captured to finance the provision of infrastructure at local level. The paper cautions though that any programme aimed at capturing betterment needs to be based on sound research and needs to take cognisance of the legislative, policy and economic context in South Africa.     

Gentrification and South African Cities: Towards a research agenda

Whereas South Africa’s cities have generally been understood as a “unique” urban form, many theoretical perspectives and urban processes – such as gentrification – which are often reserved for consideration in cities of advanced capitalist societies, are also of relevance there. In fact, important contributions to these theoretical perspectives can be made by drawing upon the South African urban experiences, while also providing a basis whereby local scholarship can be integrated into international urban debates.     

Supplier Diversity: a New Phenomenon in Private Sector Procurement in South Africa

This article represents a South African contribution to the policy-oriented focus of much international small business scholarship. It examines an emerging new dimension in South African small enterprise development policy debates??the question of supplier diversity in private sector procurement. Against the backdrop of a review and analysis of the international origins and trends in supplier diversity in particular from the established US and UK experiences, it unpacks the developing South African record on supplier diversity and local challenges. Attention is drawn to the important position of the South African Supplier Diversity Council. National government support should be given to emerging private sector-led initiatives for developing supplier diversity in order to forge a partnership to achieve the goal of a more economically robust as well as inclusive small enterprise economy in South Africa.     

The Locational Behaviour of Foreign Direct Investment: Evidence from Johannesburg, South Africa

This article represents a contribution to the limited scholarship on understanding the locational behaviour of foreign direct investment (FDI) in Africa. Against a background review of international research and debates on locational decision-making of foreign investors at both international (particularly within the developing world) and national scales of analysis, the profile and patterns of foreign investment in Johannesburg are documented and the key factors influencing investor location choice are analysed. Although investors from 34 countries are represented in Johannesburg, the leading ten investor countries, headed by USA, Germany and UK, account for 85% of all investments. An emerging trend is for the growth of FDI from India, China and the Middle East. Reasons given by foreign investors for selecting Johannesburg as an investment destination largely mirror the international experience of location decision-making by foreign investors. Johannesburg is shown to be the preferred choice for business operation both in South Africa and the broader southern African region because of several agglomeration factors which relate to the city's position as economic hub, financial centre and core market of southern Africa.     

The waste sector and informal entrepreneurship in developing world cities

Conclusion It is evident from the experience of cities across the developing world that the waste economy is a significant area for informal entrepreneurship. The overall picture is one in which the majority of activities are unsupported and exist at bare survival levels. The most promising areas for SMME growth appear in circumstances in which the importance of informal recovery systems is acknowledged and accommodative rather than prohibitive policy interventions have been undertaken. More especially, entrepreneurship opportunities are emerging in the context of local initiatives nested within a changing environment for urban waste management. Nevertheless, a critical lesson from the experience of the developing world is of the need for a set of support interventions to assist the growth of these emerging SMMEs in the waste economy, not least through the innovation of programmes of micro-credit support and business development services. The role of waste recovery as an element for livelihood creation demands the attention of local governments, NGOs and CBOs in developing world cities. In the context of policy development for African cities, some of the positive lessons of the Asian experience are worth further exploration in terms of informing future waste management planning.     

老工业城市的复兴：格拉斯哥的经验及对中国东北的启示

本文回顾了一个英国主要城市的衰退和复兴经验．以期发现适合于中国东北城市的一般性政策。格拉斯哥早先发展为一个面向出口市场的重工业综合体，由于严重的失业和随之而来的社会问题，其经济在20世纪60至80年代出现了衰退。通过在一定范围内针对人、地点和企业发展三大关键要素采取的行动已取得了一定成效，这些努力包括经济结构转型、地方企业的现代化、吸引国内投资、劳动力再培训、扭转物质性退化和废弃、提升住房质量、改善周边环境以及投资交通和其他基础设施等。对于地方当局来说．没有中央政府切实而长期的支持要完成这些任务是十分艰难的。     

Revitalizing the Bloemfontein CBD: Prospects,Obstacles and Lost Opportunities

Urban change has systematically been researched for more than a century. One of the key foci has been the Central Business Districts (CBDs) of cities. The past decades has seen an extensive literature develop on CBD decline focusing on why such decay sets in and which strategies, as well as policies, that might be deployed to stimulate the revitalisation of these areas. The debates are, however, in the main developed within the context of large cities, whilst the geographical focus tends to be on countries of the post-industrial north. In the South African context, a small, but nevertheless significant literature has developed chronicling both CBD decline and subsequent revitalisation strategies deployed to reverse such decline. Similar to the international experience, the focal point has been South Africa’s main metropolitan regions, whilst secondary cities have remained beyond the investigatory focus. The aim of this paper was to provide an outline of the prospects and obstacles that face CBD revitalisation in the secondary city of Bloemfontein. It is argued that whilst generic revitalisation programmes in cities such as Cape Town and Johannesburg have seemingly stemmed further CBD decline, other strategies might be required in secondary cities such as Bloemfontein.

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Informal Sector Business Tourism in the Global South: Evidence from Maseru, Lesotho

Domestic tourism is a neglected theme within tourism scholarship about the global South. This article addresses informal sector domestic tourism and is anchored upon the typology of tourism by Gladstone (2005) in which distinctions are drawn between international and domestic tourism and formal and informal sector tourism. The specific focus is informal sector business tourism, the nature of which challenges Western definitions of business tourism. The study reports findings from 52 interviews conducted with informal business tourists and accommodation providers in Maseru, Lesotho’s capital city. It is revealed the nature of low-income informal sector business tourism in the global South is radically different to that of conventional business tourism in terms of its organisation, characteristics of business tourists, and impacts. Arguably, informal sector business tourism is inherently pro-poor in its local impacts. Further comparative research work is required concerning these forms of ‘invisible’ tourists in African cities.     

Regulating Plastics Waste,Stakeholder Engagement and Sustainability Challenges in South Africa

In May 2003, the South African government enacted regulations banning the production of thin-film plastic shopping bags. The government advocated that such thin-film plastic shopping bags were indiscriminately discarded because they had no economic and recycling value. However, in as much as the regulations led to significant reductions in plastic shopping bags in the environment, the law resulted in severe unintended negative consequences, as jobs were lost with some businesses in the plastic shopping bag manufacturing sector closing down. The paper also reveals that key stakeholders, such as industry, business and labour, lobbied against the introduction of the regulations but without success. On average, business went down by about 83% with a conservative 25% reduction in employment. Drawing insights from the Irish and Australian experiences, this paper critically reviews sustainability debates and responses surrounding environmental regulation and business, with a special focus on the Plastic Bag Regulations in South Africa. Lessons learnt are presented with the intention to provide insights for future waste product or other environmental regulation initiatives in South Africa and elsewhere in the region.

Negotiating the Global and the Local: Evaluating Development Through Public–Private Partnerships in Durban,South Africa

Within a context of transition, South African cities such as Durban are required to address the dual development imperatives of socio-economic redistribution and increasing global competitiveness. Processes associated with shifts to urban governance and partnerships are being drawn on to achieve these urban development goals. In 1999, the Durban Growth Coalition, a strategic partnership between business and government, emerged to address urban economic development concerns. The partnership has led to the successful planning and implementation of various flagship developments within the city. This paper evaluates the processes of the Coalition and associated projects in order to assess to what extent the partnership is successfully addressing the dual imperatives of post-apartheid redress and integration into the global economy. The paper thus critically examines the implications of using public–private partnerships as mechanisms for equitable development in South Africa and highlights the possibility of the emergence of deliberative processes of decision-making through partnerships.     

Maximising the Local Pro-Poor Impacts of Dive Tourism: Sodwana Bay,South Africa

This article examines the local impacts of dive tourism in a South African case study, namely Sodwana Bay in Maputaland, KwaZulu-Natal province. Using extensive primary research interviews with key tourism stakeholders and local product owners, dive tourism at Sodwana Bay is considered an example of niche tourism in small-town South Africa. It is argued that opportunities exist for extending local pro-poor impacts if several challenges are addressed concerning improved skill levels, the institutional environment and extending local small business opportunities.     

Is There Such a Thing as a Post-apartheid City?

In an introductory section, this paper considers briefly the achievements and problems of urban governance in post-apartheid South Africa through an assessment of three categories: administrative reform, developmental issues and conflicts over service delivery issues. It then goes on to assess continuity and change in South African cities. Continuity is the norm in understanding urban history with change understood as a series of accretions and as a layering of features, unless major economic shifts or revolutionary political shifts are in place. Using the example of Durban, a series of changes is highlighted, which fit into what the deracialized growth path allows and encourages. The paper argues that thus far, the ANC government has shown little capacity or desire to discipline capital along the lines suggested, for instance, by the Reconstruction and Development Programme’s section on public transport. Larger changes are thus limited by the predilections and established discourses of the business world and the absence of more dynamic and structured public intervention.     

The Reconstruction of a Postindustrial City

There is increasing competition between cities to attract investment. Older industrial cities have a particularly difficult time. It is in this context that there is an attempt to rewrite the meaning of the industrial city. Constructing a new, more positive picture involves marketing a new image, constructing a new environment, and reorienting a city's relationship with its physical environment. The process involves many actors, from business leaders eager to stimulate investment to local citizens' groups seeking to reclaim community space. This article examines these issues in the city of Syracuse, New York, and, in particular, documents the important changes in civic boosterism, the construction of a new iconography of the downtown, and the evolving discourse on environmental pollution.     

Collaborative metropolitan governance: An evaluation of local adoption in Denver

In response to regional challenges, U.S. Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) have undertaken collaborative visioning processes that encourage development in centers with mixed use and higher density development. For over two decades, the Denver region has promoted local voluntary adoption of centers through regional plans supported by a significant investment in transit. But are these regional efforts affecting local comprehensive plans? We analyzed the content of city plans for ten cities over 30 years. We also interviewed 13 planners in the region to understand the factors supporting and constraining local adoption and implementation of centers. We found that local governments have adopted centers; and, over time these centers have integrated more regional vision objectives. Transit investment and market forces significantly influence local adoption of centers. Other supporting and constraining influences include redevelopment investment, sales tax, grants, and incentives, and public and political support. Our findings suggest that local development is still strongly driven by local views and attitudes, and future regional plans need to create more significant incentives, clearer standards, and public and political deliberations about how the region will accommodate future growth.     

Military Base Conversion in South Africa: Opportunities for Local Economic Development

Cutbacks in defence budgets have highlighted the importance of issues around the conversion of former military bases. The international experience shows that the process of closing military bases and converting them to alternative uses can open up possibilities for local economic development (LED). This article examines South African debates and experience of the reuse of military bases made redundant in the post-apartheid period. Implications for LED are discussed in two case studies of the Zwartkop Air Force base and the Bourke’s Luck Military Base.

REINDUSTRIALIZATION IN DETROIT: CAPITAL MOBILITy AND CORPORATE INFLUENCE

The absence of a national economic development policy and the need of officials in older cities to rebuild the urban tax base have produced intense competition among municipalities and states to attract corporate investment. Local economic development programs combine state enabling legislation and federal funds to provide financial incentives and facilitate site preparation for new industrial and commercial facilities. The winners in this competition, however, have not been cities and their residents, but large corporations, whose position as major local revenue producers enables them to shape policies, not through behind the scenes manipulation, but through their capacity to withdraw badly needed private capital Although city officials are responsible for formulating development packages, they exercise little policy discretion: the mobility of corporate capital forces them to offer the maximum incentives allowed by state and federal laws.     

The Limited Service Hotel in South Africa: The Growth of City Lodge

A critical competitive strategy for the growth and expansion of large hotel chains is the pursuit of market segmentation. This article investigates one aspect of market segmentation and the restructuring of the South Africa hotel sector, namely the emergence of the limited service hotel. The growth of the limited service hotel segment of the South African hotel industry is analysed through a case study of the strategic development and evolution of City Lodge Hotels which pioneered this market niche in Africa. Close linkages are disclosed between the limited service segment and the growth of business tourism in South Africa’s major urban centres.     

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.     

Citizen vs. customer: Different approaches to public participation in service delivery in Cape Town

Conclusion The neo-liberal shift in how public authorities shape the subject at the local level must be contextualized as part of the structural transformations of local government in decentralizing its core responsibilities for the provision of collectively consumed goods to a more-market-oriented interpretation of being a service enabler. This global trend certainly influenced South African debates during the transition period on the vital role of local government in rebuilding a deeply- divided society while simultaneously entering the global economy. We have reviewed the outcomes of these macroeconomic and social tensions on the development agendas of the City of Cape Town. The post-apartheid South African state was deeply committed to democratization, as illustrated through an extensive set of pieces of legislation designed to incorporate public participation in service delivery. In this article, we have shown how local government has grappled with implementing procedural equity through the notion of Developmental Local Government. We have reviewed the institutional limitations to implementing public participation mechanisms that were part of the goals of DLG, such as the RDP and IDP fora. We then illustrated two competing visions of development within local government and how these visions shaped the practice of service delivery in the city. The MSD prioritized efficiency in service delivery and in doing so shaped the subject as a customer. Alternatively, COMDEV prioritized equity and in doing so shaped the subject as a citizen. These different approaches to service delivery significantly shape the development trajectory of low-income communities. Ahmedi Vawda is in national government as Deputy Director General of Housing.     

Conference and exhibition tourism in the developing world: The South African experience

Conclusion Tourism scholarship concerning conferences and exhibitions is dominated by writings concerned with developed countries. An examination of the South African experience, therefore, provides a useful complement to the existing writings and reveals certain parallel themes, particularly concerning issues of local development. Historically, in the apartheid period the market for conference and exhibition tourism was based upon domestic demand. After the democratic transition, however, it is evident that new opportunities were opened for the attraction of international conferences and exhibitions to South Africa. Undoubtedly, a watershed event in the development of South African participation in the global market for conferences was the successful hosting in Johannesburg during 2002 of the World Summit on Sustainable Development. The positive local development impacts of the attraction of such conferences have been the essential catalyst for the development and continuous upgrading of three international quality convention centres in the country. These three major convention facilities represent the apex of an estimated 1700 conference and exhibition centres that currently exist across South Africa and serve both domestic and international MICE markets. With heightened levels of competition for the conference and exhibition market—both domestic and international—uncertainty surrounds the long-term prospects of many of these facilities. The task of monitoring the progress, dynamics and changing fortunes of conference and exhibition tourism merits a place on the research agenda of urban tourism studies in South Africa over the next decade.