Sustainable Urbanisation Through Effective Planning
By Owethu Pantshwa
The issue of urbanisation is a multifaceted challenge especially in developing countries. Back in the former Transkei homeland where I grew up, my grandparents were migrant labourers who left the countryside after the Second World War during the period of industrialisation to seek employment opportunities in the urban areas.
Had there been employment opportunities in the countryside, they would not have moved. Consideration needs to be given to the historic perspective of migration and urbanisation and how best to address the resulting challenges.
The Eastern Cape province has different institutions of higher learning, but none of these institutions offer professions such as Town and Regional Planning, Land Surveying, Real Estate ( Valuations) or Mining, to mention a few. Young people must relocate to provinces, such as KwaZulu-Natal, Johannesburg, Free State and Cape Town, to advance their respective careers. This phenomenon provides another perspective to the underdevelopment of the province and to its migration patterns.
Young people migrate to these provinces, because of what is called systematic unemployment. The skills they possess cannot be utilised in the Eastern Cape Province because the province is mainly primary sector driven, and there are few secondary and tertiary sectors to absorb the skilled people.
According to Statistics South Africa (Statistics South Africa, Community Survey 2007), the majority of people from the Eastern Cape move to Johannesburg followed by Cape Town and Durban.
Therefore, the skills gaps in the Eastern Cape are attributable to the following factors:
• Orientation of the economy in the province is mainly primary sector driven.
• The academics are not responding to the development needs of the province and the majority of students produced cannot be absorbed by the mainstream economy.
• Some young professionals do not see their role in the province citing various reasons, such as the rural nature and that it does not offer many opportunities for personal growth. There is also a view that there is less investment and as such the surrounding provinces are better equipped for the individual needs of the young professionals.
Theoretical Analysis on Urbanisation Patterns and Causes
According to the Commonwealth Secretariat (State of the Cities: 2010), there is a 3% urban growth rate in 17 Commonwealth countries, which is regarded to be above the global average. It also implies that the majority of people migrating are the youth; approximately 65 000 people migrate to urban areas on a daily basis within the Commonwealth countries.
The state of the cities further identifies various issues which can directly or indirectly link to the urbanisation phenomena. Some of these are climate change, congestion, transportation, sprawling and infrastructure challenges.
Prof. C. Hague et al (2006:02-05) argue that city populations grow through high birth rates and that opportunities presented by prosperous regions encourage them to move. The resultant poverty implications and planning challenges can be resolved through emphasis on urban policies that seek to encourage sustainability.
Currently, in many urban areas, income gaps between the haves and have-nots seem to be rising leading to worsening inequality and deterioration in the quality of life for many people. Also, migration has a detrimental effect on the natural environment due to the overconsumption of natural resources. It is estimated that this will exacerbate global warming in the near future. It was noted in 2001 that 97% of disasters had been as a result of climate change. Because of the nature of their underdevelopment, developing countries are unable to respond to the rapid growth of their cities and the attendant massive social challenges.
It is estimated that one third of the world population resides in urban areas in the developing countries and Africa is expected to be affected the most by the migration process. The trends of urbanisation are predicted at 4% in Africa, 3% in Asia, with Latin America experiencing levels lower than Africa and Asia.
A UN-Habitat Report (2009: 04-07) identifies the following as the major challenges of the 21st Century:
• Environmental challenges caused by people residing in hazardous areas in environmentally sensitive areas, and the use of cars because people rely on transportation to get to their respective localities in sprawling urban areas.
• Economic change, because migrants tend to be cheap labour which helps cut down on production costs.
• Institutional change has seen a change in urban political systems from what is termed government to governance. There are generally less participatory processes in developing countries.
• Changes in civil society through which communities are able to play a meaningful role in the planning decision making and take ownership of planning decisions.
How Do We deal with the challenges around Urbanisation?
Pieterse (2008: 36) outlines below, a number of factors that need to be taken into account:
• Recognise the explicit engagement with the phenomenon of urbanisation and start to discourage uneven development and underdevelopment in rural areas.
• There is a need for multi-level involvement inclusive of the national policy framework on urbanisation within a decentralised model.
• There should be appropriate land use management policies, tenure security and integrated policies as opposed to sectoral responses to curtail the number of people migrating, which lead to more affordable service delivery and democratic participation.
• Improve government institutions to enable better co-ordination and coherence between the state, business, labour organisations and civil society organisations.
• There is a need to have different practitioners with a common vision being given the responsibility for development planning, which has a massive potential for coherence.
According to Prof. Hague (Planning in the Commonwealth: 2009), there can be “no sustainable development without sustainable urbanisation and no sustainable urbanisation without effective planning.” This, therefore, underscores the significance of planning in the face of the urbanisation phenomenon and the need for planners to continuously plan and also to;
• Engage in measures of sustainable development to cross boundaries and engage policy makers.
• Ensure that planning supports sustainability.
• Take into account the new urban planning principles as set out in Planning the Commonwealth Document.
• Recognize the failures and dark side of planning of the commonwealth.
• Recognize the global significance of urbanisation.
• Ensure the creation of employment opportunities to reduce poverty through various initiatives that seeks to address the needs of the marginalised groups and broader communities.
Prof. C. Hague et al (2006:6-11) further argues that there are pointers that can address the issue of sustainable settlements leading to more sustainable urbanisation. These include the following:
• The needs of poor communities should form the basis of the urban development framework.
• Improvement in Governance to encourage holistic decision making.
• Adequate shelter for all that is not class-based and ensures various population groups benefit equally within their respective communities.
• Economic opportunities and services—formal and informal—are important to address the issues of employment. Government’s role should be to create a platform for Small Medium Micro Enterprises, such as land and infrastructure development, which will have a long-term benefit to the economies of such areas.
• Creating environmentally sustainable cities with environmental policies that are pro-poor in their design and implementation.
• Diversity and equity is critical in ensuring that the poor and the rich are integrated with each other, leading to socially sustainable developments with less conflicts and differences. Gender equality, age and cultural needs should be seriously considered.
• New skills and professionals must take into consideration current realities that have been strongly influenced by the ideals of the 19th Century, which were copied from European countries where urban poverty was one of the biggest problems. To this end, planning need to redefine itself and be more pluralistic.
Addressing Sustainable Urbanisation in Unique Environments
Effective planning can play a major role in addressing the underdevelopment caused by rapid urbanisation. Young planning professionals should seek to undertake activities that will have a long term benefit to their respective Commonwealth countries. For example:
• Planners should influence policy within their respective commonwealth countries.
• Young planners need to play a meaningful role in influencing academics to respond to development needs.
• Advocate planning that ensures multi-sectoral involvement and is able to support planning practitioners.
• Come up with strategies that respond to the community needs so that people have opportunities in their respective environments in the context of the community-based planning.
• Open up opportunities for young professionals to play a major role in mainstreaming the economy.
• Embark on community-based development initiatives with maximum use of natural resources in a sustainable manner.
• Open up the economy for infrastructural investment and development ensuring that the private and public sector are involved.
• It has been noted that the lack of integration and co-ordination is one of the challenges in development and therefore the young planners should play a leading role in ensuring that the development plans are coordinated for high impact development.
• Information sharing between different stakeholders and practitioners within the built environment is critically important and young planners should from time to time engage other young professional bodies in their bilateral meetings.
• Creative means to address previous colonial planning is important.
• Address land use management in Commonwealth countries.
• Create an enabling environment for informal trading to thrive as it is a main source of income in various Commonwealth countries.
• The role of community participation is clearly defined in planning decision making so that the community fully supports the planning decisions.
• It is important to deal with the population demographics in the form of birth controls as most underdeveloped countries have huge birth rates, which present development challenges, and this is often influenced by different cultures, especially in African countries, and therefore this must be intensified through the necessary youth structures.
Conclusion
Effective planning is very important to ensure the challenges of the 21st Century are addressed and the historic influences of urbanisation in South Africa are reflected on as they have a great influence to the current development challenges of the country. It is difficult to address the past imbalances in the rural areas, because the majority of people are migrating to small towns in search of employment opportunities. Local government has created a platform through the Integrated Development Plan to address the issues of imbalances wherein communities, private sector, youth structures, various government departments, government entities, NGOs and traditional leaders take the lead role in identifying their needs and prioritizing developments suitable for the respective localities.
Engaging the public in decision making is critical for development ownership as well as reducing potential development conflicts. This is seen as a potential tool to address the urbanisation problem and encourage people to work within their localities; however, this is not being achieved as people continue to migrate to neighbouring provinces. This affects government spending, because budgeting is linked to population demographics and this directly affects the communities and municipalities that people migrate to and from. There is also need to take into account the negative effect of the regional migration pattern especially that which relates to undocumented foreign nationals.
References
• Commonwealth Association of Planners.2010. {Online} http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliff_Hague Retrieved 07 August 2010
• Hague, C., Wakely, P., Crespin, J., and Jasko, C. (2006) Making Planning Work: A guide to Approaches and Skills ( Rugby: Practical Action Publishing)
• Hague, C., and French, W. (2010) The State of the cities: Why and how the commonwealth must address the challenge of sustainable urbanisation’commonwealth discussion paper 8(London: Commonwealth Secretariat).
• Hall, P., & Pfeiffer, U. 2000. Urban future 21. Global agenda for 21st century cities. London
• Pieterse, F. 2008. City futures: confronting the crisis of urban development. Cape Town
• Republic of South Africa, 2007. Statistics South Africa. Community Survey 2007. Government Printer: Pretoria
• UN-Habitat. 2009. Global Report on Human Settlements. Planning Sustainable Cities. London
The issue of urbanisation is a multifaceted challenge especially in developing countries. Back in the former Transkei homeland where I grew up, my grandparents were migrant labourers who left the countryside after the Second World War during the period of industrialisation to seek employment opportunities in the urban areas.
Had there been employment opportunities in the countryside, they would not have moved. Consideration needs to be given to the historic perspective of migration and urbanisation and how best to address the resulting challenges.
The Eastern Cape province has different institutions of higher learning, but none of these institutions offer professions such as Town and Regional Planning, Land Surveying, Real Estate ( Valuations) or Mining, to mention a few. Young people must relocate to provinces, such as KwaZulu-Natal, Johannesburg, Free State and Cape Town, to advance their respective careers. This phenomenon provides another perspective to the underdevelopment of the province and to its migration patterns.
Young people migrate to these provinces, because of what is called systematic unemployment. The skills they possess cannot be utilised in the Eastern Cape Province because the province is mainly primary sector driven, and there are few secondary and tertiary sectors to absorb the skilled people.
According to Statistics South Africa (Statistics South Africa, Community Survey 2007), the majority of people from the Eastern Cape move to Johannesburg followed by Cape Town and Durban.
Therefore, the skills gaps in the Eastern Cape are attributable to the following factors:
• Orientation of the economy in the province is mainly primary sector driven.
• The academics are not responding to the development needs of the province and the majority of students produced cannot be absorbed by the mainstream economy.
• Some young professionals do not see their role in the province citing various reasons, such as the rural nature and that it does not offer many opportunities for personal growth. There is also a view that there is less investment and as such the surrounding provinces are better equipped for the individual needs of the young professionals.
Theoretical Analysis on Urbanisation Patterns and Causes
According to the Commonwealth Secretariat (State of the Cities: 2010), there is a 3% urban growth rate in 17 Commonwealth countries, which is regarded to be above the global average. It also implies that the majority of people migrating are the youth; approximately 65 000 people migrate to urban areas on a daily basis within the Commonwealth countries.
The state of the cities further identifies various issues which can directly or indirectly link to the urbanisation phenomena. Some of these are climate change, congestion, transportation, sprawling and infrastructure challenges.
Prof. C. Hague et al (2006:02-05) argue that city populations grow through high birth rates and that opportunities presented by prosperous regions encourage them to move. The resultant poverty implications and planning challenges can be resolved through emphasis on urban policies that seek to encourage sustainability.
Currently, in many urban areas, income gaps between the haves and have-nots seem to be rising leading to worsening inequality and deterioration in the quality of life for many people. Also, migration has a detrimental effect on the natural environment due to the overconsumption of natural resources. It is estimated that this will exacerbate global warming in the near future. It was noted in 2001 that 97% of disasters had been as a result of climate change. Because of the nature of their underdevelopment, developing countries are unable to respond to the rapid growth of their cities and the attendant massive social challenges.
It is estimated that one third of the world population resides in urban areas in the developing countries and Africa is expected to be affected the most by the migration process. The trends of urbanisation are predicted at 4% in Africa, 3% in Asia, with Latin America experiencing levels lower than Africa and Asia.
A UN-Habitat Report (2009: 04-07) identifies the following as the major challenges of the 21st Century:
• Environmental challenges caused by people residing in hazardous areas in environmentally sensitive areas, and the use of cars because people rely on transportation to get to their respective localities in sprawling urban areas.
• Economic change, because migrants tend to be cheap labour which helps cut down on production costs.
• Institutional change has seen a change in urban political systems from what is termed government to governance. There are generally less participatory processes in developing countries.
• Changes in civil society through which communities are able to play a meaningful role in the planning decision making and take ownership of planning decisions.
How Do We deal with the challenges around Urbanisation?
Pieterse (2008: 36) outlines below, a number of factors that need to be taken into account:
• Recognise the explicit engagement with the phenomenon of urbanisation and start to discourage uneven development and underdevelopment in rural areas.
• There is a need for multi-level involvement inclusive of the national policy framework on urbanisation within a decentralised model.
• There should be appropriate land use management policies, tenure security and integrated policies as opposed to sectoral responses to curtail the number of people migrating, which lead to more affordable service delivery and democratic participation.
• Improve government institutions to enable better co-ordination and coherence between the state, business, labour organisations and civil society organisations.
• There is a need to have different practitioners with a common vision being given the responsibility for development planning, which has a massive potential for coherence.
According to Prof. Hague (Planning in the Commonwealth: 2009), there can be “no sustainable development without sustainable urbanisation and no sustainable urbanisation without effective planning.” This, therefore, underscores the significance of planning in the face of the urbanisation phenomenon and the need for planners to continuously plan and also to;
• Engage in measures of sustainable development to cross boundaries and engage policy makers.
• Ensure that planning supports sustainability.
• Take into account the new urban planning principles as set out in Planning the Commonwealth Document.
• Recognize the failures and dark side of planning of the commonwealth.
• Recognize the global significance of urbanisation.
• Ensure the creation of employment opportunities to reduce poverty through various initiatives that seeks to address the needs of the marginalised groups and broader communities.
Prof. C. Hague et al (2006:6-11) further argues that there are pointers that can address the issue of sustainable settlements leading to more sustainable urbanisation. These include the following:
• The needs of poor communities should form the basis of the urban development framework.
• Improvement in Governance to encourage holistic decision making.
• Adequate shelter for all that is not class-based and ensures various population groups benefit equally within their respective communities.
• Economic opportunities and services—formal and informal—are important to address the issues of employment. Government’s role should be to create a platform for Small Medium Micro Enterprises, such as land and infrastructure development, which will have a long-term benefit to the economies of such areas.
• Creating environmentally sustainable cities with environmental policies that are pro-poor in their design and implementation.
• Diversity and equity is critical in ensuring that the poor and the rich are integrated with each other, leading to socially sustainable developments with less conflicts and differences. Gender equality, age and cultural needs should be seriously considered.
• New skills and professionals must take into consideration current realities that have been strongly influenced by the ideals of the 19th Century, which were copied from European countries where urban poverty was one of the biggest problems. To this end, planning need to redefine itself and be more pluralistic.
Addressing Sustainable Urbanisation in Unique Environments
Effective planning can play a major role in addressing the underdevelopment caused by rapid urbanisation. Young planning professionals should seek to undertake activities that will have a long term benefit to their respective Commonwealth countries. For example:
• Planners should influence policy within their respective commonwealth countries.
• Young planners need to play a meaningful role in influencing academics to respond to development needs.
• Advocate planning that ensures multi-sectoral involvement and is able to support planning practitioners.
• Come up with strategies that respond to the community needs so that people have opportunities in their respective environments in the context of the community-based planning.
• Open up opportunities for young professionals to play a major role in mainstreaming the economy.
• Embark on community-based development initiatives with maximum use of natural resources in a sustainable manner.
• Open up the economy for infrastructural investment and development ensuring that the private and public sector are involved.
• It has been noted that the lack of integration and co-ordination is one of the challenges in development and therefore the young planners should play a leading role in ensuring that the development plans are coordinated for high impact development.
• Information sharing between different stakeholders and practitioners within the built environment is critically important and young planners should from time to time engage other young professional bodies in their bilateral meetings.
• Creative means to address previous colonial planning is important.
• Address land use management in Commonwealth countries.
• Create an enabling environment for informal trading to thrive as it is a main source of income in various Commonwealth countries.
• The role of community participation is clearly defined in planning decision making so that the community fully supports the planning decisions.
• It is important to deal with the population demographics in the form of birth controls as most underdeveloped countries have huge birth rates, which present development challenges, and this is often influenced by different cultures, especially in African countries, and therefore this must be intensified through the necessary youth structures.
Conclusion
Effective planning is very important to ensure the challenges of the 21st Century are addressed and the historic influences of urbanisation in South Africa are reflected on as they have a great influence to the current development challenges of the country. It is difficult to address the past imbalances in the rural areas, because the majority of people are migrating to small towns in search of employment opportunities. Local government has created a platform through the Integrated Development Plan to address the issues of imbalances wherein communities, private sector, youth structures, various government departments, government entities, NGOs and traditional leaders take the lead role in identifying their needs and prioritizing developments suitable for the respective localities.
Engaging the public in decision making is critical for development ownership as well as reducing potential development conflicts. This is seen as a potential tool to address the urbanisation problem and encourage people to work within their localities; however, this is not being achieved as people continue to migrate to neighbouring provinces. This affects government spending, because budgeting is linked to population demographics and this directly affects the communities and municipalities that people migrate to and from. There is also need to take into account the negative effect of the regional migration pattern especially that which relates to undocumented foreign nationals.
References
• Commonwealth Association of Planners.2010. {Online} http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliff_Hague Retrieved 07 August 2010
• Hague, C., Wakely, P., Crespin, J., and Jasko, C. (2006) Making Planning Work: A guide to Approaches and Skills ( Rugby: Practical Action Publishing)
• Hague, C., and French, W. (2010) The State of the cities: Why and how the commonwealth must address the challenge of sustainable urbanisation’commonwealth discussion paper 8(London: Commonwealth Secretariat).
• Hall, P., & Pfeiffer, U. 2000. Urban future 21. Global agenda for 21st century cities. London
• Pieterse, F. 2008. City futures: confronting the crisis of urban development. Cape Town
• Republic of South Africa, 2007. Statistics South Africa. Community Survey 2007. Government Printer: Pretoria
• UN-Habitat. 2009. Global Report on Human Settlements. Planning Sustainable Cities. London