South Africa is a dominantly city nation, with virtually 70% of the inhabitants dwelling in cities and cities. But city providers and infrastructures are coming beneath growing pressure from the collapse of infrastructure in lots of smaller and medium sized cities and deteriorating levels in the large cities.
A typical response to a gathering city disaster is to think about beginning afresh with new cities. The impulse crosses the political spectrum.
In his 2019 state of the nation deal with, President Cyril Ramaphosa envisioned the construction of a new smart city. He has since introduced new cities at Lanseria (north of Johannesburg), Mooikloof (east of Pretoria), and alongside the Wild Coast of the Eastern Cape.
In April 2022, former opposition chief Mmusi Maimane argued that South Africa should be building many new cities, doubling the variety of metros from eight to 16.
New cities are a catchy concept. But that doesn’t make them a superb one.
What would it take to create a sustainable new metropolis with out bankrupting the nationwide fiscus? Are they a viable prospect or white elephants within the making?
There is, thankfully, a historical past of new metropolis thought and apply that we will draw classes from.
New cities could also be interesting since newer, smarter, extra sustainable infrastructure may be put in place. But in South Africa, this expenditure competes with the need to enhance the deteriorating infrastructure of present cities, which do in truth have the capability to accommodate projected city progress for many years to come.
While fastidiously deliberate new metropolis improvement might play a job in South Africa’s city future, it can be a important error to divert consideration and sources from the nation’s major city challenges.
New cities
Most giant cities globally have advanced over lengthy intervals of time, responding to progress within the native financial system. But there are cities which were consciously designed from scratch for a lot of completely different causes – together with political egos, land hypothesis, colonial growth, post-colonial developmentalism, and makes an attempt to relieve present cities of over-population and congestion.
In trendy instances, there was a surge of new city (or, rather, new town) development in Europe after the second world war. This was finished to decentralise improvement from closely bombed giant cities and to create higher dwelling environments for working class households as half of a bigger welfarist programme.
The British new town programme was probably the most in depth and well-known, however new cities had been additionally in-built France, Italy, Sweden and elsewhere.
Western nations turned away from new city improvement however, from across the Nineteen Nineties, new metropolis improvement gained momentum in different components of the world, together with East Asia and the Middle East.
In China, for instance, new cities had been constructed to accommodate a number of the further 590 million individuals in cities from the Nineteen Eighties. Saudi Arabia has an astonishing plan to construct a 100-mile-long megacity called Neom which might be solely 200 metres vast.
In Africa, Egypt has an extended historical past of new metropolis improvement.
Elsewhere there have been three current waves of new metropolis improvement. Just prior to the 2008/09 financial bust, an formidable first wave was launched (for instance, Konza Tech which is 64km south of Nairobi, Eco Atlantic on land reclaimed from the ocean outdoors Lagos, Cité du Fleuve on an island within the Congo River outdoors Kinshasa, and Kigamboni throughout a big estuary north of Dar es Salaam).
Most faltered. The late South African tutorial Vanessa Watson referred to as them “urban fantasies”.
The second wave was initiated by the Moscow-based property developer Rendeavour, which focused the rising black African center class (for instance, Tatu City outdoors Nairobi, King City close to Takoradi port in Ghana, and Appolonia City close to Accra). The developments had been extra modest in dimension and have had some market-based success.
The third, most up-to-date wave is numerous, starting from Lanseria Smart City in South Africa to Akon City in Senegal, an try by an African American rapper to recreate the fictional Wakanda. Most lately, in May 2022, Elon Musk made an extraordinary announcement. He intends to construct a US$20 billion new metropolis, referred to as Neo Gardens, outdoors Gaborone in Botswana.
This worldwide story affords many classes, however so does an earlier South African historical past which incorporates the institution of almost 80 new cities beneath apartheid for ideological causes. These included Welkom, Vanderbijlpark, Sasolburg and Secunda, which had been created to help new single-industry economies.
These did effectively for a time. But they didn’t diversify considerably and their industries have suffered lately from worldwide competitors.
These patterns mirror these evident internationally, the place the image is extra usually financial vulnerability and instability over the long run.
Conditions for achievement
There are some locations the place new city economies have thrived – corresponding to Shenzhen in China, Abuja in Nigeria, and Milton Keynes within the UK. These are fairly particular circumstances: Shenzhen was one China’s first initiatives to open up to the non-public sector within the Nineteen Eighties and is shut to Hong Kong; Abuja is a nationwide capital; Milton Keynes homes a significant college and a cluster of dynamic industries.
New locations do generally develop round new or rising financial actions, though usually the attraction of present financial cores stays sturdy.
New cities have had a greater observe report in locations of fast financial and inhabitants progress corresponding to in east Asian nations, the place large-scale sources have been obtainable for infrastructure improvement and progress is fast sufficient to divert some financial exercise into new cities.
So the prospects for new cities rely considerably on the context during which they’re developed.
New cities are expensive as new infrastructure have to be developed from scratch. And they’ve excessive dangers by way of consequence. At the identical time, they don’t substitute present cities, which proceed to develop.
In our view, South Africa needs to interact with the realities of present cities and cities and make them work higher for his or her residents and the nation.
Philip Harrison, Professor School of Architecture and Planning, University of the Witwatersrand and Alison Todes, Professor, University of the Witwatersrand
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