The Gauteng City-Region: Private and Public Power in the Shaping of the City

Abstract

The city-region is a relatively new concept for South Africa, although the model has been growing in other parts of the world for more than a decade. The concept cannot be separated from scalar restructuring in the context of neo-liberalizing globalization. This generates economic, social and governance contradictions which throw open new spaces for contestation. The logic of the Gauteng city-region is strongly shaped by the National Spatial Development Framework, which emphasizes economic agglomeration and concentrated investment in high potential nodes. While the model remains open to contestation from below, the lack of organized formations at the grassroots level means that it is taking the direction of bipartite arrangements between state and capital. As a result, its implementation threatens to reinforce inherited spatial patterns and inequalities.

Notes

Gross Value Added measures the contribution to the economy of each industry or sector.

GVA = GDP – taxes + subsidies.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Stephen Greenberg

Institute of Development Studies, Sussex University, UK. This is an amended version of a paper funded by and prepared for the Gauteng City Region Observatory. Thanks are due to staff at the GCRO and to two anonymous reviewers for comments.