High‐technology clusters and infrastructure development: international and South African experiences

Abstract

The factors that have encouraged the emergence and clustering of high‐technology activities are investigated in the international and South African experience. This article focuses specifically on the significance of improved transport and telecommunication facilities for the development of high‐technology manufacturing. In line with international patterns, high‐technology manufacturing in South Africa is strongly agglomerated in the Pretoria‐Witwatersrand region. Central to the historical establishment of this cluster were the infrastructural advantages of Gauteng. Strengthening of the Gauteng cluster is linked to agglomeration economies deriving from the spatial concentration of both high‐technology production and non‐producer enterprises. Two distinct subclusters are identified: in Midrand and in the East Rand

Notes

Professor and Head, Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Thanks are due to Teresa Dirsuweit and Jayne Rogerson for research assistance, to Phil Stickler for preparing the maps and to the Centre for Science Development, Pretoria, for research funding of the industrial registers. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author alone: