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ABSTRACT
In 2010, the focus of the sporting world was on South Africa, the first African country to host a Football World Cup, and the largest mega-event ever held on the continent. Mega-events like the World Cup have become instruments for governments seeking material improvements to highways and telecommunications as well as the more elusive nation-building and sanguine legacies. Whereas the literature typically concentrates on stadia and sports-related infrastructure, this paper focuses on bus rapid transit (BRT) as an “indirect legacy” to understand the way in which cities exploit the financial and political capital made available to advance projects long delayed behind more pressing endeavors. The compressed time horizons, unlocked financing and focused planning can be a “mixed blessing” however by limiting the scope of the project to the event. The paper concludes that in South Africa advancing development through the World Cup reinforced state authority and legitimacy.
Acknowledgements
This paper is a part of a wider research project on the geography of bus rapid transit. I am indebted to Jenny Robinson and Andrew Harris for their guidance as well as the delegates at the 2013 RGS-IBG meeting whose remarks helped refine my arguments. Any mistakes herein are my own.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.