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Democracy and Delivery: Urban Policy in South Africa

Literature › Works

Udesh Pillay; Richard Tomlinson; Jacques du Toit (eds) (2006). Democracy and Delivery: Urban Policy in South Africa. HSRC Press.
Type book
Scope Post-1994 South African economy
Method mixed
Period studied 1976–2005
Regions South Africa, Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban/eThekwini, Gauteng
Themes transition post apartheid, demography urbanisation, bantustans removals influx, business and state, macro fiscal finance debt, inequality poverty unemployment, resistance social movements, politics ideology elections, origins segregation
Citation key pillay2006

Argument

This edited volume documents and assesses how post-1994 urban policy was formulated: local government demarcation and restructuring ('One city, one tax base'), municipal finance, developmental local government (IDPs, LED, tourism) and mass delivery of housing and free basic services. Its recurring claim is that policy was shaped by political pressures, negotiated compromise, international 'best practice' and delivery imperatives, with research influential but unevenly so. Spatial and urbanisation policy are shown to be 'missing' or marginalised, so the apartheid city's spatial legacy persisted. The editors conclude that policy initiative is shifting toward the SACN cities. Chapters mix archival, interview and policy-document analysis. Apartheid appears mainly as backdrop: influx control, Group Areas, black local authorities and fiscal transfers from townships to white areas.

Evidence and method

Policy documents (RDP, White Papers, UDF/UDS, Breaking New Ground, NSDP), legislation, MDB and DWAF reports, census 2001 and Labour Force Survey data, SACN State of the Cities report, and about 40 key-informant interviews with negotiators and officials; author participant-observation (e.g. Cameron on the MDB); secondary literature.

Findings

  • The 2001 census shows South Africa was majority urban, with a sizeable informal urban component. (p. 14)

    At the time of the 2001 census, South Africa’s population was 44 819 318 with about 57 per cent of the population deemed to be urban and 43 per cent rural.

  • Household numbers grew far faster than population because household size fell, deepening backlogs. (p. 18)

    In 1996 the average household size was 4.47 persons; in 2001 it was 4. If the household size had remained constant at the 1996 figure, the increase in the number of households would have been about 950 000.

  • Urban labour-market outcomes remained sharply racialised in 2004, with high African and coloured unemployment. (p. 23)

    Of the urban African and coloured labour force, 38.7 per cent are without employment and 56.5 per cent are without formal employment.

  • Social grants expanded substantially after 1994, cushioning household incomes. (p. 23)

    In 1994 government spent R10 billion on social grants and there were 2.6 million beneficiaries. In 2003 the expenditure was R34.8 billion and there were 6.8 million beneficiaries.

  • Demarcation consolidated fragmented apartheid-era local government into far fewer municipalities. (p. 92)

    Whereas the 1994 demarcation exercise led to the creation of 843 local government structures, the later demarcation exercise consolidated these to 284 municipalities

  • Apartheid local government finance drained townships to benefit white areas, giving rise to the 'One city, one tax base' slogan. (p. 120)

    demonstrated how the apartheid local government finance system was based on a redistribution of local resources from African townships to white group areas

  • Urban spatial restructuring policy was marginalised, blocked by constraints, GEAR and absence of a constituency. (p. 77)

    the constraints of a newly emerging democracy, and a later shift from RDP to GEAR, underpinned an unwillingness to challenge patterns of urban spatial inequality.

  • The housing subsidy design and location of projects reproduced peripheral, apartheid-style spatial marginalisation. (p. 68)

    The capital subsidy programme and the limited funds available per unit led to the production of single detached houses on plots, resulting in a search for cheap land, most often on the periphery.

  • Housing delivery was driven by pragmatism and targets rather than analysis of impact on the poor's livelihoods. (p. 285)

    policy drivers at this time are not clearly related to an analysis of what intervention would make the most impact on the lives of the poor, but are largely those of pragmatism, workability, and feasibility.

  • The MDB's rejection of Finance's viability concerns left many municipalities without recommended extra revenue under GEAR. (p. 106)

    This was not accepted by national government, which had adopted the financially restrictive Growth, Employment and Redistribution strategy as its macroeconomic framework.

  • Johannesburg's fiscal collapse reshaped thinking about city government towards growth and corporatisation. (p. 155)

    ‘Inefficiency, overspending and bad budgetary planning plunged Johannesburg into bankruptcy by 1997’

  • Free basic water reached most municipalities by late 2004, a notable policy implementation outcome. (p. 304)

    As of November 2004, the proportion of Water Services Authorities providing FBW had increased to 95.3 per cent (DWAF 2004a).