Rethinking Spatial Planning

Literature › Works

Alison Todes (2008). Rethinking Spatial Planning. Town and Regional Planning (Planning Africa Conference 2008 paper, peer reviewed and revised).

Type	journal article
Scope	Post-1994 South African economy
Method	policy analysis
Period studied	1994–2008
Regions	South Africa, Durban (eThekwini), Cape Town, Johannesburg, Pretoria
Themes	transition post apartheid, demography urbanisation, business and state, inequality poverty unemployment
Citation key	todes2008

Argument

Todes argues that the abstract, design-led spatial frameworks built on nodes, corridors and compaction that became standard in post-apartheid South Africa are too broad and utopian, and need rethinking along three lines. Planners need to understand the socio-spatial complexity of the 'multiplex' city and how different groups, especially the poor, actually locate and move. They need to analyse urban economic space and take a stance on how planning relates to markets, notably the property and retail industry and mega-projects. Spatial planning also needs to be linked to infrastructure planning, which historically shaped city form more powerfully than spatial plans. The argument draws on prior studies, Cato Manor, and examples from eThekwini, Cape Town and Johannesburg, and international cases.

Evidence and method

Secondary literature (Harrison, Todes & Watson 2008; Biermann; Schoonraad; Healey; Graham & Marvin), case examples (Cato Manor, KwaMashu, eThekwini 2000 study, Cape Town and Johannesburg growth management, Indonesia, Curitiba, Paris, Australia), personal communications and conference papers. No original data are presented.

Findings

• Post-apartheid spatial frameworks were concept-driven and criticised as too broad, utopian and contradicted by national policy and property and housing market trends. (p. 1)

  Spatial frameworks have been too broad, too utopian, and have been contradicted by both national policy, and by trends in the property and housing markets.

• Planning analysis neglected how different groups use and move through the city, because of its focus on nodes, corridors and densification. (p. 2)

  Analysis for spatial framework planning in South Africa has not paid much attention to the socio-spatial dynamics of cities.

• Declining formal employment means central location may matter less to the poor, who use diverse survival strategies; peripheral sites offer flexibility. (p. 2)

  others argue that the declining formal employment and an increasing reliance by the poor on diverse survival strategies has made central location less important

• Good location cannot be assumed in advance; peripheral residents may have better employment access because economic activity is dispersed. (p. 2)

  Biermann’s (2003) work has made the important point that what constitutes ‘good location’ needs to be assessed and cannot be assumed a priori.

• The design approach does not consider how much economic space is needed and ignores large, monopolised economic activity. (p. 3)

  it does not consider how much economic space of different types is likely to be used, and it does not pay specific attention to larger and more monopolised economic activity.

• The property and retail industry's focus on car-using middle-income consumers drives decentralised development contrary to plan intentions. (p. 3)

  It promotes the development of shopping centres and decentralised offices along freeways, far from areas of poverty.

• Cato Manor shows the gap between nodes/corridors planning and economic reality: planned nodes were beyond what could be supported. (p. 3)

  An early plan depicted nodes and corridors over a large area, which proved to be well beyond what could be supported.

• Infrastructure planning and racial legislation, not spatial planning, historically shaped the spatial structure of South African cities. (p. 4)

  spatial development was more the outcome of powerful infrastructure planning such as transport or water (see Todes, 2002 on Durban) and of the racial legislation.

• eThekwini's post-apartheid spatial frameworks were too broad to guide infrastructure departments, who found traditional density and land-use estimates more useful. (p. 5)

  Ironically, the more traditional estimates of density and land use were more useful to these departments.

• In Cape Town, the areas the spatial framework targeted for densification did not match areas with infrastructure capacity, prompting re-mapping and linkage of the framework to infrastructure. (p. 5)

  there was little relationship between areas where infrastructural capacity existed for intensification and the areas of densification suggested by the spatial framework.

• Urban spatial change is slow and path dependent, so planners must work with existing patterns and need a better understanding of socio-spatial and economic dynamics. (p. 6)

  As Bertaud (2008) has argued, urban spatial change is slow and relatively path dependent.