Bringing together economy, infrastructure & human settlements for long- term sustainability

Prof. Philip HarrisonSouth African Research Chair in Spatial Analysis & City PlanningUniversity of the Witwatersrand

Taking sustainable human settlements seriously

• The idea of “sustainable human settlements” is now part of our development

lexicon but we are still tempted by solutions that offer short-term gain

• We must ask:

1. What is really required to build long-term sustainable futures?

2. How Gauteng’s settlements have performed through the post-apartheid

era in terms of these requirements?

3. What we need to do into the future to ensure long-term sustainability?

4. Do current policies and plans support these requirement?

The bottom line is that the sustainability of human settlements rests on our ability to bring together

economy, infrastructure and settlement in a resource efficient

and socially equitable way

Economy-Settlement

• Sustainable settlements are those which are underpinned by an

economic base able to support the existing and anticipated population

• If a settlement is not economically supported there is a “spatial

mismatch” with “economic exclusion due to spatial location” (Gauteng

2055)

• Residents of such settlements face either unemployment or long

commuting times

• South Africa has a legacy of commuting settlements which we need to

address rather than replicate

International lessons

• Internationally, there have been various attempts to create new

settlements (often satellite cities) with the aim of producing self-

sufficiency and a balance between jobs and residence (from the

British New Towns to Beijing’s New Towns)

• In most cases, these settlements have ended up as “sleeping towns”

• The international lesson is clear – settlement should follow

economies and not vice versa, unless there is strong evidence to

show that real economic potentials of sufficient scale to support the

new settlement can be unlocked.

Infrastructure-Settlement

• Responsible infrastructure provision is not simply about a rapid roll-

out of new infrastructure but rather about ensuring that this

infrastructure makes a positive contribution to desired long-term

futures

• How and where infrastructure is provided is critical to long-term

resource and settlement sustainability

• We need to keep the long term perspective: what we do now will

have consequences for decades - in responding to short term political

and other pressures we can leave a difficult legacy for future

generations

Considerations for infrastructure• Key considerations include: upfront capital costs & maintenance

costs; operations; ecological efficiencies (materials, waste, energy

use); affordability to users

• These considerations require us to give careful consideration to

optimization of existing infrastructure (re-use, rehabilitation,

intensification) and providing new infrastructure that is ecologically

sustainability and is affordable over the long term

• Where possible we should build on existing infrastructure networks

with re-use and rehabilitation the priority

The spatial consideration

• A recent study from the USA draws on 17 separate investigations and concludes

that “compact development costs, on average, 38 percent less in up-front

infrastructure than conventional suburban development for things like roads,

sewers and water lines”

• There is a paucity of studies in South Africa but modelling by the Financial and Fiscal

Commission (FFC) and Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) confirms

the cost of sprawl in infrastructure provision

In the FFC model household cost are 10% less in the compaction model (mainly transport

although some trade-off with housing), operating budgets 7% less & lower bulk costs

• Sprawl has other cost such as transport costs, loss of agricultural land, social

isolation and segregation, reduced resource efficiency

So, what has been happening in Gauteng?

• Since the ending of apartheid, South Africa’s population and

economy has become increasingly concentrated in Gauteng

• The economic has tertiarised although manufacturing in

Gauteng has outperformed manufacturing elsewhere

• Within Gauteng the economic growth has concentrated largely

in the spatial core (JHB, Tshwane, parts of EKH) where jobs are

most efficiently created

Gauteng cont…• People have “voted with their feet”

and there has been active

densification of areas in proximity to

economic activity (through formal

and informal processes such as

backyarding & inner city

densification)

• But, private sector investments have

counteracted this by drawing jobs

into higher income areas

• Public sector housing has often (not

always) being inadequately sited

relative to jobs and remains oriented

to detached housing

Edges of Gauteng

• The spatial edges of Gauteng have generally done worse economically than

the centre but it is a mixed bag (e.g. continuing decline in gold mining with

severely negative consequences for the Far West Rand; exposure of the

Vaal to the turbulence of the fluctuating steel price; modest revival of ex-

bantustan industrial growth points; some growth in mineral beneficiation

and agro-processing on the edge of the city-region)

• Over time, the Economic Corridors programme of the provincial

government will hopefully assist in developing currently peripheral

economies, but the real impact of this programme may only be over the

long term.

Are these processes positive?

• The metropolitan core is currently most efficient in producing jobs for the

country & given our growth and employment prospects we need to ensure

maximum efficiencies in these core economies

• The densification of the core cities is positive as it is bringing more people

closer to jobs and high order services than ever before

• However, significant numbers of people live on the spatial edge where there

are also growth potentials in places. We need to unlock potentials on the

spatial edge although realistically relating settlement creation to actual size

and growth of economies

•

Into the future…

• The current leadership of Gauteng has been proactive in thinking

into the future

• The “modernisation of human settlements and urban

development” forms part of the “ten pillars of radical

transformation, modernisation and re-industrialisation”

• This follows on from key initiatives by metropolitan authorities for

spatial transformation (e.g. Corridors of Freedom, Aerotropolis,

Capital City Programme) and also major investments in public

transport which form the backbone for urban transformations

Some concerns

• We welcome this proactive attention to urban transformation

• We do, however, have concerns with elements of the unfolding vision

within provincial government (specifically the megacities initiative)

• The concerns relate to the relationship between provincial and local

visions; effects on positive processes such as compaction of existing

urban areas; the connection to economic and demographic realities;

financial and other risks (including social segregation)

• We are committed to engaging closely with provincial government

around our concerns

Conclusion

• We need to take seriously the need to build sustainable human settlements

that bring together economy, settlement and infrastructure

• This does require building settlement that can be supported by existing or

co-evolving economies, and that optimizes the use of existing infrastructure

• We would strongly support, and assist with, a careful analysis of costs and

opportunities of different forms of development into the long term

• We would also strongly support the development of a robust spatial vision

or framework for the province that is grounded in principles of urban

sustainability