Real Estate Investor Magazine South Africa Real Estate Investor Magazine - June 2017 | Page 17

T
wenty-first century cities have a
significant role to play in the growth
and development of a nation’s economy.
Large metropoles often account for a great
portion of a country’s GDP. Effectively run
cities are better equipped to attract new
business, fresh talent and a skilled labour force
through the work and lifestyle opportunities
they offer.
According to the 2015/2016 Review
Amendments to the City of Cape Town’s
(CoCT’s) Five Year Integrated Development
Plan (IDP), ongoing urbanisation is set to be
“one of this century’s biggest drivers of global
economic growth, and developing-country
cities – especially middleweight cities – will
increasingly become the focus of such growth”.
The COCT’s IDP predicts that, by 2030,
about 84,5% of the global population will live
in less-developed countries. Cities are therefore
key to “bringing about social upliftment
involving millions of people”. Metropoles that
are in great shape look out for the needs of the
poor. This is done through the inclusion of
representative voices to ensure the sufficient
provision of job opportunities, adequate
housing, and the effective delivery of services
and infrastructure for all. The alternative is the
hapless converging of the poor on the outskirts
of the city, with no way to improve their
circumstance s and nowhere else to go.
In what shape are South Africa’s cities?
When it comes to the efficient running of
South Africa’s larger cities, the reality is that
some municipalities are doing much better than
others. The City of Johannesburg (COJ) and
the CoCT have developed a range of plans to
address the challenges that both cities currently
face due to historically inadequate governance,
rapid urbanisation and the legacy of apartheid’s
spatial planning framework.
Cape Town’s TOD gets the nod
The CoCT is in the process of developing and
refining plans for the economic and residential
development of the City. These strategies aim
to reverse the injustices of apartheid’s spatial
planning. Five transit-orientated development
(TOD) projects are on the cards to reimagine
CT’s transport corridors, with the aim of
bringing people closer to the economic and
residential opportunities in the City.