Responsive environments for urbanizing South Africa: Roodepoort as a design case study
Date
2015-03-12
Authors
Fourie, Willem Jacobus
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Abstract
South Africa is in the midst of an unprecedented
demographic shift. Our population is rapidly
urbanizing, with far-reaching implications for our
cities. The majority of the in-migrants to the cities
are from educationally and economically disadvantaged
rural areas. With people flocking to urban areas,
cities find it more and more difficult to meet the
basic requirements of their inhabitants in terms of
jobs and levels of service, with the result that they
place an enormous burden on the newly urbanized
inhabitants.
This dissertation seeks to explore an alternative to
present-day efforts to cope with urbanization. It is
recognized that a new mode of city building is needed,
capable of guiding rapid urban growth. The study
recognizes urbanization as a potential growth resource,
with the capacity to reshape urban environments in a
meaningful way.
People are coming to urban areas to gain access to
opportunities, activities and facilities which are
generated through urban agglomeration. Agglomeration
is seen as the historic genius of urban areas that
enables a range, variety and richness of activities and
opportunities, which are simply not possible in more
dispersed and less specialized settlement forms.
Urbanism as a way of life, in the pattern of existence,
is suggested as a framework that will give overall
direction and vision for a wide range of agents.
Urbanity is seen as a structural order necessary to
ensure that parts of cities and regions reinforce each
other. In this way the potential of urban areas as