Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO)

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Browsing Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO) by Faculty "Research office"

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    Distribution of population vs economic activity
    (Gauteng City-Region Obervatory, 2021-08-31) Mosiane, Ngaka; Murray, Jennifer
    The location of population in relation to economic activity in the Gauteng City-Region (GCR) has been a subject of considerable interest from a number of researchers and institutions. This Map of the Month contributes to that body of work, highlighting a misalignment between where people live and where Gross Value Add (GVA) typically associated with urban development occurs. The map shows every ‘mesozone’ – equally sized polygons drawn by the Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) – across the extended Gauteng City Region, using a radius of 175km from the centre of Johannesburg. The value of each mesozone is calculated by subtracting its share of the whole region’s population from its share of selected urban economic sectors. In green mesozones, the share of urban economic activity exceeds the share of population, while in red or orange mesozones, the share of population exceeds the share of the urban economy. The map draws attention to the edges of Gauteng’s metropolitan areas as sites with larger population shares than that of the economy (e.g. the red and orange shaded ‘mesozones’ in Soweto, Soshanguve, and KwaMhlanga). The opposite is true for the core of the GCR, which is characterised by high urban economic agglomeration compared to the people living there (e.g. the green shaded mesozones around Johannesburg and Pretoria).
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    Economic and commuting connections in the northern GCR
    (Gauteng City-Region Obervatory, 2022-02-28) Mosiane, Ngaka; Murray, Jennifer
    This Map of the Month illustrates some of the ways through which the core areas of the Gauteng City-Region (GCR) are interconnected with their peripheries, including those that are outside the Gauteng Province, but are within commuting distance. The connections are drawn as straight lines from the start to end points, representing some of the regional flows of goods, services, and people (particularly workers). These flows signify disparate types of relationships between the city region peripheries and core areas, involving the transporting of mining supplies from Gauteng to Rustenburg mining operations. They also indicate relationships of interdependence, including daily commutes from northern Tshwane and former KwaNdebele to the City of Tshwane. It suggests that railway lines, highways, and roads are among the government's most important development interventions. Ordinary people themselves turn those facilities into resources to cope with, rework, or even overcome their marginality. The resultant large-scale practices and spaces of mobility overcome the divide between the core and periphery.
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    Gauteng’s property gradient three decades after the repeal of the Group Areas Act
    (Gauteng City-Region Obervatory, 2021-06-30) Ballard, Richard; Namponya, Alfred; Tshangana, Alison
    In June 1991, the South African parliament repealed the Group Areas Act, the legislation that the apartheid state had used to drive urban segregation. To mark the three decade anniversary of this moment, this month’s map showcases remarkable analysis conducted by the Centre for Affordable Housing Finance in Africa (CAHF) on property values across the three metros in Gauteng. It shows in broad terms the way in which historically-white suburbs continue to be the most financially exclusive parts of the city region. Each pie graph represents one Census subplace or suburb: the size of the circle reflects the total number of registered properties in that suburb while the coloured slices of the pie represent the number of properties in each market segment. Green and blue segments represent properties under R600 000, while red segments indicate properties over R1.2 million.
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    Gauteng’s urban land cover growth: 1990-2020
    (Gauteng City-Region Observatory, 2022-03-31) Ballard, Richard; Hamann, Christian
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    The impact of COVID-19 on long term care facilities
    (Gauteng City-Region Obervatory, 2020-10-01) Maree, Gillian; Khanyile, Samkelisiwe
    For those who live in long term care facilities the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have been particularly devastating. For the September Map of the Month we explore the impacts on long term care facilities in Gauteng by mapping the known cases in these facilities across the province. Many, if not most, long term care facilities have had cases of COVID-19 across Gauteng. Most of these have been in retirement and frail care facilities, but facilities for people with mental and physical disabilities have also been affected. To date at least 243 facilities have recorded 2606 cases across Gauteng Province since March 2020. Many long term care facilities were overwhelmed or left unprepared for the impact of COVID-19. By now long term care facilities have been under lockdown for 6 months, with many residents isolated from family and friends. The move to level 1 and increased visitations to these facilities will be welcomed but comes at a high risk of new cases. High levels of vigilance needs to remain into the foreseeable future.
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    Strengthening governance in the Gauteng City-Region through a spatial data infrastructure
    (Gauteng City-Region Obervatory, 2020-05-25) Coetzee, Serena; Cooper, Antony K; Katumba, Samy
    coordination and an information-driven approach that can unlock the value of geospatial data. This Provocation reviews the current state of affairs regarding address data in the Gauteng City-Region (GCR) and explores prospects for coordinating a GCR address dataset in an SDI context. The focus is on addresses because of their important role in service delivery, the socio-economic well-being of residents and the recognition of civic and human rights. For example, good quality addresses are vital in the current COVID-19 crisis, as government strives to map COVID-19 cases in order to identify emerging local clusters of infections and spatially target responses. Currently, address data in the GCR are maintained in silos at different provincial departments and municipalities, without any coordination and without adherence to international standards and good practices for addressing and information management. This results in duplication, inconsistencies and even fraud, which not only costs the municipalities, national and provincial governments billions but also damages their reputations. To rectify this, this Provocation identifies various entities for taking the responsibility to methodically coordinate GCR address data into a single reference dataset. Since many entities have a legal accountability related to address data, a decision and strong political leadership are required to lead multiple interventions and initiatives in parallel with the aim of reaping benefits for governance and society in the long run. As Gauteng is one of few provinces with municipal address datasets, the GCR could serve as an example for coordinating the maintenance of geospatial datasets among its municipalities, as few (if any) such datasets exist in South African municipalities, provinces and national departments. However, private companies have successfully created such datasets.
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    What are participants telling us as we collect data for the next Quality of Life survey?
    (Gauteng City-Region Obervatory, 2021-02-26) de Kadt, Julia; Hamann, Christian; Mkhize, Sthembiso Pollen
    Data collection for our forthcoming Quality of Life 2020/21 Survey (QoL 2020/21) is now over two thirds complete. Along with the regular difficulties of data collection, such as ensuring everyone’s safety and negotiating access to conduct the survey, data collection has also had to navigate the challenges of COVID-19, and more recently, heavy rains and flooding due to Cyclone Eloise. We hope to complete data collection by the end of May 2021, and share preliminary results in July 2021. While data collection is still underway, our February Map of the Month shares some of the comments and feedback we’ve received from survey participants since we started conducting interviews in October 2020. As part of our regular scrutiny of incoming survey data, we review comments shared by participants at the end of the survey interview. While the comments do not constitute representative survey data, and do not tell us about overall or localised levels of concern regarding particular issues, they do shed some light on the people behind the data we are collecting, and what is on their minds. We have identified some of the most prominent themes in these comments, and shared various colour-coded maps of the selected comments. We were struck that one of the strongest themes, shaded in green, was one of gratitude for the opportunity the survey provides for people to share their experiences and challenges. Many of these participants also expressed hope that their voices and concerns will be heard by the government, and will inform positive change. Other comments highlight issues or challenges that participants want to emphasize - key amongst these are crime and safety (yellow), unemployment (purple), governance (orange) and gender-based violence (red). These comments remind us of why we conduct the Quality of Life survey, and motivate us to do our utmost to ensure survey findings will influence decision making and action to improve living conditions in the Gauteng City-Region. GCRO thanks the fieldworkers from GeoSpace International for their enormous contributions to making this survey possible. We also thank all the participants across Gauteng who have generously given their time to participate in the survey. Without their willingness to share information about their lives and challenges, we would not be able to conduct this survey. As we are still collecting data all across Gauteng province, there is a chance that a GeoSpace International fieldworker may still knock on your door. If they do, we hope you’ll be willing to allow them to interview you!
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    Women and COVID-19 in Gauteng
    (Gauteng City-Region Obervatory, 2020-08-31) Parker, Alexandra; Maree, Gillian; Götz, Graeme; Khanyile, Samkelisiwe
    This August 2020 Map of the Month is presented as a story map and draws on the infection data from the Gauteng Department of Health (6 March - 7 August 2020) and GCRO’s March 2020 COVID-19 vulnerability indices based on Quality of Life V (2017/18) survey data, to understand the ways in which women may be more vulnerable than men to COVID-19. We also explore some of the implications for this gender bias in the number of positive cases.