Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment

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Adventures in City Data: An Ethnographic Story
(Gauteng City-Region Observatory, 2022-12) Shirley Robinson
South Africa is urbanising rapidly, and its economic landscape is continuously changing as a consequence. In this context, city governments and urban scientists have long called for better access to city economic data. The National Treasury has reinforced this demand, insisting that intra-city economic data is critical in order to improve planning, performance and investment in South Africa’s cities. A wealth of data is collected by the South African Revenue Service (SARS) in the course of its routine operations assessing the tax obligations of companies and individual taxpayers. In addition to its bureaucratic purpose, this data represents an enormous potential resource for a detailed understanding of the urban economy. Until recently, this resource has been underutilised because it was not available in an anonymised and geocoded form. At a practical level, however, the significant amount of energy and time required to access, clean and align administrative datasets to make them usable is not generally understood. This GCRO Occasional Paper presents an ethnographic account of a decade-long journey in city economic data collation by the author who, as a long-term technical advisor to the National Treasury’s Government Technical Advisory Centre (GTAC), led the work on the city economic data programme in support of the first phase of the National Treasury’s Cities Support Programme (CSP). After observing the critical need for anonymised and geocoded economic administrative data in policy formulation and urban research, this paper examines the reasons for the limited availability of datasets able to show the location of economic activity and employment at a disaggregated local level. The paper details how the National Treasury’s collaboration with the World Bank in 2016 to produce the Urbanisation Review of South Africa stimulated and directed the efforts of GTAC and the Economies of Regions Learning Network (ERLN) to pursue official sources of city-level administrative data. The paper goes on to recount subsequent National Treasury/CSP collaborations with Statistics South Africa, SARS and the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) to collect and collate anonymised and geocoded city economic data from sources other than national general surveys. Despite progress, these efforts were ultimately stymied due to practical and governance constraints. Nevertheless, in a parallel process, these collaborations ultimately bore fruit in the establishment of a secure administrative data centre at the National Treasury that stores anonymised data, which can then be geocoded using postal codes. This secure data centre in turn, after the author had left the process, ultimately provided a foundation for the milestone publication of the 2021 City Spatial Economic Data Reports. The paper concludes by reflecting on the insights from this ethnographic account around possibilities for improving the integrity of the city spatial economic data resource, and enhancing its use in credible, evidence-based urban analysis. First, these conclusions highlight broader institutional and public management concerns in the current governance environment on which future steps to improve the city spatial economic data will depend. Second, the paper points out that, despite the long journey travelled, business classification uncertainty still remains. Solving these governance and data puzzles may further enhance the incredible potential that such a rich data resource holds for evidence-based policy aimed at creating a more just and equal society in South Africa.
An analysis of well-being in Gauteng province using the capability approach
(Gauteng City-Region Observatory, 2020-12-08) Mushongera, Darlington; Kwenda, Prudence; Ntuli, Miracle
The purpose of this occasional paper is to analyse well-being in Gauteng province from a capability perspective. We adopt a standard ‘capability approach’ consistent with Amartya Sen’s concept of capabilities (1985; 1993; 1999). This study builds on earlier research on poverty and inequality in the Gauteng City-Region (GCR) focusing on income inequality (Tseng, 2018), labour market inequalities (Kwenda & Benhura, 2018) and multidimensional poverty (Mushongera et al., 2017; Mushongera et al., 2018). These analyses were based mainly on objective characteristics of well-being, such as income, employment, housing and schooling. However, adopting a capability approach provides us with a more holistic view of well-being in Gauteng by focusing simultaneously on both objective and subjective aspects. According to Robeyns (2016, p. 1), the capability approach is a theoretical framework that entails two core normative claims: first, the claim that the freedom to achieve well-being is of primary moral importance, and second, that freedom to achieve well-being is to be understood in terms of people’s capabilities, that is, their real opportunities to do and be what they have reason to value. Writing from a feminist and social justice perspective, Nussbaum (2003) generated a list of what she considered the most central capabilities. These capabilities are relevant to the analysis of well-being in general and generate useful insights that can potentially provide an additional lens within the policy realm. They can be combined into indices that capture ‘functionings’, or the ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ indicators of well-being. Out of the ten capabilities suggested by Nussbaum (2003), our analysis is based on eight, namely ‘play’, ‘emotions’, ‘other species’, ‘affiliation’, ‘bodily health’, ‘bodily integrity’, ‘senses, imagination and thought’ and ‘control over one’s environment’. The analysis uses data from the Gauteng City-Region Observatory Quality of Life (GCRO QoL) Survey IV-2015/16 (GCRO, 2016), which asks a wide range of questions, and the response options vary significantly. For instance, some questions have binary responses while others have multiple possible responses, such as those captured by a Likert scale. To generate similar units of measurement, all indicators were normalised using a standard ordinal ranking procedure. Normalisation is a simple technique whereby all variables are scored consistently so that the lowest rank always indicates the worst outcomes and the highest means the best in relative terms; for example, for the Health Status Indicator, a rank of 1 is assigned to individuals with very poor health; 2 for poor health; 3 for good health; and 4 for excellent health (OECD, 2008). Each capability index in our analysis was computed as a weighted average of its related normalised indicator variables. The weights were generated using multiple correspondence analysis (MCA), which is an objective statistical approach. The results of our analysis indicate that the capabilities with high scoring indices are ‘play’ and ‘senses, imagination and thought’, while ‘bodily integrity’ and ‘affiliation’ scored very low. Capability achievements vary across race, age, gender, income level and location. The results confirm the well-known heterogeneity in human conditions among South African demographic groups. However, we observe broader (in both subjective and objective dimensions) levels of deprivation that are otherwise masked in earlier studies. Policies that directly target indicators for capabilities where historically disadvantaged and vulnerable groups (such as youth, elderly and the physically challenged) are deprived are highly recommended. Given the spatial heterogeneities in capability achievements, we recommend localised interventions in capabilities that are lagging in certain areas of the province.
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).
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.
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.
Gauteng’s urban land cover growth: 1990-2020
(Gauteng City-Region Observatory, 2022-03-31) Ballard, Richard; Hamann, Christian
Governing the GCR series: Displaced urbanisation or displaced urbanism? Rethinking development in the peripheries of the GCR
(Gauteng City-Region Observatory, 2022-04) Ngaka Mosiane; Graeme Gotz
This Provocation attends to a feature of the Gauteng City-Region (GCR) – its periphery – that continues to receive very limited public and private investment yet remains home to many hundreds of thousands of largely poor people. The extended GCR has a complicated social, economic and spatial structure due to the legacy effects of apartheid. That system’s laws against free movement frustrated the urban aspirations of the African population, forcing them to stay in the extended cheap labour pools of economically unviable bantustans, many in proximity to but removed from burgeoning city centres. This system has not unravelled with the formal arrival of democracy. The GCR remains a complex functional space whose edge is not defined by the boundary of the Gauteng province. Tens of thousands of commuters routinely flow across the northern boundary of Gauteng each day to work, shop, trade goods or seek employment in Pretoria and other Gauteng cities. This flow, and the lasting social, economic and spatial dislocation effects of apartheid it reflects, has come to be symbolised by the R573 Moloto Road, colloquially named the ‘road of death’ because of the staggering number of traffic accidents it sees each year. The question of what should now be done with the still underdeveloped zones of what has historically been termed ‘displaced urbanisation’ on Gauteng’s periphery, has occupied the state, amongst other actors, for almost three decades. Focusing on the efforts to conceptualise and plan for massive transport infrastructure along the Moloto Development Corridor as a key solution to the problem, this Provocation reveals a set of unresolved divergences within the South African state. Differences of opinion and policy approach – which pivot on whether it would be better to facilitate the continued, but safer, mobility of peripherally located commuters through massive rail development, or to encourage population relocation to Gauteng’s core – have meant that development efforts have so far remained largely uncoordinated. In turn, the gains that a negotiated process around a broadly common agenda could potentially yield have remained constrained. This Provocation contends that coordination through a strategy of mutual engagement remains absent because the relevant actors lack a shared ‘concept of development’. Both sides of the debate miss the significance of the day-to-day actions of residents, formal and informal traders, civil society, traditional leaders, and other actors, who are not waiting to be moved, or developed by transport investment, but are striving to transform the zones of ‘displaced urbanisation’ they occupy into vibrant spaces of ‘displaced urbanism’. We argue that this ‘displaced urbanism’ – the innovative co-existence of formal and informal land uses and activities; prolific acts of self-realisation by local residents trying to survive and pursue their aspirations; and, in turn, dynamic local economies from below – needs to be taken much more seriously on its own terms.
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.
Johannesburg and its epidemics: Can we learn from history?
(Gauteng City-Region Observatory, 2020-11-30) Harrison, Philip
Covid-19 has massively disrupted life globally and locally, bringing many uncertainties in its wake. It is not, however, the first epidemic to pummel the Gauteng City-Region. This GCRO Occasional Paper provides a detailed account of previous epidemics, including smallpox, the plague, influenza, measles, polio, scarlet fever and HIV/Aids. It asks whether we can learn from this history to benefit the present time. It shows that although we must use history judiciously because circumstances vary enormously across time, there are persisting themes and a knowledge of history can help direct attention to critical concerns. These themes are addressed in the report and include: the uncertain and idiosyncratic course of epidemics; social fault-lines exposed through epidemics, worsened through scapegoating, stigmatising and pathologising; the effects on livelihoods and the economy; the impacts on spatial form and infrastructures; the ways in which governance impacts the course of epidemics; and the ways in which epidemics influence the continued evolution of governance.
Quality of Life Survey V (2017/18): The quality of life of students in Gauteng
(Gauteng City-Region Observatory, 2020-07) Hamann, Christian; Joseph, Kate
In the Quality of Life (QoL) V (2017/18) survey, respondents from all population groups were represented in the student sample. However, a higher percentage of all Indian/Asian respondents (17%) and white respondents (13%) were registered as students compared to the proportion of all African respondents (10%) and coloured respondents (11%). The differences were larger among younger respondents from each population group. • However, racialised socio-economic inequality is evident in the fact that the average monthly household income of African students was around R11 755 while the average monthly household income of white students was around R38 541. • Similarly, a lower percentage of African students reported having access to assets which are likely to assist learning (like a laptop or internet at home) when compared to the access of coloured, Indian/Asian or white students. But African and white students had higher levels of access to these assets than African and white non-students. • The majority of all students in the sample would have qualified for National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) funding (69%) based on their household income. A further 26% of students were considered part of the ‘missing middle’, and only about 5% of students could be categorised as upper class. Racialised socio-economic inequality is evident in students’ average monthly income • There were important lifestyle and class differences between full time and part time students. On average, students had a higher socio-economic status than non-students, but part time students had a higher socio-economic status than full time students. • The mean age of full time and part time students was 24 and 31 years, respectively. Further, part time students were more likely to be household heads, while in the households of full time students it was more likely for the mother or father of the student to be the head of the household. • On average, students were 6% more likely to be satisfied with a range of services, facilities and spheres of government than non-students, but higher satisfaction with services did not translate into higher satisfaction with spheres of government. • Although the differences remain relatively small, students were more likely to respond positively on various measures of physical wellbeing (like general health status) and mental well-being (like having emotional support) than non-students. • Despite a significant degree of racial inequality in the student sample (in terms of income and access to assets), students score higher on the overall quality of life index than non-students. • While respondents born in Gauteng were the most likely to be students (12%), migrants from other provinces were nearly as likely to be students (11%). By contrast, only 6% of respondents who had migrated from another country were students. • Across QoL surveys, students predominantly made use of taxis (44% on average) or private motorised transport (31% on average) for their trips to the places where they study. • A slightly smaller percentage of students (7%) participated in protest action compared to non-student respondents (9%).
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.
Urban agriculture in the Gauteng City-Region’s green infrastructure network
(Gauteng City-Region Observatory, 2020-07) Camargo Nino, Eliana; Lane, Sam; Okano, Kanako; Rahman, Irvanu; Peng, Bo; Benn, Hannah; Culwick Fatti, Christina; Maree, Gillian; Khanyile, Samkelisiwe; Washbourne, Dr Carla
As cities in developing countries contend with the challenges of urbanisation, they need to rethink the traditional modes of urban planning and development. Part of this logic is to cater for growing populations without compromising urban environments and social development. Green infrastructure is one such approach that aims to meet infrastructure and service needs while ensuring the proper functioning of natural ecological systems. Urban agriculture can create multifunctional green assets in the form of urban farms and food gardens. When planned accordingly, urban agriculture can contribute to addressing a range of issues in the Gauteng City-Region (GCR). In the City of Johannesburg, the expansion of urban agriculture, and green infrastructure more broadly, aligns with and could contribute to multiple development goals. This paper interrogates whether a green infrastructure approach could offer the potential to improve urban agriculture efforts if the approach can be mainstreamed into municipal development processes. Realising the benefits of urban agriculture hinges on integrating these approaches into municipal planning and projects, as well as on improving the productivity of ecosystem service delivery from both green infrastructure and urban agriculture. The focus of this report is pertinent in light of persistent infrastructure and service delivery backlogs in the GCR, considerable challenges around food systems and food security, and a highly unequal urban spatial form – all of which impact the distribution of infrastructure and services, both green and conventional. This report argues that a green infrastructure approach is valuable for drawing important connections between focus areas related to urban agriculture that are traditionally siloed. The analysis focuses on urban agriculture in the GCR’s green infrastructure network using urban food gardens in the City of Johannesburg as the unit and site of analysis. This occasional paper falls under the Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO) Green Assets and Infrastructure research and links urban agriculture and green infrastructure in the GCR together for two main reasons. First, the paper outlines how food gardens are a key component of the interconnected set of the natural and constructed infrastructure systems within the city. This framing helps to link urban agriculture and food systems research to broader municipal development goals in terms of infrastructure and service delivery. Second, the paper outlines evidence of the wider social impact of food gardens which validates the ability of green infrastructure to meet social, economic and public health goals (e.g. social cohesion, employment, economic resilience) beyond a purely environmental focus. Understanding food gardens as multifunctional green assets is one way to promote and secure investment in urban agriculture in the GCR.
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.

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