The South African Research Chair in Spatial Analysis and City Planning

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https://hdl.handle.net/10539/37292

The South African Research Chair in Spatial Analysis and City Planning is situated in the School of Architecture and Planning, at the University of the Witwatersrand and is headed by Prof Philip Harrison. This collection includes research outputs from the programme, including those under its previous name, the South African Research Chair in Development Planning and Modelling. For information on this collection content, please contact: Bongi Mphuti via email : Bongi.Mphuti@wits.ac.za or Tel (W) : 011 717 1978.

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A picture speaks a thousnd words: understanding women's migration in Johannesburg using visual diaries
(Routledge, 2010-09-23) Kihato, Caroline
Using the visual diaries of a group of African women migrants now living in Johannesburg, this article explores what is now termed "ferminization of migration". It does this less by drawing attention to the fact that women are moving than by using women's own images and narratives to reveal dimensions of that experience that have yet to be understood. Centralto the article's arguement is the assertion that images communicate to us in ways that can reveal not only the material conditions of groups that are often hidden from view, but also their own local political locations, and society's own assumptions about them. Women's visual diaries and their narrative reveal the ways in which they negotiate structural impendiments of asylum offialdom, police harassment, patriarchy, unemployment and poverty. The research argues that current understanding of the ferminization of migration fail to reveal the socio-cultural and political complexities of women's mobility on the African continent.
Alexandra
(Wits University Press, 2014) Harrison, Philip. Masson, Andrian. Sinwell, Luke.
A mix of respected academics, practising urban planners and experienced policymakers offer compelling overviews of the rapid and complex spatial developments that have taken place in Johannesburg since the end of apartheid, along with tantalising glimpses into life on the streets and behind the high walls of this diverse city. The book has three sections. Section A provides an overview of macro spatial trends and the policies that have influenced them. Section B explores the shaping of the city at district and suburban level, revealing the peculiarity of processes in different areas. This analysis elucidates the larger trends, while identifying shifts that are not easily detected at the macro level. Section C is an assembly of chapters and short vignettes that focus on the interweaving of place and identity at a micro level. With empirical data supported by new data sets including the 2011 Census, the city’s Development Planning and Urban Management Department’s information system, and Gauteng City-Region Observatory’s substantial archive, the book is an essential reference for planning practitioners, urban geographers, sociologists, and social anthropologists, among others.
Architectures of visibility and invisibility: a reflection on the secret affinities of Johannesburg’s cross-border shopping hub
(Anthropology Southern Africa, 2019) Zack, Tanya; Govender, Thireshen
The inner city of Johannesburg, South Africa, is the site of an intense wholesale and retail trade in fast fashion. Here mostly migrant entrepreneurs supply billions of rand worth of Chinese apparel to local and cross-border shoppers from across sub-Saharan Africa. The retail phenomenon pulsates from the incrementally adapted interiors of modernist office buildings. The buildings now host secret shopping centres, with mini retail outlets and coffee shops transforming dormant interior corridors and stairwells into lively internal streets. This compressed urban environment caters exquisitely to the ambiguous needs of being both visible and invisible — to display and to conceal — in this urban context. Walter Benjamin’s musings on the architectures and social positioning of mid-nineteenth century Parisian arcades offer insight into how adaptive, rogue architectures respond to mass consumption in contemporary Johannesburg. They support the argument that the arcades of “Jeppe” are deliberate, responsive architectures.
Back to the Streets; Exploratory research on pedestrian life and walking spaces in the Greater Johannesburg area
(South African Research Chair in Development Planning and Modelling, School of Architecture and Planning, University of the Witwatersrand., 2012) Cabaret, Alice
The aim of this exploratory research is to identify the different aspects and trends of the pedestrian practices in the Greater Johannesburg area. This has been achieved by the use of “street models” encapsulating the different socio-demographic profiles of pedestrians as well as their uses of space, based on site visits and social surveys....... This research aims at being exploratory and at providing a first understanding of pedestrian life and walking spaces in Johannesburg. It also looks at the challenges to their development, based on the comparative analysis of street models. The research provided provisional answers to questions posed, but also raised additional complex questions to be interrogated. The research method itself assumes that the findings cannot be perfectly representative: rather they serve as a base for preliminary conclusions and further research.
BACK TO THE STREETS; Exploratory research on pedestrian life and walking spaces in the Greater Johannesburg area
(Report Series produced by the South African Research Chair in Development Planning and Modelling, School of Architecture and Planning, University of the Witwatersrand., 2012-08) Cabaret, Alice
In order to conduct an analysis of the different street types and the social profi les of pedestrians in the greater Johannesburg area, a typology based on social and urban analysis has been defi ned: this research focuses on 6 models of the different street types identifi ed in the greater Johannesburg area.
Between fixity and flux: Grappling with transience and permanence in the inner city
(Wits University Press, 2014) Dinath, Yasmeen.
A mix of respected academics, practising urban planners and experienced policymakers offer compelling overviews of the rapid and complex spatial developments that have taken place in Johannesburg since the end of apartheid, along with tantalising glimpses into life on the streets and behind the high walls of this diverse city. The book has three sections. Section A provides an overview of macro spatial trends and the policies that have influenced them. Section B explores the shaping of the city at district and suburban level, revealing the peculiarity of processes in different areas. This analysis elucidates the larger trends, while identifying shifts that are not easily detected at the macro level. Section C is an assembly of chapters and short vignettes that focus on the interweaving of place and identity at a micro level. With empirical data supported by new data sets including the 2011 Census, the city’s Development Planning and Urban Management Department’s information system, and Gauteng City-Region Observatory’s substantial archive, the book is an essential reference for planning practitioners, urban geographers, sociologists, and social anthropologists, among others.
Between the ordinary and the extra-oridnary: socio-spatial transformation in the South of Johannesburg
(South African Geographical Journal, 2014-06-16) Harrison, Philip. Zack, Tanya.
A recent discourse on ‘ordinary cities’ represents cities as unique assemblages rather than as imperfect representations of an ideal such as the ‘world city’. The ‘ordinariness’ of cities is, however, constructed at the intersection of the ‘ordinary’ and ‘extraordinary’. We use the case of the ‘Old South’ of Johannesburg to show how the ordinariness of everyday life has been shaped by continually shifting transnational, or extraordinary, flows and relationships. Strong locally inscribed spatial loyalties emerged historically in the Old South, although these were always overlain by ethnic territorialities. Recently, new socio-spatial configurations have emerged in the context of post-Apartheid migration flows. The emergent identities and territorialities associated with these flows remain fragile and ambiguous, but may offer pointers towards our new urban futures.
Beyond Invented and Invited spaces of participation: The Phiri and Olivia Road court cases and their outcomes
(HRSC Press, 2015) Smith, Laila. Rubin, Margot.
249 requires methods of public engagement that the local authorities responsible for delivery seldom have the knowledge or experience to carry out (as pointed to in Bénit-Gbaffou’s opening chapter). The result has been an increasingly frustrated public that is getting neither access to essential services nor the opportunity to engage meaningfully with the state (Bénit-Gbaffou & Oldfield 2011). The process of the public turning to the courts to hold the state to account for its enactment of socioeconomic rights has been a fascinating terrain where these governance and service delivery battles have merged into a single front. Classical legal theory argues that litigation is sought by groups because of fundamental belief in the ‘direct linking of litigation, rights, and remedies with social change’(Hunt 1990: 309). Ethnographers, such as Merry and Silbey (1984), argue that citizens turn to the law ‘when their situations or their personal, community, or economic problems seemed entirely intractable, unavoidable, and intolerable’(Merry 1990; Merry & Silbey 1984). Political opportunity theorists argue that if channels to decision-making are ‘closed’then citizens and residents will find, or invent, other methods to ensure that their voices are heard and that they are able to engage in some way with the decision-making process (Hilson 2002).
Beyond variegation: The territorialisation of states, communities and developers in large-scale developments in Johannesburg, Shanghai and London
(Urban Studies Journal, 2022) Robinson, Jennifer; Wu, Fulong; Harrison, Philip; Wang, Zheng; Todes, Alison; Dittgen, Romain; Attuyer, Katia
Large-scale urban development projects are a significant format of urban expansion and renewal across the globe. As generators of governance innovation and indicators of the future city in each urban context, large-scale development projects have been interpreted within frameworks of ‘variegations’ of wider circulating processes, such as neoliberalisation or financialisation. However, such projects often entail significant state support and investment, are strongly linked to a wide variety of transnational investors and developers and are frequently highly contested in their local environments. Thus, each project comes to fruition in a distinctive regulatory context, often as an exception to the norm, and each emerges through complex interactions over a long period of time amongst an array of actors. We therefore seek to broaden the discussion from an analytical focus on variegated globalised processes to consider three large-scale urban development projects (in Shanghai, Johannesburg and London) as distinctive (transcalar) territorialisations. Using an innovative comparative approach, we outline the grounds for a systematic analytical conversation across mega-urban development projects in very different contexts. Initially, comparability rests on the shared features of large-scale developments – that they are multi-jurisdictional, involve long time scales and bring significant financing challenges. Comparing three development projects, we are able to interrogate, rather than take for granted, how a range of wider processes, circulating practices, transcalar actors and territorial regulatory formations composed specific urban outcomes in each case. Thinking across these diverse cases provides grounds for rebuilding understandings of urban development politics.
BRICS Cities: Facts & Analysis 2016
(South African Cities Network, 2017) Harrison, Philip; Yang, Yan
BRICS Cities: Facts & Analysis is a compendium of research produced through a partnership between the South African Cities Network (SACN) and the South African Research Chair in Spatial Analysis and City Planning (SA&CP) in the School of Architecture and Planning at the University of the Witwatersrand. It presents key general and thematic descriptive and comparative information about urban growth and development in the five BRICS states: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The comparative analysis includes a section relating to cities in Africa, while the detailed Factsheets cover thirty-one of the largest BRICS cities. BRICS Cities provides a first-of-its-kind research base to inform ongoing sub-national BRICS research and policy consideration. Recent reports on urbanization point out that over the next 20-30 years, almost all of the expected growth in the world population will be concentrated in the urban areas of the less developed countries of which a significant 42% will occur in cities in BRICS countries. Despite the fact that the distribution of the urbanization figures will be highly unequal between the different countries, considering the currently high levels of urbanization in Russia and Brazil and the extremely low levels (just over 35%) in India, the realities of large scale urbanization can and no doubt will have substantial impacts on the material conditions of urban life, governance, service provision, social relations and the environment. There has also been, and will continue to be, the expansion of networks of all kinds far beyond designated urban boundaries. In some cases, these challenges and the expanding boundaries have been met with additional layers of government, innovations in policy-making, and the reconfiguring of relationships between urban actors. However little is known in a comparative sense around some of the most important sites and cities in the BRICS countries , and insufficient research has been undertaken to learn from the differences that have been identified. The SACN and SA&CP, in line with our mutual interest around the nature and shape of urbanization and urban processes in South Africa and in BRICS countries, have developed a compendium of comparable information around key cities in the BRICS countries. BRICS Cities will serve as a useful reference of important base line information but also offers comment on the state of key areas of shared concern: innovation-driven economies, transport and mobility, and green energy. Furthermore, the publication provides a careful analysis of these factors in a comparative and relational framing.
Bringing the Global to the Local: the challenges of multi-level governance for global policy implementation in Africa
(International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development, 2021-08-12) Croese, Sylvia; Oloko, Michael; Simon, David; Valencia, Sandra
The New Urban Agenda (NUA) and Agenda 2030’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) recognise the key role of ‘sub-national entities’, including cities, in achieving sustainable development. However, since these global policy agendas were agreed and signed by national governments, implementing them at the local level requires a process of localisation to fit local realities. This paper analyses the national guidance (or lack of) and the resultant collaborations emerging between various levels of government in the implementation of these agendas in African cities, namely Kisumu, Kenya and Cape Town, South Africa. It argues that effective implementation of the SDGs requires a strong framework for multi-stakeholder engagement and coordination at all levels of governance, which is possible if both top-down and bottom-up approaches are used concurrently and harmonised.
Capacity in motion: comparative COVID-19 governance in India and South Africa
(Routledge, 2022-12-20) Chatterji, Tathagata; Götz, Graeme; Harrison, Philip; Moore, Rob; Roy Souvanic
With the COVID-19 pandemic, critical questions have surfaced in several countries regarding the capacity of the state to respond with agility to the crisis, and to use the crisis in a transformational way over the longer term. These questions are addressed in a comparative study of the State of Kerala in India and the Province of Gauteng in South Africa. The study contributes to two partial gaps in the literature: (1) inadequate attention to the subnational dimensions of crisis governance; and (2) the temporal dimension of state capacity, noting historical and contextual factors conditioning capacity, with shifts through the course of a crisis and beyond. While both territories showed significant agility in response to the crisis, Kerala strengthened its capacities in a way that Gauteng did not, and this had significant implications for the abilities of these governments to both manage the pandemic and leverage the pandemic for longer term benefit.
CHANGING LAND USE ON THE PERIPHERY; a case study of urban agriculture and food gardening in Orange Farm
(Report Series produced by the South African Research Chair in Development Planning and Modelling, School of Architecture and Planning, University of the Witwatersrand., 2012-08) RICHARDS, Robin; TAYLOR, Sue
This study was undertaken after funding was received under a call for short-term consultancies to investigate a range of topics related to urban spatial transformation. the call was issued by the school of Architecture and Planning of the University of witwatersrand under the nRF sARcHi initiative. this study investigates peri-urban food gardens and the role that food gardening plays in orange Farm in addressing poverty and in improving food security. the study specifi cally looks at the effects of available open space on urban agriculture and food gardening in orange Farm. It was hypothesised at the outset of the study that, being located on the peri-urban periphery of the city, orange Farm is not yet densely populated or short of land for food gardening to be excluded as a livelihood option. this abundance of open land could, therefore, become an asset in an agriculturally-based strategy to target poverty in this priority region of the city.
CHANGING LAND USE ON THE PERIPHERY; a case study of urban agriculture and food gardening in Orange Farm.
(South African Research Chair in Development Planning and Modelling, School of Architecture and Planning, University of the Witwatersrand., 2012-08) RICHARDS, ROBIN; TAYLOR, SUE
This study was undertaken after funding was received under a call for short-term consultancies to investigate a range of topics related to urban spatial transformation. The call was issued by the School of Architecture and Planning of the University of Witwatersrand under the NRF SARCHi initiative. This study investigates peri-urban food gardens and the role that food gardening plays in Orange Farm in addressing poverty and in improving food security. The study specifically looks at the effects of available open space on urban agriculture and food gardening in Orange Farm. It was hypothesised at the outset of the study that, being located on the peri-urban periphery of the city, Orange Farm is not yet densely populated or short of land for food gardening to be excluded as a livelihood option. This abundance of open land could, therefore, become an asset in an agriculturally-based strategy to target poverty in this priority region of the city.1.......... This study was undertaken after funding was received under a call for short-term consultancies to investigate a range of topics related to urban spatial transformation. The call was issued by the School of Architecture and Planning of the University of Witwatersrand under the NRF SARCHi initiative. This study investigates peri-urban food gardens and the role that food gardening plays in Orange Farm in addressing poverty and in improving food security. The study specifically looks at the effects of available open space on urban agriculture and food gardening in Orange Farm. It was hypothesised at the outset of the study that, being located on the peri-urban periphery of the city, Orange Farm is not yet densely populated or short of land for food gardening to be excluded as a livelihood option. This abundance of open land could, therefore, become an asset in an agriculturally-based strategy to target poverty in this priority region of the city.1...... The study was guided by two key research questions, namely: 1. What interest do Orange Farm residents have in urban agriculture and food gardening; and can this interest be used as a spatial planning element as the settlement undergoes increased formal development? 2. Are there spatial, land ownership, socio-economic and attitudinal constraints that currently affect the implementation of food gardening projects and urban agriculture in Orange Farm and, if so, which of these is the greatest obstacle to current and future urban agriculture and food gardening?
Clearly blown away by the end of the morning's drama: spectacle, pacification and the 2010 world cup, South Africa
(The Journal of the Society for Socialist Studies, 2013) McMichael, Christopher
The massive security assemblages surrounding major sporting events and political summits embody two layers of spectacle. On the one hand, security operations are central to the governance of entertainment and media imagery. Simultaneously these security measures are profoundly theatrical and calibrated for the maximum visual impact: the spectacle of security itself. Some critical thinkers have described this dual spectacle as indicative of a contemporary state-corporate obsession with image and perception management, an obsession which detracts from ‘valid’ security concerns. By contrast I argue that spectacle and theatricality are in fact highly functional components of the pacification projects of state and capital. With reference to Guy Debord’s conception of ‘spectacle’, this article highlights how mega-events reveal, in highly dramatised form, the logic of pacification. Using the 2010 FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) soccer World Cup as a case study, the article demonstrates how police and military power are mobilised to secure accumulation, to enforce social control and to extend the power and arsenal of the state security apparatus. What is truly spectacular about mega event security is not just the incorporation of media templates into the working of state forces. Rather, the rhetoric and concept of security itself becomes a form of spectacular power as it serves to both obscure and justify how mega events are ultimately projects of class power.
Co-producing urban expertise for SDG localization: the history and practices of urban knowledge production in South Africa
(Routledge, 2022-05-27) Croese, Sylvia; Duminy, James
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are used as an entry point to consider issues and questions surrounding the forms of urban expertise that are required to achieve transformative and sustainable urban development. The article builds on the authors’ experiences as researchers working co-productively with South African municipalities through the African Centre for Cities, an interdisciplinary research hub at the University of Cape Town. Insights from the literature on urban policy mobilities are deployed alongside those from an emerging literature on transdisciplinary research and knowledge co-production for global policy implementation. The aims are, first, to identify emerging kinds of urban expertise that are produced and mobilized by constellations of actors involved in the advancement of global development policies at the city scale and, second, to examine the role of city-university partnerships in producing particular forms of urban expertise to support SDG localization. Locating this work within a longer genealogy of urban governance reform in South Africa, it is shown that the conditions under which effective co-productive relationships can be built and institutionalized are highly context specific and geographically uneven. Understanding and assembling such conditions will enable cities to benefit from the forms of expertise these can engender.
Contesting adaptation synergies: political realities in reconciling climate change adaptation with urban development in Johannesburg, South Africa
(Spring-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, 2016-07-25) Hetz Karen
Strategies to promote synergistic responses to both urban development issues and climate change adaptation have become central to policy advice on adaptation. However, the empirical evidence for the effective utilisation of adaptation synergies in planning practices is insufficient. Taking urban planning in Johannesburg as a case study and using the risks of flooding as an illustrative example, this qualitative study explores how adaptation synergies can be realised in planning practices. In this specific case, significant synergy possibilities in planning practices are not observed. Instead, political challenges of reconciling adaptation measures with planning responses to the considerable developmental challenges of urban divide and multiple urban risks in Johannesburg substantially limit the response space for adaptation practices, including those achievable through synergies. Insights gained in this study underline the necessity of giving greater attention to the empirics of observed synergies. The study provides initial indications that it may be necessary to adjust elements of the conceptual arguments concerning adaptation synergies and related policy advice.
Corridors of Freedom: Analyzing Johannesburg’s Ambitious Inclusionary Transit-Oriented Development
(Journal of Planning Education and Research, 2019) Harrison, Philip; Rubin, Margot; Appelbaum, Alexandra; Dittgen, Romain
In 2013, the Mayor of Johannesburg announced the ambitious Corridors of Freedom (CoF) initiative to transform the city’s socio-spatial structure. The CoF were constructed to be an inclusionary form of transit-oriented development (TOD). Using a 1,200 respondent survey, over 75 interviews, documentary analysis, and attendance at public participation interventions, the paper questions the possibilities for, and constraints on, the practice of inclusionary TOD. Using six criteria—spatial transformation, mobility, affordable accommodation, jobs and livelihoods, social integration, and participation—we demonstrate the mixed outcomes of inclusionary TOD.
DETECTING ASH MIDDENS USING REMOTE SENSING TECHNIQUES: THE CASE OF SOUTHERN GAUTENG, SOUTH AFRICA
(South African Archaeological Bulletin, 2022-12) Siteleki, Mncedisi
South Africa is home to thousands of architectural remnants such as stone-walled structures and ash middens from the Late Iron Age (AD 1300–1800). Ash middens reflect the political and economic lifeways of Iron Age communities. However, the process of identifying and mapping ash middens with traditional survey techniques can be time-consuming and difficult due to dense vegetation. This report aims to assess the performance of two supervised classification techniques, Maximum Likelihood Classification (MLC) and Support Vector Machine (SVM), in detecting ash middens on two multispectral satellite images – GeoEye1 and SPOT5 – in Gauteng, South Africa. The objective is to also assess the ability of the sensors in capturing the spectral signatures of the ash middens. The high reflectance of ash middens relative to other land-cover classes indicates that they have distinct spectral signatures. GeoEye1 is better than SPOT5 in the detection of ash middens because its high spectral and spatial resolution allows for more detailed and accurate mapping. SVM, although advanced, is not a significantly better classification technique for detecting ash middens compared to MLC. This report presents a promising avenue for detecting archaeological ash middens in this part of the world using remote sensing techniques.
Does density drive development?
(Report Series produced by the South African Research Chair in Development Planning and Modelling, School of Architecture and Planning, University of the Witwatersrand., 2012-08) Msulwa, Rehema; Turok, Ivan
There is growing interest among governments and researchers around the world in the contribution of cities to economic development. Several influential international organisations have argued that the spatial concentration of economic activity is necessary for faster economic growth. This paper examines whether the density of population and economic activity influences the rate of local economic growth in South Africa. Municipalities are the basic units of analysis and the time frame is 1996-2010. Contrary to expectations, no statistically significant relationship is found between density and growth across the full range of 237 local municipalities. However, searching hard for a relationship among particular kinds of municipality, some evidence does emerge. The influence of human skills on local growth is also examined and is found to be more robust than density. Several reasons are given for why the relationship between density and growth is generally weak or non-existent.

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