Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO)

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https://hdl.handle.net/10539/36900

The Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO) was established in 2008 as a partnership between the University of Johannesburg (UJ), the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (Wits) and the Gauteng Provincial Government (GPG), with local government in Gauteng also represented on the GCRO Board. Behind the motivation for setting up the GCRO is a vision for South Africa's economic heartland as a region that is competitive, spatially integrated, environmentally sustainable and socially inclusive. GCRO is charged with helping to build the knowledge base that government, business, labour, civil society and citizens all need to make this vision a reality. GCRO collects data and benchmarks the city-region, provides policy analysis and support, undertakes applied research, and publishes critically reflective academic work.

Visit the GCRO home page at www.gcro.ac.za

For information on accessing Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO) content please contact Bongi Mphuti via email : bongi.mphuti@wits.ac.za or Tel (W) : 011 717 1978

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Now showing 1 - 20 of 29

Acid mine drainage and its governance in the Gauteng City-Region
(2015-05) Bobbins, Kerry
Acid mine drainage (AMD) in the Gauteng City-Region (GCR) has been described in the media as a ticking time bomb after it was officially reported to have begun surfacing from old mining works on the West Rand in 2002 (Masondo et al., 2011; TAU SA, 2011; Slack, 2013). Acid mine drainage occurs when ‘fool’s gold’ (FeS2) or iron pyrite found in mined rock oxidises. This occurs when either underground mine shafts, or crushed conglomerate in Mine Residue Areas (MRAs) on the surface, become exposed to oxygen and water creating run-off that is very high in sulphates – effectively sulphuric acid – and is hazardous to both humans and the environment (McCarthy 2010). Over the last decade, a flurry of news articles have highlighted the threat of acid water decant and its likely effects on human health, the environment, water quality, municipal infrastructure and building foundations in the Johannesburg Central Business District (CBD). These reports have fuelled anxieties around when and where decant will take place and who will be affected by AMD. In response to these concerns, government, through the National Department of Water Affairs (DWA), has introduced a set of immediate and short-term interventions to overcome decant in the West Rand. These have allowed AMD to be framed as an environmental emergency. DWA has also set in motion a process to develop a long-term solution that, through a broader and more inclusive approach, will solve various AMD issues over time including its impact on the Gauteng water supply. In relation to both these two government interventions – the immediate/short and long-term solutions – very few stakeholders or members of the public know enough about AMD and its governance to understand what the real challenges are and how they should respond. Even fewer are able to piece together the series of events that led up to the current and proposed set of actions taken by DWA to tackle AMD. This paper argues that the current trajectory of government-led responses has suspended meaningful public engagement and debate, and the result is a grey cloud of misinterpreted facts and presumed motives that has cast a shadow of misunderstanding, which in turn exacerbates the anxieties of affected communities and interested stakeholder groups
Benchmarking the way cities and regions around the world are responding to the global recession
(2009-09) Everatt, David; Gotz, Graeme; Phakathi, Sizwe; Makgetla, Neva
The Gauteng Provincial Government Department of Economic Department (GPGDED) approached the Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO) to provide them with a fast turn-around report that benchmarks sub-national responses to the economic crisis globally. The brief was to provide a review of what cities and regions are doing in response to the crisis in other parts of the world, and to emphasise the action side of the story – what is being done, rather than analysing the differing nature and impact of the crisis in different places.The report is filled not so much with specific recommendations as a suite of possible interventions that the Gauteng Provincial Government may wish to choose from and implement.
Brazil: innovation and development
(2012-10) Arbix, Glauco; de Toledo, Demétrio G. C.; Felizardo, Rafael G.
This essay discusses recent developments in Brazil´s innovation policies. These policies are part of a long-term developmental process and the current search for a new national configuration of policies and instruments capable of steering Brazil in the midst of globalisation and economic systems that have knowledge as their backbone. Industrialisation became the main source of inspiration as a means of attaining social evolution in countries like Brazil, South Africa, India, Mexico, Argentina and South Korea, to name a few; and in a sense this remains true today. These roots have marked state institutions and underscore the modus operandi of government planners. Brazil´s prospects for overcoming poverty, inequality and the burden of late development can be described as a process of attaining a better balance between earlier achievements and the current process of institution-building aimed at providing Brazil with the policies and instruments to support innovation as a means of achieving social and economic development.
A composite index of quality of life for the Gauteng city-region: a principal component analysis approach
(2015-03-30) Greyling, Talita
GCRO's 'Quality of Life' survey and outputs are increasingly part of the research landscape, with both policy and academic uptake. However, to ensure that the results are as accurate as possible, we commission external reviews using alternative analytic methods, to see if they generate similar or very different findings, in addition to the in-house quality control measures in place. In this way, all spheres of government - and GCRO ourselves - can be reassured that rigorous peer review and critique is an integral part of our work. In this paper, UJ economist Talita Dalton-Greyling uses PCA (Principal Component Analysis) to re-run the 2011 Quality of life data and see if her outcomes are similar to ours - which they were. The paper also provides an interesting overview of the global move away from GDP and other economistic measurements of growth to more quality of life and/or well-being measures, and locates her and our work in a broader global context.
The decanting of acid mine water in the Gauteng City-Region: analysis, prognosis and solutions
(2010-09) McCarthy, Terence
The large void beneath the Witwatersrand created by gold mining over the last 120 years is filling with water, which is rising at about 15m per month. The void will fill and water will begin to leak out (decant) on surface in about three years from now. It is likely that multiple decant points will develop in municipal areas across the Witwatersrand from Roodepoort to Boksburg. experience on the West Rand has shown that the quality of the water is likely to be poor and toxic. The prime risk area where decant points are likely to develop is in a zone about 500m wide straddling Main Reef Road and the M2 motorway, plus a secondary zone some two kilometres to the south. deep basements of buildings and other sub-surface infrastructure in the risk zones could experience flooding and the underground facility at Gold Reef City, a national treasure, will be lost. The problem can be solved by establishing pump stations at shallow depth in the mining belt to keep the water at a safe depth below surface. a depth of 300m is recommended in order to protect the Gold Reef City facility. The technological capability to do this is readily available, and the necessary water treatment processes are well established. although initially expensive, the pumping operation may ultimately generate a profit. Moreover, the cost of not pumping may ultimately vastly exceed the cost of timely intervention. establishing the necessary pumping and water treatment infrastructure will take considerable time, and therefore immediate action is required.
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 going dark: How nighttime light intensity changed during early stages of lockdown
(Gauteng City-Region Obervatory, 2020-07-21) Naidoo, Yashena; Maree, Gillian
The COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa has had far reaching impacts on society and the economy. A national disaster was declared on 15 March 2020 and by 26 March 2020 strong restrictive measures were put in place to manage the spread of the disease. The tightest restrictions were in place for lockdown level 5 which lasted from 26 March 2020 until the end of April 2020. During level 5 all movement was restricted and only essential workers were permitted to work. The country's borders were closed; interprovincial movement was banned; all gatherings except for small funerals were prohibited and schools, restaurants and non-essential businesses were closed. With movement restricted, activity was confined largely to domestic spaces. In the July 2020 Map of the month, we use nighttime satellite data to see whether night light intensity across the Gauteng City-Region reflects the impact of lockdown. We looked at how light intensity changed from before lockdown (March 2020) to lockdown level 5 (April 2020). In the full write up, we also show a second map of the difference between level 5 night light brightness (April 2020) and level 4 brightness (May 2020). The maps show a clear dimming of light intensity which resulted from reduced nighttime activity during the various lockdown levels. Roads were noticeably darker with far less vehicle traffic on main highways and many areas with usually vibrant activity at night were darker. As restrictions have eased, light intensity and nighttime activity have increased again across the GCR.
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
The GCRO barometer 2014
(2015-04-17) Mushongera, Darlington
The GCRO Barometer 2014 depicts developmental progress in the Gauteng City-Region (GCR) in a single interactive graphic using 38 indicators across ten key sectors. It serves as a tracking and diagnostic tool to inform policy makers and the public on where development progress is being made, and areas of concern. It also serves as a tool for benchmarking Gauteng against other South African provinces and similar sized city-regions across the world. The GCRO Barometer 2014 is the first release and shows progress in 2012 against three base years: 2002, 2007 and 2011. Overall, the Barometer shows that the developmental outlook for Gauteng is positive with significant progress realised between 2002 and 2012 in nearly all sectors. For instance, the poverty rate has fallen dramatically since 2002 and access to basic services has improved. However, there are challenges in areas such as Social Cohesion, Governance, the Labour Market and Sustainability. Sadly, people’s perceptions of government, as well as their unwillingness to participate in governance matters do not correspond to the achievements made by government during this period. This should be a cause for concern for policy makers in all spheres of government as it reflects dissatisfaction with the nature and quality of services being provided as well as the methods of provision. The Barometer also shows that the impact of government programmes is minimal over shorter time spans – change between 2002 and 2012 is considerable, but change between 2011 and 2012 is insignificant. This is a cause for concern given the 5-year cycle of electoral terms for local government in South Africa. The Barometer’s outcomes underscore the need for government to step up policy and programme monitoring with a view to achieving immediate and positive short-term impacts on communities.
Historical spatial change in the Gauteng City-Region
(2013-03) Mubiwa, Brian; Annegarn, Harold
This Occasional Paper is one of two that GCRO has commissioned specifically to deepen our understanding of the past of the GCR. Both focus on aspects of the region’s spatial past, and ought to be read together. This paper by Brian Mubiwa and Harold Annegarn explores the historical spatial evolution of the GCR. It examines key spatial changes that have shaped the region over a century and provides a remarkable picture, based on satellite imagery, of regional spatial growth in the last two decades. The companion paper by Alan Mabin asks the different but related question of how the idea of a city-region found expression in various statutory planning frameworks over the course of the last century, and how embryonic city-region concepts influenced spatial decisions and developments.
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.
The map of Gauteng: evolution of a city-region in concept and plan
(2013-07) Mabin, Alan
The mission of the Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO) is to help illuminate trends and dynamics shaping the region of towns and cities in and around Gauteng, and also enhance understanding of the idea of the Gauteng City-Region (GCR) as a project – a different way of thinking about and governing this space.While much of the data collection and analysis work of the GCRO is focused on the present, we also consider the city-region’s past and its possible futures. This Occasional Paper is one of two that GCRO has commissioned specifically to deepen our understanding of the past of the GCR. Both focus on aspects of the region’s spatial past, and ought to be read together. This paper by Prof Alan Mabin explores how the idea of a city-region found expression in various statutory planning frameworks over the course of the last century, and how embryonic city-region concepts influenced spatial decisions and developments. The companion paper by Brian Mubiwa and Harold Annegarn considers the different but related issue of the actual historical spatial evolution of the GCR.
Mapping vulnerability to COVID-19 in Gauteng
(Gauteng City-Region Observatory: Map of the Month, March 2020, 2020-03-20) de Kadt, Julia; Gotz, Graeme; Hamann, Christian; Maree, Gillian; Parker, Alexandra
The world is reeling as COVID-19 infections spread. This Map of the Month aids an understanding of the localised risk factors that might contribute to transmission of COVID-19, or amplify its health and socio-economic impacts in Gauteng communities. It explores two key themes: (1) the multiple risk factors to maintaining social distance and preventative hygiene; and (2) the multiple risk factors for health and socio-economic vulnerability during an outbreak or broader shutdown.
Mining landscapes of the Gauteng City-Region
(Gauteng City-Region Observatory, 2018-01) Bobbins, Kerry; Trangos, Guy
The extraction of gold along the Witwatersrand mining belt has fundamentally shaped the Gauteng City-Region (GCR) over more than a century. Mining in the region occurred across a vast area. The Witwatersrand basin is made up of three sub-basins – the West’, ‘Central’ and ‘East’ Rand – and stretches across a further seven distinct gold mining areas. These goldfields attracted prospectors, industrialists and work-seekers from across South Africa and around the world. They were responsible for the formation of Johannesburg and, over time, the development of large parts of the extended metropolis around it. For many years, gold mining produced immense wealth for mining companies, banks and residents – indeed the wealth extracted fired the entire South African economy. But there have been negatives. Gold mining also spawned a war, entrenched deep social divides, instilled exploitative labour practices, and devastated the natural environment. Though the industry is now in decline, the landscapes affected by mining are still identifiable by toxic scars that traverse the city-region. This Research Report, GCRO’s seventh, considers how the legacies of mining have been imprinted on the towns and cities of the Gauteng City-Region. The report uses ‘mining landscapes’ as a conceptual device to structure an analysis of the diverse impacts of mining, and to highlight the need for a comprehensive and collaborative approach to manage its after-effects. The report makes a unique contribution to existing literature on mining and mining waste in the city-region by presenting an integrated perspective on their urban, environmental, social and economic processes, characteristics and consequences, both historical and contemporary. While accounts are often told from the viewpoint of specific disciplines (such as history, geography or sociology), the analyses presented in this report – comprising of written pieces, archival excerpts and photo essays – are unbounded by distinctive disciplinary conforms. This allows for the diversity of the landscape to be explored in new ways. The report makes a call for the GCR’s mining landscapes to be understood as a connected landscape of systems rather than a set of isolated and forgotten features of a bygone mining era. From the abandoned mine areas that scatter the surface of the GCR, to earth tremors caused by hollowed out cavities below the earth, silicosis, acid mine drainage, distressed mining towns and more recent histories of artisanal mining – the legacy of gold mining in Gauteng has a variety of expressions, all emerging from the same interconnected history. The concluding chapter looks to the future and considers the possibilities for innovative and collaborative approaches to unshackle the towns and cities of the Witwatersrand from their gold-mining inheritance. This includes the prospects for spatial transformation, repairing social divisions, cultivating natural assets, and remedying the destructive health and environmental effects of a century of mining activity.
Mobility in the Gauteng City-Region
(2014-08) Gotz, Graeme; Wray, Chris; Venter, Christo; Badenhorst, Willem; Trangoš, Guy; Culwick, Christina
Mobility in the Gauteng City-Region has been written in a remarkable moment in the history of transport development in Gauteng. On the one hand the region appears to be in a new ‘golden era’ of transit infrastructure design and investment, as well as long-term planning for ever-growing commuter transport needs. On the other hand, the transport difficulties faced by the Gauteng City-Region’s (GCR) fast-growing population, as well as the many financial, spatial, social, economic and environmental challenges that flow from the region-wide architecture of this population’s daily commuting, appear to be growing ever more acute. It is, therefore, important to delineate the existing flows of traffic across the GCR; to understand the challenges of transport efficiency, access and affordability; and to gauge the impact of key transport interventions like the Gautrain Rapid Rail Link, the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Programme and associated e-tolling, and municipal Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) infrastructure. The report is structured as follows: a summary of recent transport infrastructure projects and key transport challenges are described in Chapter 1 written by Graeme Gotz and Chris Wray. The second and third chapters, by Prof Christo Venter and Willem Badenhorst, provide an in depth analysis of the 2011 Quality of Life survey transport questions, including the generation of a Quality of Transport Index. In Chapter 4, GCRO researcher Guy Trangoš provides a multi-scalar analysis of the public space design around four existing Gautrain stations – valuable research to be considered by authorities should the proposed extensions to the Gautrain go ahead. An often ignored but, from a sustainability perspective, an increasingly important aspect of transport is non-motorised transport (NMT). The report concludes with two NMT chapters by GCRO researcher Christina Culwick, exploring the state of NMT in the GCR and portraying the challenges and potential opportunities for the future of NMT in the city-region. It is not within the scope of a report such as this to review every strategic intervention, nor critically assess every challenge. However, a wide-ranging analysis of the current ‘state of mobility’ in the GCR, and the impact of key infrastructures – or the consequences of their absence – is warranted. Within the frame of the enormous scale of transport planning and infrastructure development underway, as well as the GCR’s many deep and enduring transport challenges, it is hoped that this report will make a contribution to understanding past and current trends, the impact of and (missed) opportunities in key infrastructure investments, and some of the key current priorities that need more attention in this new ‘golden age’ of transport planning.
Modelling urban spatial change: a review of international and South African modelling initiatives
(2013-08) Wray, Chris; Musango, Josephine; Damon, Kavesha; Cheruiyot, Koech
Urban growth and land use change models have the potential to become important tools for urban spatial planning and management. Before embarking on any modelling, however, GCRO felt it was important to take note of, and critically assess lessons to be learnt from international experience and scholarship on spatial modelling, as well as a number of South African experiments that model future urban development. In 2012, GCRO initiated preliminary research into current international and South African modelling trends through a desktop study and telephone, email and personal interviews. This Occasional paper sets out to investigate what urban spatial change modelling research is currently being undertaken internationally and within South Africa. At the international level, urban modelling research since 2000 is reviewed according to five main categories: land use transportation (LUT), cellular automata, urban system dynamics, agent-based models (ABMs) and spatial economics/econometric models (SE/EMs). Within South Africa, urban modelling initiatives are categorised differently and include a broader range of urban modelling techniques. Typologies used include: provincial government modelling initiatives in Gauteng; municipal government modelling initiatives; other government-funded modelling research; and academic modelling research. The various modelling initiatives described are by no means a comprehensive review of all urban spatial change modelling projects in South Africa, but provide a broad indication of the types of urban spatial change modelling underway. Importantly, the models may form the basis for more accurate and sophisticated urban modelling projects in the future. The paper concludes by identifying key urban modelling opportunities and challenges for short- to long-term planning in the GCR and South Africa.
The political economy of the Gauteng City-Region
(2010-07) Greenberg, Stephen
The Gauteng city-region (GCR) is a relatively new concept for South Africa, although the model has been growing in other parts of the world for over a decade. This paper considers some of the global debates about the importance of city-regions in the current economic and political context. It provides an overview of the concept and the context within which it has been deployed. Debates about the role of cities in the global economy are regarded. Some critical reflections on the city-region, both conceptually and in practice, are made along economic, social, ecological and governance dimensions. This forms the backdrop for an analysis of the growth of the GCR, again both conceptually and practically along the same dimensions, with an emphasis on two key drivers of the city-region, transportation and housing/settlement.
Quality of Life IV Survey (2015/16): City Benchmarking Report
(Gauteng City Region Observatory, 2018-09) Culwick, Christina
South Africa’s post-apartheid government has been successful in raising the standard of living for millions of people. It has provided them with access to housing and basic services, improved health and education, and developed social services and urban amenities where none existed before. However, there remain many thorny development challenges that government is, at least at present, poorly equipped to address. Consequently, there remains deep dissatisfaction among many residents, which at various times and in certain contexts has led to widespread community protests. This report stems from the premise that data, and analysis thereof, are critical for local and provincial governments in Gauteng to understand where progress has been made and where intervention is required. The City Benchmarking Report presents some key findings from the Quality of Life IV (2015/16) survey at the municipal and provincial levels. The results provide insight into a range of objective indicators such as access to basic services, travel patterns, and economic activity, as well as respondents’ subjective opinions, perceptions and levels of satisfaction. This combination allows us to gain a multi-dimensional understanding of quality of life in the province as well as some of the drivers that improve or worsen it. While there are many aspects of quality of life measured by the survey, this report focuses on specific issues related to municipal service access, satisfaction with services received, satisfaction with the municipality providing those services, and the relationship between access, satisfaction and overall quality of life. Although this report allows government, residents and stakeholders to compare municipalities with one another, its benchmarking analysis should not be read as a competitive scoring of cities, which in turn becomes a basis for municipalities to market themselves as having the ‘highest quality of life’, or to vie with one another over who has the best performance. Some municipalities do better on some variables, but worse on others. The point of this report is to help each municipality understand its own strengths and weaknesses in relation to others and to the broader Gauteng context.

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