Development from below as a regional planning approach in Southern Africa
Date
2015-01-19
Authors
de Beer, G R M
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Abstract
Starting from the background of the modernisation/dependency
debate, the author examines traditional top-down and bottom up
approaches to regional planning. The major findings of
this document are that South African regional policy has
been dominated by political rather than economic criteria.
Furthermore, the evidence indicates that regional policy has
shown particularly poor results, and will continue to do so.
The author finds that neither top-down nor bottom-up
approaches constitute a comprehensive approach to regional
development in Southern Africa. The suggested outcome is a
combination of the two approaches. The bottom-up school's
major contribution is seen to be the promotion of rural
development and community based decision making. The
Transkei case study however highlights the importance of a
simultaneous urbanisation policy to allow agriculture in
Transkei to become viable. Transkei's relative disadvantage
in attracting industry requires that the emphasis falls on
the existing metropolitan and secondary cities to
accommodate rapid urbanisation. Implicit from this is that
the South African government abandon the political ideal of
apartheid and concentrate on a more economically efficient
industrial location policy, whilst simultaneously providing
substantial support for rural development policies,
optimally within a more conducive institutional environment