BRICS CITIES F A C T S & A N A L Y S I S 2 0 1 6 BRICS CITIES F A C T S & A N A L Y S I S 2 0 1 6 South African Cities Network and University of the Witwatersrand (2017). BRICS Cities: Facts and Analysis 2016. South African Cities Network: Johannesburg. ISBN No. 978-0-620-72371-8 © 2017 by South African Cities Network. The BRICS Cities book is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution – Non-Commercial – Share-Alike 4.0 International Licence. To view a copy of this licence, visit creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Project Leader: Dr Geci Karuri-Sebina (South African Cities Network) Project Manager: Dr Yan Yang (University of Witwatersrand Wits City Institute) Lead Authors: Prof Philip Harrison (University of the Witwatersrand School of Architecture and Planning) Dr Yan Yang (University of Witwatersrand Wits City Institute) Section contributors: Chapter One: Prof Philip Harrison, Dr Yan Yang Chapter Two: Dr Yan Yang, Prof Philip Harrison Chapter Three: Prof Philip Harrison, Dr Yan Yang, Olga Koma (SACN) Brazil: Sergio Veloso (BRICS Policy Centre, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro), Karen Harrison (Indigo Consulting), Prof Philip Harrison Russia: Prof Philip Harrison, Dr Yan Yang India: Dr Margot Rubin (University of the Witwatersrand School of Architecture and Planning), Prof Philip Harrison, Bradley Peens China: Dr Yan Yang, Prof Philip Harrison, Dr Alex Parker (Wits School of Architecture and Planning) South Africa: Prof Philip Harrison, Dr Margot Rubin, Bradley Peens Additional research support: Miriam Maina (mapping), Charnelle Kluth (data), Masimba Sasa (photos) and BRICS Policy Centre Reviewers: Dr Kazuo Nakano (Centro Universitario Das Faculdades Metropolitan Unidas, Sao Paulo) Dr Fedor Kudryavtsev (Moscow Institute of Architecture), Dr. Zhaohui Liu (Chinese Society for Urban Studies) Copy Editor: Dave Buchanan Design, layout & DTP: Karien van der Westhuizen & Gerald Bedeker, the earth is round Picture editor: Dr Yan Yang Photos: Free photos from www.pixabay.com, www.megapixl.com Printing: Hansa Digital & Litho Printing http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ PR EF A C E PREFACE Following the early notion of a ‘BRICs’ league floated at Goldman Sachs in 2001, the idea of formal multilateral cooperation of these states developed over about a dec- ade. There were initially four states: the Federative Republic of Brazil, the Russian Federation, the Republic of India, and the People’s Republic of China. The Republic of South Africa was included in the club later, in 2010. The rationale was that these countries represented major emerging national economies, comprising a signifi- cant share of the world’s production and population. They were also considered to represent the potential for a new, powerful South-South geopolitical association that could form a pressure group or even an alternative to the dominance of the post-World War II, western-dominated Bretton Woods system. A joint statement of the 2011 BRICS Summit indicated that “It is the overarching objective and strong shared desire for peace, security, development and cooperation that brought to- gether BRICS countries with a total population of nearly three billion from dif- ferent continents. BRICS aims at contributing significantly to the development of humanity and establishing a more equitable and fair world.”1 The lofty expectations of what the BRICS might mean and accomplish were always somewhat tempered, however, by the reality that the BRICS countries are actually very different. The values, goals, resources, systems and structures of the five states vary, and are at variance in some cases.2 The experience (which has mainly involved a consistent convening of the annual BRICS Summits, and the establishment of the New Development Bank, headquartered in Shanghai), fora and analyses over the past half-decade are beginning to indicate the potentials and weaknesses of the alliance. In parallel with the evolution of the BRICS, the world has also been rapidly urbanising. There is increasing awareness of and concern with the processes of urban growth and development as a significant factor in local and global social, economic and political systems. It is on this basis that the BRICS Policy Centre (BPC) in Brazil created a city-focused BRICS programme – named BRICS-Ur- be – in 2013. The programme initiated the earliest conceptual work on the consideration of BRICS cities as a potentially useful analytical category upon which comparative and innovative policy work and exchange might be built.3 The South African Cities Network (SACN) has been interested in BRICS and the role of cities for a number of reasons. The learning approach of the SACN has always taken an interest in interna- tional practices, and particularly in the opportunities for South-South learning. In addition, the SACN and its member cities (South Africa’s largest cities) have regularly built direct networks (e.g. city-to-city cooperation) to support development cooperation and knowledge exchange. With this kind of active engagement at a sub-national level, it was important to find out what the new implications and prospects of a national-level BRICS formation might be for BRICS cities – which, in all cases, form a significant proportion of the BRICS countries’ respective national economies. 1. Sanya Declaration. BRICS Leaders Meeting, Sanya, Hainan, China, 14 April 2011. 2. Observer Research Foundation, A Long-term Vision for BRICS, 2013. 3. http://bricspolicycenter.org. Sao Paolo Mumbai Suzhou 32 BRICS CITIES : FACTS & ANALYSISBRICS CITIES : FACTS & ANALYSIS PR EF A C E While the importance of the urban dimension was being acknowledged within the high-level BRICS structures (e.g. with the establishment of an Urbanisation Forum, and as a topical area in the Ac- ademic Forum), cities themselves were not necessarily engaging directly in considering what the significance of the BRICS might be for them. It was through a partnership between the SACN and the BPC that the idea of this BRICS Cities book project began to take form. The BPC’s methodology in approaching new policy themes follows a simple cycle that begins with developing baseline ‘factsheets’ about the emerging area, on the basis of which emerging issues may be used to direct more detailed research investigations, whose findings might in turn be distilled to [in]form relevant policy papers and discussions. In 2014, the SACN initiated a similar cycle through the generation of BRICS city factsheets. In addition, the SACN decided to include some initial thematic investigations, based on areas that had been identified mutually between the SACN and the BPC. The idea was that besides compiling useful information, the process could also enable the development of the kinds of networks that might later enable useful research, dialogue and learning partnerships. In this sense, the project is exploratory; an am- bitious fishing expedition intended to surface information, questions and resources. In fact, the seemingly simple approach of producing factsheets turned out to be quite intense and complicated. A first challenge for the project was in defining its scope – there are many, many cit- ies across the BRICS. Defining logical and feasible criteria for prioritisation, and then selecting the ‘facts’ (data and indicators) to consider for the study were very difficult processes, which ultimately relied on the best collective judgement supported by limited existing knowledge. Then, the com- pilation of the data and information across five countries and over thirty cities was an extremely time-consuming and intensive process, riddled with a range of challenges regarding data availabili- ty and reliability. The contextual knowledge required to support the assessment and interpretation of information was also a challenge for a South Africa-driven and -based team. Various peers and institutions in all the BRICS countries were invaluable in providing research support and reviews, and in this regard it proved useful to be able to leverage existing university research linkages. In addition to the BRICS nexus, however, the SACN also wished to include consideration of African cities more broadly. This was motivated on the basis of South Africa’s peculiar role in BRICS. South Africa has always been an obvious dwarf among its BRICS peers, having by far the smallest economy and population. Its presence in the BRICS was often justified by its characterisation as a ‘gateway’: the idea that South Africa represents an entry point to Africa, which continent as a whole then be- gins to measure up to the growth figures and significance of the other four states4. However, the size mismatch is not only at a national level; it is also the case that several African cities are much larger and faster-growing than South Africa’s largest cities. Given these anomalies, it seemed relevant to at least consider how the BRICS Cities story might consider an expanded regional consideration of South Africa’s potential role and significance. However, this did complicate things even further. So the project was an ambitious one. And while there is certainly value in the work ultimately presented here, there are of course also numerous limitations in the project-based ‘expedition’ approach taken. Firstly, while the study begins to develop some insights from its attempt to de- scribe and compare the cities in terms of the data and themes, this does not mean that compa- rability could be either assumed or ascertained. As mentioned previously, the BRICS countries are quite different. These differences in make-up and history significantly influence how the data and trends can be read and understood. And there are other variables which might also be important to consider. The study does not attempt to contend fully with these issues, which would need to be considered as more in-depth research is pursued. Given the variability in the data and information that could be found or accessed, as well as the team’s somewhat imbalanced contextual knowledge and networks, the evenness of our consider- ation of the countries and thirty-one cities is not necessarily borne out in our findings, analysis and reporting. Some sections may be more substantial or insightful than others; but this is accepted, given the project’s constraints and exploratory intentions. Gathering data for African cities was a particular challenge, and further exploration in this regard may be useful. 4. Oliver Stuenkel, Post-Western World, 2012. The book also acknowledges that the main analytical themes chosen (transportation, green energy and innovation-driven economies) were pre-selected and imposed, rather than derived through any inductive process. As stated in the thematic chapter, other themes may have been as – or even more – relevant in studying BRICS urban dynamics. However, the three themes were deemed a good-enough starting point, based on the work and interests of the SACN and the BPC; and they cover the key considerations of productivity, inclusion and sustainability, which are among the key SACN thematic dimensions for city performance. This selection yielded some useful initial analysis, but of course this could be expanded or refined further. There were also other specific limitations within the themes. For example, while a concept such as ‘innovation’ is acknowledged (particularly in India, Brazil and South Africa) to also include significant socio-economic activities in the non-formal sector, the standard economic measures do not account for these, and it was therefore difficult to include a consideration of informality in that particular thematic analysis. Again, limitations of this particular kind would have to be taken up in any future work. The South African Research Chair in Spatial Analysis and City Planning of the University of the Witwatersrand was a welcome partner in the early days of the project, given the unit’s own on- going research and partnerships in various BRICS countries. The unit’s conceptual, research and analytical capacity and support were crucial to the project’s success. The Research Chair has been instrumental in setting up the BRICS+ City Lab, a partnership between research institutions across major cities in the BRICS, and convening the partners (to date) in Shanghai (2016) and Moscow (2017). This partnership is currently exploring processes of ‘adaptive governance’ within BRICS cities. In addition, the Research Chair (supported by the Gauteng Provincial Government and the Gauteng City Region Observatory) is engaged in work towards a book on the governance of large city-regions across the BRICS. Such work would be an important complement to this initial exploration of BRICS cities. BRICS Cities represents the beginning of a journey of understanding and learning. Even in the face of uncertainties about the future and promise of the broader BRICS formation, this sub-na- tional contribution opens the doors to a line of enquiry on the subject, at what might perhaps be a more tractable level for policy/planning analysis and learning. Shanghai Chennai Moscow 54 BRICS CITIES : FACTS & ANALYSISBRICS CITIES : FACTS & ANALYSIS CONTENTS PREFACE 3 CONTENTS 6 PART A: CHAPTER ONE CITIES IN THE BRICS: A COMPARATIVE OVERVIEW 9 INTRODUCTION 10 HISTORIES 14 POPULATION 20 SPATIAL FORM 32 ECONOMY 35 URBAN GOVERNANCE 41 DEVELOPMENT CHALLENGES 42 CONCLUSION 50 KEY REFERENCES 51 ANNEXURE 52 PART A: CHAPTER TWO THEMATIC ANALYSIS: TRANSPORTATION, GREEN ENERGY AND INNOVATION ECONOMIES 65 INTRODUCTION 66 TRANSPORTATION 68 GREEN ENERGY 81 INNOVATION ECONOMIES 91 CONCLUSION 106 KEY REFERENCES 107 ANNEXURE 108 PART A: CHAPTER THREE AFRICA’S CITIES AND THE BRICS 113 INTRODUCTION 114 AFRICA’S URBAN CONTEXT 115 CITIES IN AFRICA AND THE BRICS 126 CONCLUSION 136 KEY REFERENCES 137 ANNEXURE 138 PART B COMPENDIUM OF CITY FACT SHEETS 141 BRAZIL 142 THE EXTENDED METROPOLITAN REGION OF SÃO PAULO 144 SÃO PAULO METROPOLITAN REGION 145 GREATER RIO DE JANEIRO 155 BRASÍLIA METROPOLITAN REGION 163 CURITIBA METROPOLITAN REGION 169 SALVADOR METROPOLITAN REGION 176 THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION 184 MOSCOW URBAN AGGLOMERATION 186 SAINT-PETERSBURG URBAN AGGLOMERATION 194 NOVOSIBIRSK URBAN AGGLOMERATION 202 INDIA 208 DELHI 210 MUMBAI 218 BENGALURU 226 CHENNAI 233 KOLKATA 241 HYDERABAD 248 CHINA 256 BEIJING-TIANJIN-HUBEI EXTENDED CITY REGION 258 BEIJING 260 TIANJIN 271 YANGTZE RIVER DELTA EXTENDED CITY REGION 277 SHANGHAI 279 HANGZHOU 288 SUZHOU 295 PEARL RIVER DELTA EXTENDED CITY REGION 302 GUANGZHOU 304 SHENZHEN 311 CHONGQING 319 CHENGDU 327 SHENYANG 334 WUHAN 340 XI’AN 348 SOUTH AFRICA 356 GAUTENG CITY-REGION (GCR) 358 JOHANNESBURG 360 EKURHULENI (EAST RAND) 368 CAPE TOWN 375 CITY OF TSHWANE (GREATER PRETORIA) 383 CITY OF ETHEKWINI 390 PART A: CHAPTER ONE CITIES IN THE BRICS: A COMPARATIVE OVERVIEW C IT IE S IN T H E B R IC S: A C O M PA R A TI V E O V ER V IE W the case of the Gauteng City Region (GCR), we have provided Factsheets for each of the three major cities – although strictly speaking, these cities form a single, entangled multi-nodal agglomeration. In the case of China’s large city-regions there are multiple interconnected cities and urban agglom- erations, and it was not possible to provide a Factsheet for each. For the Pearl River Delta we have provided a Factsheet which includes two of the urban agglomerations, and for the Yangtze River Delta we have included three. SELECTING THE CITIES The cities selected for Factsheets were chosen on the basis of an initial scan across the urban centres of the BRICS. It was not a simple case of taking the Top Thirty, for example. The Top Thirty in terms of population is very different from the Top Thirty in terms of economy. In terms of population the distribution of the Top Thirty would be China (17 cities), India (9), Brazil (2), Russia (1) and South Africa (1)1. In terms of economy the dominance of China is even more extreme, with the numbers of cities in the Top Thirty ranked as China (23), Brazil (3), India (2), Russia (1) and South Africa (1). We decided that instead of taking a simple ranking as the basis for inclusion, we would try to ensure a reasonable distribution across countries, with variation also across different types of cities (e.g. fast- and slow-growing, with different economic drivers). The final calculation was China (12), India (6), Brazil (5), South Africa (5) and Russia (3), giving a total of 31 cities. The selection was as follows: » China . . . . . . . . . Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Suzhou, Hangzhou, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Wuhan, Chongqing, Chengdu, Xi’an and Shenyang. » India . . . . . . . . . . Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru (Bangalore), Chennai and Hyderabad » Brazil . . . . . . . . . São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Brasilia, Curitiba and Salvador. » South Africa . . . Johannesburg, Tshwane (Pretoria), Ekurhuleni (East Rand), Cape Town, and eThekwini (Durban) » Russia . . . . . . . . Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk In retrospect, there are limitations to this selection. We made a decision, for example, to focus on the cities in mainland China. However, it is apparent that Hong Kong is so closely connected with the other large cities in southern China that it cannot be separated analytically. Hong Kong is the 22nd-largest city in the BRICS in population terms; and more significantly, the fourth-largest in terms of urban economy. Other Chinese cities that could be considered for incorporation in any revision to this document include Nanjing, Foshan, Dalian, Dongguan and Qingdao. The initial se- lection of cities from India was confirmed during the course of the study; but in the case of Brazil, Belo Horizonte – the third-largest city in the country – was not included. Admittedly, South Africa is over-represented in the sampling (a case of home-territory advantage!). The difficulty in relation to the Russian Federation is that there are only two large cities, in BRICS terms (Moscow and St. Petersburg), with a fairly large number of small cities following at a long distance. To provide some cross-national balance we added Novosibirsk to the selection, but this still totals only three cities from Russia. We have tried to compensate for some of the imbalance by including all major cities (not only those in the Factsheets) within the data tables and data sheets in Section A. A number of the cities selected do link together within broader city-regions or clusters. These are: Beijing and Tianjin, as part of the wider Jing-Jin-Ji City Cluster; Shanghai, Suzhou and Hangzhou, as part of the Yangtze River Delta Region; Shenzhen and Guangzhou, as part of the Pearl River Delta; and Johannesburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni, as part of the GCR. Although separate Factsheets are pro- vided for the individual cities, their interconnectedness within the wider city-regions is emphasised, including in the use of coversheets for the regions. 1. South Africa would only qualify for one if Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni were regarded as a single urban agglomeration. INTRODUCTION This compendium and analysis of Cities in the BRICS was developed through a part- nership between the South African Cities Network (SACN) and the South African Re- search Chair in Spatial Analysis and City Planning (SA&CP) at the University of the Witwatersrand. Since South Africa joined the BRICS in 2010, multiple connections have been forged between South Africa and its alliance partners. However, although there is a growing volume of engagements, there is still inadequate knowledge and understanding across the BRICS. There is a common understanding, for example, that BRICS countries share a range of challenges and possibilities in relation to urbanisation and urban growth; but real knowledge of each other’s urban contexts remains sparse. For example, there is a BRICS Urbanisation Forum and various sister-city agreements across the BRICS, as well as frequent inter-BRICS study tours; but we need to support ongoing ‘deep learning’ across city contexts. The initiative that has led to this publication was intended first to support city municipalities in South Africa in expanding their knowledge of counterpart cities in the other BRICS, and building the capacity for learning from these other cities. However, we hope that cities outside South Africa will also benefit from this material, and that it will be useful to the many other players in city development inside and outside government. This publication has two parts. Part A is the comparative and analytical overview of urban de- velopment across the BRICS, also in relation to cities in Africa. This first chapter is a comparative introduction to large cities in the BRICS, providing an overview of different histories, demographic processes, economies and development challenges. Through a comparative perspective, the second chapter addresses three areas of thematic focus, namely transportation, green energy and inno- vation economies. Of course there are multiple themes that could be addressed in a report such as this, but these were selected for initial consideration for their immediate relevance to areas of concern and policy initiative among the member cities of the SACN. The third chapter compares and relates BRICS cities to Africa’s cities. This addresses one of the challenges of South Africa’s member- ship of the BRICS: South Africa is not comparable in size to other countries in the BRICS, especially China and India, with the real comparator in terms of economy and population being the entire continent of Africa. Part B is the compendium of Factsheets on thirty-one of the BRICS cities. Each Factsheet has two sections. First, there is general information on each city, including on history, population, spatial form, economy, urban governance, and developmental challenges. Secondly, there is the section which deals with the three selected themes. DELINEATING THE URBAN AGGLOMERATIONS The Factsheets deal with urban agglomerations rather than municipal areas. An agglomeration is the full extent of a contiguous spatial spread of urban development around a core city, which only very rarely coincides with the boundaries of a municipality; when we use the term ‘city’ in this re- port, we mainly mean the urban agglomeration. In many case the urban agglomeration is far larger than the area governed by the core urban municipalities, as urban development has spilled over the municipal boundaries. However, there are cases where the municipal boundary has been widely drawn, and the municipal area is actually larger than the urban agglomeration. But there are a few complications. In the case of Gauteng in South Africa, and the Pearl River Delta and Yangtze River Delta in China, urban agglomerations have meshed together in spatially complex city-regions. In 1110 PART A: CHAPTER 1BRICS CITIES : FACTS & ANALYSIS 2016 C IT IE S IN T H E B R IC S: A C O M PA R A TI V E O V ER V IE W sumptions behind the data mix which are open to question. For example, the Fortune 500 and the Forbes Global 2000 global firm rankings are different, as a result of the varying criteria used to determine the strength of firms. Maps prepared with data layers from OpenStreetMap (http://download.geofabrik.de/) and GADM database of Global Administrative Areas (http://gadm.org/home). We have had to make judgements in the use of data, but we have tried in the overall picture to ensure the use of the most updated and verifiable data, although this was balanced at times against the need for comparability. The detail on how this was done is provided in the sections below, which broadly follow the structure of the individual Factsheets. REFERENCING The Factsheets are information- and data-rich, and every piece of information in every sentence is informed by some source. We have decided not to overload the Factsheets with referencing. However, the key sources of data are apparent in this introductory chapter, and the Factsheets for each country are followed by lists of the major references used. DATA Sourcing, harmonising and presenting data is a difficult task, with two major challenges. The first is the challenge of cross-national comparison. Data is collected mainly on a national basis, using national definitions and protocols, and against different time frames. Secondly, some data sources are not disaggregated to city level. So, for example, Oxford University has developed an extensive database on poverty, but this is disaggregated to regional rather than city level. In the case of economic innovation, for example, city governments in China have developed a set of indices (e.g. spending on R&D as a proportion of the city economy); but in the other BRICS, this data exists only at national or provincial/state level. We discuss the data issues in relation to each area of study in each of the sections below, but it should be noted that the primary sources of quantitative information for each country were the following: » Brazil . . . . . . . . The Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE), which conducted its last national census in 2010 [www.ibge.gov.br]; » Russia . . . . . . . . The Federal State Statistical Service (Rosstat), which conducted its last na- tional census in 2010 [www.gks.ru/wps/wcm/connect/rosstat_main/rosstat/ en/main/]; » India . . . . . . . . . The Central Statistics Office (CSO), which conducted the last national cen- sus in 2011, but also reports of the Indian Planning Commission and a variety of other state-level bureaus; » China . . . . . . . . The National Bureau of Statistics of the People’s Republic of China (NBS), which conducted the last national census in 2010; » South Africa . . . Statistics South Africa (Stats SA), which conducted the last national census in 2011. There have been some attempts to harmonise data across the BRICS, most notably the BRICS Joint Statistical Publication [www.gks.ru/free_doc/doc_2015/BRICS_ENG.pdf], but this data source has not been expanded yet to municipal or city level. City-level data has also been a key source of information, although there is considerable varia- tion between cities in the extent and availability of data. In China, for example, each city has a Local Bureau of Statistics, which produces an Annual Statistical Yearbook. In South Africa, this local statistical base is lacking; but there is valuable information on cities in the various municipal plans available online, and in the work of agencies such as the SACN and the Gauteng City-Re- gion Observatory (GCRO). While we have drawn heavily on the data sources indicated above, we were constrained by the many differences between the national statistical systems. Harmonising data for cities across national boundaries was a task too complicated for this study, so we did rely to some extent on agencies that have done so for some sectors, or indicators at least (for example, the UN Popula- tion Division for the population of urban agglomerations, the Brookings Institution for econom- ic data, UN Habitat for development indicators, and the World Health Organisation for air quali- ty). Unfortunately there are many areas (e.g. modal share of transport, energy data at city level, innovation indicators) for which comparative data is either lacking or inadequately developed. There are a number of private or quasi-private agencies that have entered the market, providing data – often in the form of rankings – for some of these areas. Examples include: the BRT Global Data, which includes modal-share breakdowns in transport for a number of large cities; the Global Traffic Congestion Index, prepared by the mapping company TomTom; the Forbes Maga- zine rankings of wealthiest individuals and leading firms; the Innovation Cities Index, prepared by the innovation agency 2thinknow; the QS BRICS University rankings; rankings of container ports by Lloyds and the World Shipping Council; rankings of airports by the Airports Council International; and so forth. In some instances the criteria for ranking are clear (e.g. passenger traffic for airports); but in others, ranking is a complex matter using multiple criteria, with as- Johannesburg 1312 PART A: CHAPTER 1BRICS CITIES : FACTS & ANALYSIS 2016 C IT IE S IN T H E B R IC S: A C O M PA R A TI V E O V ER V IE W In 1739 the Maratha sacked Delhi, displacing the Mughals. However, there were competing centres of power, with a Muslim aristocracy, the Nizams of Hyderabad, maintaining their autonomy, con- necting into political and trading networks through Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. Russia gradually emerged as a political entity from the 12th century. Also at this time, Moscow was established, although it was destroyed by Mongol invaders in the 13th century. The Grand Duchy of Moscow remained a vassal to the Mongols until the 15th century, when the Tsardom of Russia was established. Tsar Peter the Great built a huge empire, but moved the capital from Moscow to St Petersburg in 1712, after which St. Petersburg eclipsed Moscow in imperial grandeur and popula- tion size. In the 19th century the Russian Empire expanded across Asia, bringing wealth and power to its core cities. COLONIAL CITIES In the long sweep of history, the West only eclipsed China and India in power and wealth by the 19th century. However, from the 16th century the West was expanding its geographical power through colonial expansion, with the process of colonisation producing new urban centres. Brazil’s colonisation began in 1500, when the first European arrived under the patronage of the King of Portugal. Salvador was founded in 1549, as the first capital of the Colony of Brazil; and with its large port, it became the hub of Brazil’s slave trade with Africa. São Paulo was established in 1554 by Jesuit missionaries, with Rio de Janeiro founded a decade later. In 1783 the capital was moved from Salvador to Rio de Janeiro, refocusing colonial attention from the north to the south of the colony. São Paulo and Rio became the base from which the Portuguese explored and exploited the southern interior of Brazil. Their growth until the end of the nineteenth century was driven by the success of a slave economy, with the development of gold mines, and coffee and sugar plantations in the near hinterland. In 1652, the Dutch East India Company established a small trading post between Europe and Bat- avia (Java) at Cape Town, providing a base for a gradual expansion of Dutch settlement into the southern African interior. And from the beginning of the 17th century, the British East India Com- pany began extending its trading networks through East Asia, establishing key enclaves of control in Bombay (Mumbai), Calcutta (Kolkata) and Madras (Chennai). By the mid-18th century, the British East India Company was in effective control of large portions of India, with its own private army and administrative apparatus. In 1803, Company troops entered Delhi, defeating the Maratha. In the 19th century, Great Britain came to dominate the colonial enterprise. In 1806, during the Napoleonic Wars, Great Britain took control of the Cape, with Cape Town becoming the colonial capital. In 1824, a small British trading post was established at the Bay of Natal, around which the City of Durban eventually developed. In 1858, the British Crown assumed direct control of India, although there were a number of prince- ly states (including Hyderabad) which formally retained their autonomy. The capital of the so-called British Raj was Calcutta (Kolkata), where the new Indian elite emerged who were to form the vanguard of rising Indian nationalism. During the period of the British Raj, Indian cities developed along segregated lines, with dense settlements of Indian population and wealthy colonial enclaves known as cantonments. In Brazil, however, direct colonial rule was coming to an end. In 1822 the Empire of Brazil was formed, independently of Portugal; and in 1889 the Republic of Brazil was created. Rio de Janeiro remained the national capital. China did not experience direct colonisation in the way Brazil, India and South Africa did, but there were destructive colonial intrusions from the early 19th century. In the 18th century, the major relationship between China and West was through trade, with contact restricted to Canton (Guangzhou), which was China’s only port open to international trade. In the early 19th century Great Britain developed a lucrative trade exporting opium into China, and war erupted when the Chinese imperial government banned this trade. Defeated in 1839, China was forced to open other HISTORIES Starting with histories helps us move beyond the simplistic statements of what our commonalities are. It is frequently stated, for example, that we are ‘all in it to- gether’ because we are experiencing unprecedented rates of urbanisation. This may have been true in the mid- to late 20th century, but it is not true today. We need to begin by understanding that the BRICS are a diverse cluster of countries, with their cities even more variant in their histories and current forms. It is this diversity which provokes arguably the most interesting comparative insights. Understanding the histories is also at least a partial antidote to the current tendency to compare cities by placing them in league tables in relation to each other. It is difficult, of course, to avoid the use of league tables, indexes and rankings, as much of the comparative information across cit- ies – especially on a scale such as that of the BRICS – is contained within them. We use them quite extensively in this document, as a means of gaining perspective on cities in relation to each other. However, we use them with a degree of uneasiness for the way in which this form of comparison ignores history, and assumes that the worth of a city is inherent to its position within a ranking. As Jennifer Robinson reminds us in her book Ordinary Cities, we should not view a particular place as a pale or inadequate imitation of the city at the top of the league table; but rather as a city-in-itself, with its own history that has produced the configuration that it is. CLASSICAL CITIES The urban history of the BRICS goes back millennia, with China and India having some of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world. Beijing and Xi’an in China, for example, were both found- ed around 1300 to 1000 BC (or more than three thousand years ago). Delhi’s origins are shrouded in myth but may go back to 800 BC, which was the beginning of the Classical Age of Ancient India associated with the urban civilisation in the Indus Valley. Histories rank Xi’an (Chang’an) in China as the largest city in the world in 1000 BC. It remained one of the greatest cities for over 1000 years, competing in earlier times with Babylon in present-day Iraq, and then with Rome and Alexandria on the Mediterranean (Chandler, 1987). By the first century AD, Rome had consolidated its power as the world’s leading city; but for nearly a millennium and a half, between 500 AD and around 1850 AD, China’s cities dominated in size and imperial splendour. The great cities of the world were Xi’an, Hangzhou, Nanjing and Beijing, with Chengdu, Suzhou and Wuhan also important trading cities. Competing with the Chinese cities were Delhi in India and Istanbul (previously Constantinople) in Turkey. Only by the beginning of the 19th century did cities in the Western powers overtake those in China, largely as a result of the massive economic success of colonial enterprise2 (Chandler, 1987). The cities rose and fell as political dynasties and trading networks changed. The Mongol invasion of China in the 13th century, for example, led to the destruction of great cities, but also to the rise of Beijing as an imperial capital. India had a complex history with multiple competing states. However, power gradually consolidated in the north of India, with Delhi as the political centre. In the 12th and 13th centuries Central Asian Turks invaded north India and established the Delhi Sultanate. By the 16th century the Mughal Em- pire was its peak, controlling nearly the entire Indian sub-continent, with Delhi as one of its capitals. 2. London emerged in the 19th century as the largest city in the world, overtaken in the early- to mid-20th century by New York and Tokyo. 1514 PART A: CHAPTER 1BRICS CITIES : FACTS & ANALYSIS 2016 C IT IE S IN T H E B R IC S: A C O M PA R A TI V E O V ER V IE W India had a traumatic birth as an independent nation in 1947, with the partition between mainly Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan. There were mass flows of refugees from and into cities, which played a major role in shaping the nature of current urban agglomerations. Hyderabad presented a curious case, as the Nizams resisted incorporation into India, prompting the Indian army to occu- py the city. Some cities in India benefited from post-colonial rule and others lost position. Delhi’s power and prestige was assured in 1949 when it was confirmed as the capital of the Union of India. Kolkata was the city that suffered the greatest loss in economic power, with civil strife, mass influx of refugees, and a state government hostile to business. After independence India continued to urbanise slowly, with a strong bias towards rural areas. CHINA China went through a turbulent period from the mid-19th to the mid-20th centuries, with many of its great cities in decline – though there were periods of growth for some cities. Wuhan, for ex- ample, emerged in the late 19th century as China’s first modern industrial city, with heavy industry such as steelmaking linked to coal mining. Nanjing became the national capital during republican rule in the early 20th century, while Shanghai maintained its international and cosmopolitan repu- tation until the Japanese occupation in the late 1930s. During Maoist rule there was a short period of industry-led urbanisation in the 1950s, following the Soviet model, but the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and 70s was associated with anti-urban policies, and the numbers of urban dwellers in China actually decreased in this period. Cities such as Shanghai were neglected – and declined, rela- tively – but there were some cities which did benefit. For example, heavy industry was concentrated in Manchuria in the north of China, with Shenyang, for instance, developing as a major industrial hub and as the third-largest city in the country. Mao Zedong also moved industry away from the coast into the more secure interior, benefiting cities such as Chongqing, Chengdu and Xi’an. Beijing benefited at Nanjing’s expense in 1949, when it was confirmed as the new capital of the People’s Republic of China. SOUTH AFRICA South Africa’s modern urban economy emerged in the late 19th century with the discovery of dia- monds and gold in the hinterland. Johannesburg was founded in 1886, along with a string of other gold-mining towns along the Witwatersrand. South Africa also followed ISI strategies from around ports to the West – including Shanghai, which expanded rapidly into a large, cosmopolitan city, eclipsing ancient cities such as Hangzhou and Suzhou. As imperial China weakened, the colonial powers intruded further, with Anglo-French forces infamously looting the Old Summer Palace in Beijing in 1860. THE RISE OF MODERN CITIES (LATE- 19TH TO LATE-20TH CENTURIES) In the late 19th and early- to mid- 20th centuries, the ancient and colonial cities of the BRICS coun- tries evolved into cities with modern economies. BRAZIL The catalyst for Brazil’s dramatic urbanisation, with the growth of the mega-cities of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, was the introduction of policies of Import Substitution Industrialisation (ISI) in the 1930s. These policies involved the replacement of imports with domestically produced goods, leading to the growth of manufacturing, which drew millions of people into the cities. However, Brazil was ‘careless’ in its management of urbanisation, and its cities developed under a military dictatorship, with huge socio-spatial inequalities – infamously associated with the mass growth of favelas (or informal settlements) on spatially marginal land (Turok, 2014). Brasília was established in 1960 as one of the world’s newest cities, as part of an ambitious plan to occupy and modernise the thinly-populated interior. The relocation of the national capital to Brasília meant a loss of position for Rio de Janeiro. Brasília’s emergence as a modern city was paral- leled by the rise of other, secondary cities. Curitiba, for example, was a small provincial city in 1950 but grew rapidly from that time, acquiring global recognition for its urban innovation, including the world’s first Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system. Across Brazil, however, innovation and development was stifled by the military dictatorship which came into power in 1964. RUSSIA Russia’s economy had grown slowly through the nineteenth century, with the vast territories of the Russian Empire remaining largely rural and agricultural. Towards the end of the 19th century, there were reforms which allowed for the growth of industry – and of the working class, which was to topple the Tsars in the 1917 revolution. There was also large-scale expansion of rail and road networks which supported economic growth. Novosibirsk, for example, developed from the mid- 19th century as a strategic crossing point on the Ob River along the Trans-Siberian Railway, which connected the vast territories of the Russian Empire. Under Soviet rule the economy was centrally planned, and there were periods of ‘forced industrialisation’ which led to the rapid growth of large cities, as well as the creation of new industrial cities. From the 1970s, however, Russia’s economy skewed away from industry towards oil and gas, responding to the huge fuel-price increases in this decade. Moscow benefited enormously from the relocation of the capital from St. Petersburg in 1918, and eclipsed its competitor city in growth. INDIA India’s modern urban economy began developing in the mid-19th century. In 1854, the first cotton mills opened in Bombay (Mumbai), with the city developing as the world’s chief cotton production and trading market. Industry also developed around the ports of Calcutta (Kolkata) and Madras (Chennai). As poor rural people flocked to these developing cities, huge slums emerged which still characterise urban India. In the late 19th century India’s massive railway system was built, which was a further catalyst for economic development, linking the colonial enclaves into a national economic system. Hyderabad, famous for pearl and diamond dealing, was also linked into the wider economy and developed an industrial sector. Shenzhen 1716 PART A: CHAPTER 1BRICS CITIES : FACTS & ANALYSIS 2016 C IT IE S IN T H E B R IC S: A C O M PA R A TI V E O V ER V IE W CHINA In China, Maoist rule ended in the 1970s, when Deng Xiaoping led China into a new era of experimental reform, associated with the opening of the national economy to the world and dramatic economic growth. The urban growth in this era was launched in 1980 with the desig- nation of Shenzhen as a Special Economic Zone (SEZ). Shenzhen became China’s ‘instant city’, developing in decades from a small fishing town into a large international city. Soon, the entire expanded city-region known as the Pearl River Delta had developed into a mega-urban agglom- eration, with the rapid growth of cities including Guangzhou, Dongguan and Foshan. Beijing and its gateway, Tianjin, also developed rapidly during the reform era, with the headquarters of China’s massive State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) driving the growth of business services, in- cluding the finance industry. In 1991 Shanghai was designated for development, ending decades of neglect. The Pudong New Area expanded dramatically as one of East Asia’s leading hubs of financial services. There was also a revival in the fortunes of the ancient cities of Suzhou and Hangzhou, which devel- oped around technology-intensive manufacturing and cultural industries. Through the 1980s and 1990s the focus of growth was on the east coast of China, around the port serving the new export-oriented industry. Cities in the interior lagged behind, creating new spatial inequalities. But in 2000 the ‘Go West’ policy was launched, which brought massive new investments into cities such as Chongqing, Chengdu and Xi’an – with Chongqing, for exam- ple, emerging as possibly as the world’s fastest-growing large-city economy. Not all cities have prospered in the reform era, however: cities dependent on state-owned heavy industry, such as Shenyang, have suffered employment loss and a relative decline in population. SOUTH AFRICA Apartheid rule came to an end in the early 1990s, with South Africa’s first democratic election in 1994. With the removal of controls on rural-urban migration during the final years of apartheid rule, there was acceleration in the rate of urbanisation. Much of the growth has focused in the GCR, where Johannesburg has reinforced its position as the business hub of South Africa, with the financial sector as a leading driver of growth. Pretoria (Tshwane) diversified away from gov- ernment services, while the East Rand (Ekurhuleni) has sustained a large manufacturing sector. The performance of the coastal cities has been variable; although Cape Town has consolidated its position as a global tourism hub. SUMMARY BRICS cities are too diverse to be regarded as an analytical category, but there are interesting points of comparison. The multiple histories suggest, for example, that access to political power has been an important factor in the performance of cities in the BRICS. Cities that have served as national capitals, for instance, have generally done well; and when they have lost this status, they have often experienced periods of decline. Broadly speaking there are two categories of cities – those which had their origins in precolonial times, and those that are a product of colonialism. But since many of the precolonial cities have been affected by colonialism in some way during their long history, the effects of these diverse origins are blurred. To some degree, at least, the colonial experience is a point of commonality across BRICS cities (with Russia as an exception, and China as a partial exception). The other point of commonality comes from the far-reaching political and economic transitions that all BRICS countries (even India, if we count the economic liberalisation of the 1990s) expe- rienced towards the end of the 20th century. Urban processes have been significantly shaped by these transitions, although in diverse ways. the 1940s, with the emergence of the East Rand (Ekurhuleni) as a major hub of industry by the 1960s, and industrial growth around the port cities of Durban (eThekwini) and Cape Town. Pretoria (Tshwane) and Cape Town were affirmed as joint capitals of the Union of South Africa in 1910, and retain key government functions. In 1948 the apartheid government came to power, and South Africa’s cities were restructured along racial lines, creating massive urban inequalities. There were also controls on the movement of black Africans into cities, which slowed urbanisation processes. RUPTURES IN THE LATE 20TH CENTURY (AND 21ST CENTURY DEVELOPMENT) There were far-reaching political changes towards the end of the 20th century that were to change the trajectories of urban development. BRAZIL In Brazil, the military dictatorship came to an end in 1985. A new national constitution, which guaranteed personal freedom and which constituted the federal structure of Brazil, was approved in 1988. Within civil society structures in Brazil a National Urban Reform movement evolved, which rejected the idea of the city as a source of profit for the privileged and which called for ‘rights to the city’. In 2003, the Workers Party (PT) came to power under President Lula da Silva, who initiated a series of progressive urban reforms including the regularisation and upgrading of the favelas. By the 2000s Brazil was a highly urbanised country, and the growth of large cities had slowed down considerably. However, within large cities there has been continued restructuring – with industry in São Paulo, for example, moving to the metropolitan edge, and the core city evolving as a hub of high-end tertiary activities such as financial services. Many of Brazil’s cities suffered de-industrialisa- tion in the 1980s, but stabilised and continued to grow in the 2000s; although the recent economic crisis in Brazil may have reversed some of these gains. RUSSIA In Russia, Soviet rule came to a dramatic end in 1991. Multi-party electoral politics was established by the shock therapy of a sudden introduction of a capitalist economy, which led to an economic cri- sis in the 1990s and the rise of private oligarchies. For many of Russia’s cities these events were dra- matic. St. Petersburg, for example, had developed as a hub of state-owned heavy industry, and the transition in the 1990s brought severe economic distress. Novosibirsk was a centre of defence-re- lated industries, and was also badly affected. Moscow was the exception: in 1991 it was confirmed as the capital of the Russian Federation, and it consolidated its position as the financial, economic and political heart of Russia and the gateway to the global economy. In the 2000s, cities including St. Petersburg and Novosibirsk successfully transitioned to new economies, but many poorly-located cities in Russia’s interior continued to experience decline. INDIA India is a possible exception to these trends, as it did not experience such a dramatic break in the late 20th century as the other BRICS did. However, there was a far-reaching shift in policy in 1991, with the launch – after four decades of strong state involvement in the economy – of a programme of economic liberalisation. This led to offshore investment in India by multinational companies, and the rise of cities such as Bengaluru (Bangalore), Chennai and Hyderabad as hubs of a ‘new econo- my’. Nevertheless, the majority of the urban population in India remained in low-end service and informal employment. 1918 PART A: CHAPTER 1BRICS CITIES : FACTS & ANALYSIS 2016 C IT IE S IN T H E B R IC S: A C O M PA R A TI V E O V ER V IE W Figure 1.1: Anticipated urban population change in millions for BRICS countries, 2015-2050 Source: UN Population Division, 2016 Figure 1.2 below reveals the urbanisation trends in the BRICS between 1950 and 2015, with com- parison to overall trends for the World and for Middle-Income Countries (see also DATA SHEET ONE in the Annexure at the end of the chapter). It reveals again the diversity in the BRICS, and the risks of generalisation. Figure 1.2: Levels of urbanisation in BRICS countries, 1950-2015 Data source: UN Population Division, 2016 Urbanisation levels in the world have trended up, from around 30% to the current 54%, and mid- dle- income countries in aggregate from 19% to 51%. Within the BRICS, of course, the overall pat- tern has been the upward trend; but with significant differences in terms of rate of increase, and even with periods of decline for individual countries. In 1950, Russia, South Africa and India were more urbanised than the world average, but were all less than 50%. Russia experienced a sustained POPULATION DATA The key source of population data in the BRICS is the national census reports of the respective countries. The difficulty in relating this data to cities in the BRICS is that urban agglomerations are not contained within formal institutional boundaries. However, the UN Population Division World Urbanisation Prospects reports do provide comparative data across all countries globally on urban agglomerations with more than 300 000 people, matching population figures with the actual ex- tent of the urban spread. A time series is provided since 1950, with projections to 2030 for cities and to 2050 for countries and global regions. EMBEDDED IN THE NATIONAL The demography of cities does need to be understood in relation to the broader national demog- raphy. In Russia, for example, the static or declining population of many cities must be understood in terms of a national population growth of near zero. Similarly, accelerating urban growth in some of India’s cities could be understood in terms of relatively high national population growth and existing low levels of urbanisation. Table 1.1 Population figures for BRICS countries Country Total population in millions, 2014 Annual rate of population change, 2010-2015 Total urban population in millions, 2015 Annual urban growth rate, 2010-15 BRAZIL 207.9 0.9 174.5 1.0 RUSSIA 143.5 0.0 105.2 -0.1 INDIA 1311.1 1.3 420.0 2.4 CHINA 1376.1 0.5 779.5 3.1 SOUTH AFRICA 54.5 1.1 34.7 1.6 Sources: UN Population Division, 2016 The BRICS have a very large combined population, of 3.09 billion; but relatively slow annual growth rates, ranging from zero for Russia to 1.3% in India. The total urban population is 1.5 billion; and so the BRICS has an urbanisation rate of 50%, an even balance between rural and urban populations. However, this aggregate obscures the huge range in urbanisation rates, from 32.7% in India to 85.7% in Brazil. Urban growth rates over the past half-decade have ranged from -0.1% for Russia to a relatively rapid 3.1% for China. It is evident that we cannot generalise across the BRICS. It is not true, for example, that the BRICS are commonly experiencing high rates of urban growth. The UN has made projections into the future. In the case of Russia, negative urban growth is expect- ed to 2050, with the urban population gradually declining in real terms. Brazil’s growth is expected to be less than 1% in 2016, with growth rates continuing to decline until near-zero in 2015. China’s urban growth is currently high, but rates of growth may be less than 1% by 2030, with the possi- bility of negative rates by 2050. South Africa’s urban growth is also expected to be less than 1% by 2030. The one exception is India, where rates of urban growth may be maintained at relatively high rates – above 2% per annum – until at least 2030. While the BRICS may expect a steady fall-off in the rate of urban growth, even slow growth of a large population may result in significant additional urban population. The anticipated real change in ur- ban population is indicated below. India and China are where the overwhelming bulk of new urban growth is expected; but significantly, India is expected to contribute more to this growth than China. 400 350 300 250 200 150 100 50 0 -50 BRAZIL RUSSIA INDIA CHINA SOUTH AFRICA 80 90 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 BRAZIL RUSSIAN FEDERATION INDIA CHINA SOUTH AFRICA MIDDLE-INCOME COUNTRIESTHE WORLD 35,7 -7 394 270 14,4 19 55 19 60 19 65 19 70 19 75 19 80 19 85 19 90 19 95 20 00 20 05 20 10 20 15 19 50 2120 PART A: CHAPTER 1BRICS CITIES : FACTS & ANALYSIS 2016 C IT IE S IN T H E B R IC S: A C O M PA R A TI V E O V ER V IE W Table 1.3: Top Thirty BRICS Cities in Terms of Population Size, 2015 (with * indicating cities for which there are Factsheets) City Country Population in 2015 (in millions) World Ranking 1. Delhi* INDIA 25.70 2 2. Shanghai* CHINA 23.74 3 3. São Paulo* BRAZIL 21.07 4 4. Mumbai (Bombay)* INDIA 21.04 5 5. Beijing* CHINA 20.38 7 6. Kolkata (Calcutta)* INDIA 14.86 14 7. Chongqing* CHINA 13.33 16 8. Rio de Janeiro* BRAZIL 12.90 19 9. Guangzhou* CHINA 12.46 20 10. Moskva (Moscow)* RUSSIA 12.17 22 11. Tianjin* CHINA 11.21 24 12. Shenzhen* CHINA 10.75 26 13. Bengaluru (Bangalore)* INDIA 10.09 29 14. Chennai (Madras)* INDIA 9.89 31 15. Central Witwatersrand* SOUTH AFRICA 9.40 35 16. Hyderabad* INDIA 8.94 37 17. Wuhan* CHINA 7.91 41 18. Chengdu* CHINA 7.56 42 19. Dongguan CHINA 7.43 43 20. Nanjing CHINA 7.37 44 21. Ahmadabad INDIA 7.34 45 22. Hong Kong (SAR) CHINA 7.31 46 23. Foshan CHINA 7.04 48 24. Hangzhou* CHINA 6.39 52 25. Shenyang* CHINA 6.32 54 26. Xi’an* CHINA 6.04 56 27. Pune (Poona) INDIA 5.73 59 28. Belo Horizonte BRAZIL 5.71 60 29. Surat INDIA 5.65 62 30. Suzhou* CHINA 5.47 68 Factsheet Cities outside the BRICS Top Thirty 32. St. Petersburg* RUSSIA 4.99 74 37. Brasilia* BRAZIL 4.16 91 46. Cape Town* SOUTH AFRICA 3.66 106 48. Salvador* BRAZIL 3.58 112 51. Curitiba* BRAZIL 3.47 120 63. Durban (eThekwini Metro)* SOUTH AFRICA 2.90 151 65. Pretoria (Tshwane Metro)* SOUTH AFRICA 2.82 154 123. Novosibirsk* RUSSIA 1.50 321 Data Source: UN Population Division, 2016 Note: The separately defined Pretoria and Soshanguve urban agglomerations in the UN data were combined in the table below, so there is a slight difference to the UN data in rankings. increase in levels of urbanisation until the end of Soviet Rule, around 1990, when 73.3% of the pop- ulation was in urban areas. Here, urbanisation halted suddenly at that time. There was a dramatic and relentless increase in levels of urbanisation in Brazil from 1950, although with a slowdown from around 2000. The urbanisation level in Brazil in 2015 was 85.7%, similar to the most urbanised countries in Europe. By contrast, South Africa’s rates of urbanisation were slow, constrained by race-based controls on migration. From the late 1980s, however, with the removal of the ‘pass laws’, urbanisation has accelerated, and in 2015 was at 64.8%. In 1950 India and China had very low levels of urbanisation, at 17% and 11% respectively. They were both overwhelmingly rural countries. India’s urbanisation level has trended up very gradually, constrained by anti-urban policies, but with modest acceleration over the past decade as more ur- ban-friendly policies have been introduced. But urbanisation levels are still around 32.7%, leaving considerable space for further urban growth. China began to urbanise in the 1950s, but the anti-ur- ban policies of the Cultural Revolution led to a decline in urbanisation levels in the 1960s and early 1970s. From around 1980, however, urbanisation resumed – this time, at an extremely rapid pace. In 1980 China was still only 19% urbanised; but this increased to 55.6% by 2015. THE CITIES OF THE BRICS In the section below we discuss the cities in the BRICS in terms of size distribution and ranking, pop- ulation growth, population density, population diversity, and wealth and poverty. SIZE DISTRIBUTION AND RANKING The United Nation’s Population Division has a database that includes 695 cities in the BRICS coun- tries, each with a population of over 300 000 people. This is over 40 per cent of the total number of cities in the world that appear in this database. Table 1.2: Number of cities across size range in the BRICS Country Small Cities (0.3-0.99) Medium- sized Cities (1-3.99 mill) Large Cities (4-9.99 mill) Mega- Cities (10-19.99 mill) Super- sized cities (20 mill plus) Total Cities BRAZIL 35 17 2 1 1 56 RUSSIAN FEDERATION 50 11 1 1 0 63 INDIA 109 49 5 2 2 167 CHINA 295 83 15 4 2 399 SOUTH AFRICA 4 5 1 0 0 10 TOTAL BRICS 493 165 24 8 5 695 Data Source: UN Population Division, 2016 DATA SHEET ONE in the Annexure provides a full listing of one million-plus cities in the BRICS, in rank order. The table below gives the Top Thirty BRICS cities in terms of population size. It indicates five super-sized cities: Delhi, Shanghai, São Paulo, Mumbai and Beijing. Each of these cities is in the Global Top Ten. The mega-cities with populations of over ten million people each are in the Global Top Thirty. Put differently, of the thirty largest cities in the world, thirteen are in the BRICS. The table below also indicates the relationship between the Factsheets and the distribution of BRICS cities by size. There are some cities in the BRICS Top Thirty that are not included in the Fact- sheets (Dongguan, Nanjing, Ahmadabad, Hong Kong, Foshan, Pune, Belo Horizonte and Surat). But there are also cities ranked lower than the Top Thirty which are included (St. Petersburg, Brasilia, Cape Town, Salvador, Curitiba, Durban and Novosibirsk). 2322 PART A: CHAPTER 1BRICS CITIES : FACTS & ANALYSIS 2016 C IT IE S IN T H E B R IC S: A C O M PA R A TI V E O V ER V IE W cities growing through resource extraction. The fastest-growing city in Russia is Yakutsk (3%), a city north of the Arctic Circle which is a major supplier of diamonds. Most of India’s cities are growing moderately fast, in the range of 1-3%, although there are a number with higher rates. The fastest-growing city in India for 2010-15 was Hosur, a small industrial satellite city beyond the edge of Mumbai with an average annual growth rate of 9.9%. In general, the fastest-growing cities in India are small but on the edge of large urban agglomerations, and are benefiting from the growth of sectors such as IT. There are a number of large secondary cities in In- dia growing relatively fast (in the range 3-5%), including Surat, Bangalore and Hyderabad; with the capital, Delhi, also growing relatively fast, at 3.2%. The other mega-cities in India are experiencing relatively slow growth. China is enormously diverse and has a large range in its urban growth rates. Most cities fall within the range of 1-6%, but with negative growth at the one extreme and growth of around 10% at the other. Like India, the fastest-growing cities in China are mainly small. However, there are a handful of moderately large cities (populations of over two million) which have experienced average annual growth of more than 5% per annum since 2010, including Xiamen, Zhongshan, Suzhou, Huizhou and Huai’an. Xiamen, for example, is a city of 4.4 million people that tops the quality-of-life indexes in China, and is attracting hi-tech development supported by high-end professionals. Guangzhou and Beijing are the fastest-growing of the mega-cities, with average annual growth rates of 5.2% and 4.6% respectively. Many of the other fast-growing cities (3-5%) are moderately sized and are on the edges of the major city-regions such as the Pearl River Delta and Yangtze River Delta; or in the interior of China, benefiting from massive state investment in terms of the ‘Go West’ policy. Bei- jing is the fastest-growing of the mega-cities, with average annual growth of 4.1%, driven mainly by government and business services. The declining or static cities are mainly in the industrial ‘rust belt’ in the extreme north-east of the country. Of course, South Africa is a small player in terms of urban development. Most of the urban agglom- erations recognised in the UN Database are growing relatively slowly (1-2%). The faster-growing cities (3-4.5%) are in the Gauteng City Region (GCR), with the fastest-growing city being Rusten- burg, in the Platinum Belt on the edge of the GCR, with average annual growth of 5.6%. The average annual growth rates of the 30 largest cities in the BRICS are indicated below. Table 1.4: Average annual growth of the largest BRICS Cities, 2010-15 (with * indicating cities for which there are Factsheets) City Country Population in 2015 (in millions) Percentage Average Annual Growth, 2015-15 Delhi* INDIA 25.70 3.2 Shanghai* CHINA 23.74 3.4 São Paulo* BRAZIL 21.07 1.4 Mumbai (Bombay)* INDIA 21.04 1.6 Beijing* CHINA 20.38 4.6 Kolkata (Calcutta)* INDIA 14.86 0.8 Chongqing* CHINA 13.33 3.4 Rio de Janeiro* BRAZIL 12.90 0.8 Guangzhou* CHINA 12.46 5.2 Moskva (Moscow)* RUSSIA 12.17 1.2 Tianjin* CHINA 11.21 3.4 Shenzhen* CHINA 10.75 1.0 Bangalore* INDIA 10.09 4.0 Chennai (Madras)* INDIA 9.89 3.0 POPULATION GROWTH The table below indicates the wide variation in population change across the BRICS. Most BRICS cities are somewhere in the range between 0% annual growth and 6%, but there are cities shrinking and growing faster. The fastest-growing city in the BRICS in the period 2010-2015 was the small city of Miluo in southern China, with an average annual growth rate of 10.3% per annum, and the fastest shrinking city was Yichun, in northern China, with an average rate of change of -1.6% per annum. Figure 1.3: Number of cities in each BRICS country in different categories of urban growth Data Source: UN Population Division, 2016 Most of Brazil’s cities are growing in the range of 1-1.99% per annum. They are slow-growing, mainly as a result of Brazil’s already high rates of urbanisation. The fastest-growing cities in Brazil (3-3.99%) are mainly in the Amazon Basin, and are growing mainly through resource extraction. The bulk of Russia’s cities are either shrinking or almost static in growth, the result of a slightly de- clining overall national population and no further increase in urbanisation levels. Twenty-six of the 29 shrinking cities in the BRICS are in Russia. There are a few cities growing in the range of 1-1.99% – including Moscow, which has consolidated its position in the post-Soviet era as the political and economic hub of Russia; and also a small number of well-located cities in the east of the country, or BRAZIL RUSSIA INDIA CHINA SOUTH AFRICA TOTAL 250 200 150 100 50 0 Less than 1% p.a. 1%–1.99% 2%–2.99% 3%–3.99% 4%–5.99% 6% +Shrinking cities 0 26 0 11 48 52 3 0 29 32 12 7 98 75 88 21 0 6 2 1 2 0 81 22 0 16 2 10 9 10 1 30 27 11 9 29 6 1 1 0 0 9 33 9 5 0 0 2524 PART A: CHAPTER 1BRICS CITIES : FACTS & ANALYSIS 2016 C IT IE S IN T H E B R IC S: A C O M PA R A TI V E O V ER V IE W City Country Demographia World Urban Areas, 2016 pp/km2 (urban agglomeration) City Mayors, 2007 pp/km2 (core city) Delhi* INDIA 11 900 11 050 Shanghai* CHINA 5 800 13 400 São Paulo* BRAZIL 7 600 9 000 Mumbai (Bombay)* INDIA 26 000 29 650 Beijing* CHINA 5 200 11 500 Kolkata (Calcutta)* INDIA 12 300 23 900 Chongqing* CHINA 7 700 N/A Rio de Janeiro* BRAZIL 5 800 6 850 Guangzhou* CHINA 4 900 (Guangzhou-Foshan) N/A Moskva (Moscow)* RUSSIA 3 100 4 900 Tianjin* CHINA 5 600 10 500 Shenzhen* CHINA 7 000 17 150 Bengaluru* INDIA 8 700 10 100 Chennai (Madras)* INDIA 10 300 14 350 Central Witwatersrand* SOUTH AFRICA 3 300 2 396 Hyderabad* INDIA 6 300 9 100 Wuhan* CHINA 5 800 N/A Chengdu* CHINA 6 300 N/A Dongguan CHINA 5 100 N/A Nanjing CHINA 4 800 N/A Ahmadabad INDIA 21 200 N/A Hong Kong (SAR) CHINA 25 600 N/A Foshan CHINA 4 900 (Guangzhou-Foshan) N/A Hangzhou* CHINA 6 000 N/A Shenyang* CHINA 6 100 9 250 Xi’an* CHINA 6 600 N/A Pune (Poona) INDIA 12 100 N/A Belo Horizonte BRAZIL 4 200 4 600 Surat INDIA 24 400 N/A Suzhou* CHINA 4 200 N/A St. Petersburg* RUSSIA 3 800 8 550 Brasilia* BRAZIL 3 800 2 800 Cape Town* SOUTH AFRICA 4 700 3 950 Salvador* BRAZIL 9 200 N/A City Country Population in 2015 (in millions) Percentage Average Annual Growth, 2015-15 Central Witwatersrand* SOUTH AFRICA 9.40 3.2 Hyderabad* INDIA 8.94 3.3 Wuhan* CHINA 7.91 1.0 Chengdu* CHINA 7.56 3.8 Dongguan CHINA 7.43 0.9 Nanjing CHINA 7.37 3.6 Ahmadabad INDIA 7.34 3.4 Hong Kong (SAR) CHINA 7.31 0.7 Foshan CHINA 7.04 1.1 Hangzhou* CHINA 6.39 4.6 Shenyang* CHINA 6.32 2.1 Xi’an* CHINA 6.04 3.2 Pune (Poona) INDIA 5.73 2.9 Belo Horizonte BRAZIL 5.71 1.1 Surat INDIA 5.65 4.8 Suzhou* CHINA 5.47 4.7 Data Source: UN Population Division, 2016 In terms of UN data, the fastest-growing of the largest cities in the BRICS are Guangzhou, Suzhou, Hangzhou and Beijing in China, and Surat and Bangalore in India. The growth in China’s cities re- lates to success in transition to high-end manufacturing, although Beijing’s growth is driven mainly by government and business services. In India, Surat has captured a significant share of the world’s diamond cutting and polishing, while Bangalore is a major hub of ICT. A number of other large cit- ies are growing relatively fast (3-4%), but there are also slow-growing large cities, including those in China battling to transition from mass-production in the export market to high-end manufac- turing (e.g. Shenzhen, Foshan, Dongguan); and those in Brazil and Russia, where a combination of already-high levels of urbanisation and low national growth rates are leading to slow city growth. There are some cities with their own particularities: such as Kolkata in India, which experienced decades of low economic growth (for reasons detailed in the Factsheet); and Hong Kong, a city with a large and mature economy, but which is partly separated politically from its hinterland, and relatively difficult to move into. POPULATION DENSITY It is extremely difficult to find reliable, updated comparative data on population density, and it is for this reason that we have not included the density calculations in the Factsheets. There are comparative sources that provide comparative gross densities by dividing total population into the area of urban municipalities; but this is often seriously misleading, as boundaries of municipalities and urban agglomerations rarely coincide. There have been attempts to calculate city footprint density by determining the ratio of total population to the total area of the urban agglomeration, but the use of different criteria to determine the extent of an urban agglomeration produces sig- nificant discrepancies between data sources. In the table below we draw on three sources. The first source, Demographia Urban Areas, is based on an attempt to link population to an extended urban agglomeration; while the second, City Mayors, only provides density figures for the core municipal areas (Demographia, 2016; World Mayors, 2007). In general, the densities for the urban agglomer- ations are lower than for the core cities. Table 1.5: Population densities in large BRICS cities (with * indicating cities for which there are Factsheets) 2726 PART A: CHAPTER 1BRICS CITIES : FACTS & ANALYSIS 2016 C IT IE S IN T H E B R IC S: A C O M PA R A TI V E O V ER V IE W Russian, with a number of other Chinese and Indian languages. There are of course hundreds of other languages spoken across the BRICS; but some have relatively few native speakers, with a number (especially in India and Brazil) endangered. Figure 1.5: Mother-tongue speakers in the BRICS (Millions) Data Sources: Compilation from national census and other official reports For the comparative view on religion it is necessary to combine a number of sources, including the population census reports (although religion is not always included), national surveys, and the WIN-Gallup Global Index of Religion and Atheism. The largest single belief system in the BRICS is Hinduism (mainly in India), followed by the category ‘non-religious’, which largely reflects the large majority in China which is not formally affiliated to any religion. Christianity follows with 14%, but is divided between Russian Orthodox, Roman Catholic, mainstream Protestant and Pentecostal Protestant. Other significant minority religions in the BRICS are Buddhism and Islam, with a diversity also of folk religions. Figure 1.6: Belief structure in the BRICS Data Sources: Compilation from national census, other official reports and WIN-Gallup City Country Demographia World Urban Areas, 2016 pp/km2 (urban agglomeration) City Mayors, 2007 pp/km2 (core city) Curitiba* BRAZIL 3 800 3 850 Pretoria* SOUTH AFRICA 2 500 2 750 Durban* SOUTH AFRICA 3 200 3 500 Novosibirsk* RUSSIA 2 400 N/A Sources: Demographia (2016) and City Mayors (2007) There are significant national variations in the data, although also intra-national variation. De- mographia (2016) calculates the average density of large cities as 12 100 pp/km2 for India, 5 700 pp/km2 for China, 5 100 pp/km2 for Brazil, 3 300 pp/km2 for South Africa and 3 200 pp/km2 for Russia. India’s urban densities are among the highest in the world, with comparable densities only in neighbouring Pakistan and Bangladesh, and in a few countries (Egypt, Yemen and Turkey) in North Africa and the Middle East. In terms of individual cities the densest in the BRICS (depending on exact calculation) may be Mumbai, followed by Hong Kong and Surat. The least dense cities are generally in South Africa and Russia, and include Novosibirsk, Durban, Pretoria, Moscow and the Central Witwatersrand (Johannesburg-Ekurhuleni). POPULATION DIVERSITY Of course, the BRICS are enormously diverse in population terms, in relation to categories such as ethnicity, language and belief system (and in relation to many other dimensions). In terms of ethnicity there is diversity in the BRICS; but given the massive size of the populations of China and India, the ethnic preponderance is Indian (of various separate ethnicities) and Han Chi- nese, followed by ethnic Russian, minority Chinese, other European (mainly in Brazil), mixed race, and black African. Figure 1.4: Ethnicity in the BRICS Data Sources: Compilation from national census and other official reports In terms of mother tongue the dominant languages are Mandarin Chinese, Hindi, Portuguese and Han Chinese 40,9% Amerindian 0,03% Mixed race 2,9% Black African descent 1,9% Other European descent 3,4% Indian ethnicities 42,5% Minorities in Russia 0,9% Minority Chinese 3,6% Ethnic Russian 3,8% Unaffiliated/no religion 25% Other 1% Muslim 7% Buddhist 9% Folk religions 10% Christianity 14% Hindu 34% 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 M an dar in Hin di Po rtu ges e Russi an Ben gali W u C hin es e Te lu gu M ar at hi M in C hin es e Ta m il Yu e C hin se Urd u Gujar at i Jin C hin se se Kan ad a M ill io n s 847 422 206 150 83,4 77,2 74 71,9 71,8 60,8 60 51,5 41,6 45 37,9 2928 PART A: CHAPTER 1BRICS CITIES : FACTS & ANALYSIS 2016 C IT IE S IN T H E B R IC S: A C O M PA R A TI V E O V ER V IE W spoken by more than 10 000 people each, and around 780 languages in total. The language return for the 2011 national census is still not available, but the 2001 return indicated the major home languages to be Hindi (spoken by 41% of the population), Bengali (8.1%), Telugu (7.2%), Marathi (7%), Tamil (5.9%), Urdu (5%), Gujarati (4.5%), Kannada (3.7%), Malayalam (3.2%), Oriya (3.2%) and Punjabi (2.8%). Language is regionally concentrated, with no single language spoken across India. In Telangana (which includes Hyderabad) the official language is Telugu; in Maharashtra (Mumbai) it is Marathi; in Tamil Nadu (Chennai) it is Tamil; in West Bengal (Kolkata) it is Bengali; in Karnataka (Bengaluru) it is Kannada; and, in Delhi it is Hindi, Punjabi and Urdu. Although Hinduism is the majority religion across India, its dominance and the composition of minority religions varies. In Chennai, for exam- ple, around 9% of the population is Muslim; but this increases to 30% in Hyderabad. SOUTH AFRICA In terms of the 2011 national census, South Africa, colloquially known as the ‘rainbow nation’ was 79.2% black African, 8.9% each for white and coloured (mixed race), and 2.5% Indian/ Asian. In terms of language there was a diverse mix. There are 11 official languages, although English is dominant in business and politics. The major home languages are isiZulu (22.7%), isiXhosa (16%), Afrikaans (13.5%), English (9.6%), Sepedi (9.1%), Setswana (8%), and Sesotho (7.6%). There are variations across cities. The cities in Gauteng, for example, are highly diverse linguistically – but in Durban, isiZulu is dominant; and in Cape Town, isiXhosa and Afrikaans are the two major languages. The Gauteng cities and Durban in KwaZulu-Natal are predominantly black African, but Cape Town has a roughly equal mix between white, coloured (mixed race) and black African. Diversity is addressed differently across the various national census reports, so easy comparison is not possible. The Brazilians use skin colour; the Russians and Chinese emphasise ethnicity; India lays stress on religion; and South Africa categorises race. BRAZIL Brazilian society is a complex amalgam of people of different origins, including: the Native Ameri- cans (Amerindians); the black African slaves; the Portuguese colonisers; and a mix of other European, Asian and Latin American immigrants. The IGBE has simplified this complexity into Branco (white), Pardo (brown or mixed race), Preto (black), Amarelo (yellow), and indigenous. In 2010 Brazilians self-identified as 47.7% white, 41.1% brown, 7.6% black, 1.1% yellow and 0.4% indigenous. 99% of Brazilians speak Portuguese as a home language, but there are European and Asian immigrant languages still spoken; and a diversity of indigenous languages, some of which are endangered. There are differences across Brazil’s cities. Curitiba and São Paulo, for example, have a proportion- ately larger white population than most other cities (79% and 66% respectively) while Rio de Janei- ro’s population is closer to the national mix. Brasilia has a roughly equal proportion of white and brown, and Salvador is a city with a very high proportion of brown and black, reflecting a history of African slavery. Although Brazil’s urban population is overwhelmingly descended from immigrants, currently only a very small proportion is foreign born. The highest proportions are in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, but the figures there are only 1.3% and 1.1% respectively. Of the foreign born, many are from Paraguay and Bolivia, and provide low-wage labour in Brazil’s manufacturing and service sectors. RUSSIA The Russian Federation has 185 designated nationalities, although there is huge variation in terms of the size of these groups. Census 2010 indicated that 80.9% of the residents of Russia are ethnical- ly Russian, with the largest ethnic minorities being Tatar (3.9%), Ukrainian (1.4%), Bashkir (1.1%), Chuvash (1.0%), Chechen (1.0%), Armenian (0.9%), Avar (0.7%) and Mordvin (0.5%). Russian is the home language of 150 million people, but there are at least 35 languages that have official status in some form in different parts of Russia, and another 70 or so minority languages. Russia’s cities are overwhelmingly ethnic Russian (with far lower percentages of ethnic minorities in the large cities than elsewhere); but the composition of the minority population does differ be- tween cities, with more Ukrainians, for example, in the east of Russia. CHINA 92% of the population of China is ethnically Han, but there are 55 other recognized minority groups, the largest of which are Zhuang (1.27%), Hui (0.8%), Manchu (0.8%), Uyghur (0.8%), Miao (0.7%), Yi (0.7%), Tujia (0.6%), Tibetan (0.5%) and Mongol (0.4%). There is also significant lan- guage diversity in China. 70.9% have Mandarin as a home language, but other linguistic groupings include Wu (6.5%), Min (6%), Yue (5%), Jin (3.8%), Xiang (3.0%) and Hakka (2.5%), with many others in addition. The so-called Standard Chinese is based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. All 55 ethnic minorities are present in China’s large cities; but as in Russia, the minorities are still dis- proportionately in the rural areas, and the cities are overwhelmingly Han Chinese. The foreign-born population is proportionately very low, with the highest, in Shanghai, at 0.7%. INDIA According to the 2011 national census, 79.8% of the population of India practises Hinduism, with the minority religions including Islam (14.2%), Christianity (2.3%), Sikh (1.7%), Buddhism (0.7%) and Jain (0.4%). There is a massive diversity of languages in India. There are at least 122 languages 3130 PART A: CHAPTER 1BRICS CITIES : FACTS & ANALYSIS 2016 C IT IE S IN T H E B R IC S: A C O M PA R A TI V E O V ER V IE W throughout the twentieth century, massive, extremely high-density slums developed within and around the old cities. Densities were extreme in old Mumbai, for example, as the city that devel- oped was contained within what was effectively an island. Densities were also high in Kolkata, where development was restricted to land along the riverine plain. Patterns began to change towards the end of the 20th century, as core cities de-densified. There were patterns of irregular development around the fringes of cities, but also the development of planned New Cities, such as Navi Mumbai in the case of Mumbai. A network of satellite cities de- veloped around Delhi, while India’s economic liberalisation in the early 1990s led to the emergence of hi-tech industrial estates around the edges of cities such as Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad and Pune. Currently, much of the new urban growth in India’s large cities is happening along the edges of the emergent city-regions, with varying degrees of de-densification in the core. CHINA China’s ancient cities were compressed within defensive walls. Although the cities have expanded far beyond these walls, the basic pattern was established of expanding concentric rings, now mainly structured around major freeways encircling the city. During the Maoist era, cities were structured around ‘work units’, which brought work and residence closely together in a pattern of small, self-contained neighbourhoods quite unlike the Soviet model of expansive mono-func- tional zoning. In the Reform era, after 1978, there has been explosive growth of cities. In many cities the low-rise traditional neighbourhoods, including the work units, have been replaced by high-rise superblocks. There has been massive transformation of inner cities, but also large-scale new developments on the urban edge. A particular feature of development is the designated economic zones within and around the cities, which have produced hybrid new industrial-residential cities-within-cities. Fa- mous examples are the Pudong New Area in Shanghai, and the Binhai New Area in Tianjin. SPATIAL FORM The cities in the BRICS have evolved with different structures, although there are spatial processes common to a number of places that are reshaping cities. BRAZIL During the period of mid- to late-20th-century industrialisation, Brazil’s large cities developed rapidly and haphazardly. A particular feature of the development was the large informal settle- ments (favelas), which developed on vulnerable land in the core and on the peripheries of cities. Growth spilled over in uneven ways across municipal boundaries, and was generally managed through the creation of new municipalities. In the contemporary period, city-regions have be- come increasingly complex. Many economic activities have deconcentrated from the core to the edge of the metropolitan areas, creating a network of new growth hubs and promoting further sprawl of metropolitan regions. There have been exceptions to these patterns. Curitiba is renowned for its effective manage- ment of urban growth, with new urban development linked to transit corridors. Brasilia was developed as a new city, with a grand design and expansive modernist architecture, although a large number of mainly low-income commuting towns developed around the core. RUSSIA At different times, Moscow and St. Petersburg were capital cities of an imperial empire, and some of the physical adornment of the past survives in the physical heart of the cities. During the Soviet era, urban development was largely functionalist. Spaces were mono-functional, and develop- ment was on a monumental scale. There were large industrial zones, but very little provision for consumption (e.g. commercial precincts); and most of the population was housed in large-scale uniform housing estates, mainly towards the edge of the city. New industrial cities were created in many parts of Russia, including in remote locations. There have been significant changes in the post-Soviet era. Many of the industrial spaces became derelict after the closure of state-owned industry, and many housing estates are in different stages of dereliction. The most severe problems are in the more remote cities, which have no lo- cational advantage under a market-based economy. At the same time, however, the shift towards a tertiary economy and consumption-related activities, and the new role of private developers, has led to the creation of new offices and commercial spaces. The once clearly defined urban edge has blurred, as city-dwellers have built second homes (dachas) in what were previously green belts around the cities. Russian cities remain largely monocentric, but have become more spatially complex in the post-Soviet era because of these processes. The City of Moscow is attempting to resolve the problems of congestion associated with the monocentric urban form by developing a New Moscow, outside the current city footprint; but whether this proposal will be successful remains to be seen. INDIA India has a combination of ancient and early colonial cities. Ancient history has left its traces in terms of ‘sacred spaces’, for example, and the colonial divide between the densely-packed indig- enous quarters and the low-density British cantonments is still visible in places. With urbanisation Rio de Janeinro 3332 PART A: CHAPTER 1BRICS CITIES : FACTS & ANALYSIS 2016 C IT IE S IN T H E B R IC S: A C O M PA R A TI V E O V ER V IE W ECONOMY The BRICS bloc currently contributes around 25% to the global economy, up from 11% in 1990, with its cities also increasingly playing a growing role within global economic networks (The BRICS Forum, 2016). The Brookings Institution provides comparative data on urban economies, and this enables us to gain perspective on the comparative size of the BRICS city economies, included in the Factsheets. The graph illustrates the large range of urban economies, from the mega-economies of Shanghai, Moscow, Beijing and São Paulo, to small economies such as Salvador, Novosibirsk, Hyderabad, Ben- galuru and Durban. Russia’s urban economies are relatively large, as the country has a mature and developed economy overall, and relatively high GDP per capita. China’s urban economies have grown dramatically over the past two decades, with China accounting for seven of the top 10 in this listing. Brazil’s cities have proportionately larger economies, as GDP per capita is higher than the BRICS average; while South Africa’s has to do with the modest size of its cities (although its GDP per capita is still higher than that of China). India ranks low in terms of the economic size of cities, as GDP per capita is still very low. While cities such as Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai have an advanced, modern econ- omy, this is still a small segment of the overall underdeveloped urban economies. Figure 1.7: Relative size of BRICS city economies – US$ billion in 2014 With the sprawling urban development of recent decades, huge city-regions have evolved. The most complex and sprawling city-region is the Pearl River Delta, which includes the old city of Guangzhou (Canton); but also new cities such as Shenzhen and Dongguan, which have developed around massive industrial zones. A particular feature of this region is the ‘urban villages’ that have developed as the cities have swallowed rural land, allowing the villagers to develop irregular tene- ments to house new migrants. Government has attempted to shape new urban growth in various ways. In some cities (e.g. Beijing and Shanghai) there was an attempt to create a belt of satellite towns around the main city, but many of these new developments have failed or have become commuter towns. In other cities the focus of new growth is around axes of development, with growth structured around major trans- portation networks. In cases such as that of Wuhan, previous attempts at satellite cities are now being linked back into the core cities through axial development. In the major growth areas such as the Pearl River Delta the speed of growth has overwhelmed attempts at shaping cities through planning, and patterns of development have been somewhat haphazard. SOUTH AFRICA South Africa’s cities developed through the colonial era as residentially segregated and generally low-density. This was reinforced under apartheid rule, with rigid forms of residential racial separa- tion and the establishment of ‘black townships’ on the edges of cities. Car-oriented sprawl became a dominant feature of white residential areas. From the 1970s, economic activities decentralised from downtown locations to new urban nodes (e.g. Sandton in Johannesburg) in the mainly white, higher-income parts of the city. Informal settlements emerged as migrants moved into cities, de- spite official attempts to curb ‘black urbanisation’. There have been significant changes in the post-apartheid era since the early 1990s, although co- lonial history and apartheid history have left entrenched legacies that are difficult to remove. Cit- ies have densified through formal and informal processes, as the removal of apartheid controls has accelerated urbanisation processes. There has been a degree of de-racialisation in some areas (e.g. previously whites-only, middle-class suburbs), and a complete demographic turnaround in oth- er parts (for example, previously white working-class suburbs around inner cities, which are now entirely black-occupied). There has been accelerated decentralisation of economic activity from inner-city areas, with inner-city Johannesburg for example emerging as a residential node for mi- grants, and formal business, at least, having moved to decentralised business nodes. Cities have generally become more complex and multi-centred. Within the Province of Gauteng, a multi-cen- tred city-region is formally recognised, but there are debates over the future spatial vision for the region, with ideas of urban compaction, densification and transit-oriented development in opposi- tion to plans for new satellite cities. SUMMARY The BRICS cities do have variant spatial forms, including their densities and structures; but in recent decades almost all have experienced huge changes in their economic, political and demographic context. Across the BRICS, cities are becoming more complex, variegated or multimodal in their form, presenting great challenges for planning. A critical question, for example, is how to maintain the coherent spatial functioning of cities while supporting the locational needs of new industries. Different approaches to handling growth include support for more compact forms of urban devel- opment, diversion of further growth to satellite cities, and the development of axial corridors along transport networks. SALVADOR DA BAHIA NOVOSIBIRSK HYDERABAD BENGALURU DURBAN TSHWANE/PRETORIA CURITIBA CHENNAI CAPE TOWN KOLKATA SAINT PETERSBURG XIAN CENTRAL WITS (JHB-EKH) BRASILIA MUMBAI RIO DE JANEIRO SHENYANG HANGZHOU WUHAN CHENGDU DELHI CHONGQING SUZHOU SHENZHEN TIANJIN GUAN