Gauteng reviews city-region concept

Better transport, coordination among cities and more low-cost housing are among recommendations in the newly released territorial review of the province.
A TERRITORIAL review of the Gauteng City-Region reveals that while low-income neighbourhoods stand to benefit from Joburg’s Rea Vaya, poor transportation networks are still a major impediment to the efficient functioning of the labour market and contribute to high unemployment rates.

Michael Donovan Michael Donovan from the OECDThe review advises the Gauteng provincial government to enhance public transport developments in order to boost mobility within the region, which consists of Pretoria in the north, Ekurhuleni in the eastern quadrant and Johannesburg, the region’s economic hub.

The 270-page Territorial Review of the Gauteng City-Region was conducted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) over a period of two years and promulgated by Finance MEC and acting Premier Mandla Nkomfe on Wednesday, 30 November. A copy of the review will be presented to President Jacob Zuma as a provincial diagnostic report which seeks to advance Gauteng’s 2055 strategy.

Michael Donovan, an OECD representative, said the report was an in-depth research exercise that benchmarks the Gauteng city-region against international peers and examines its developmental strengths and weaknesses. The review was conducted by a joint team of international and local experts from the OECD, publishing comparative statistics and analysis on economics and public policy.

Territorial reviews

Video
Urban development experts recommended the way forward on the Gauteng city-region concept in a 270-page review in Sandton on 30 November 2011. Watch video.
More than 20 OECD territorial reviews have been conducted so far, including in cities such as Cape Town, Melbourne in Australia, Montreal and Toronto in Canada, Mexico City, Mexico and Istanbul in Turkey; Copenhagen in Denmark and Guangdong in the Republic of China, to list a few.

In the review, the OECD says the Gauteng city-region needs to develop mechanisms to encourage private drivers to switch to public transport, especially the Gautrain and Rea Vaya, and support broader experimentation with mass transit-oriented projects.

GautrainThe Gautrain is changing the face of public transport in the provinceThe city-region needs to increase the supply of low-cost housing by incubating larger non-profit housing development communities, promoting inclusionary housing and exploring options for rental subsidies.

A spatial analysis of poverty indicates a high but decreasing level of economic segregation in the region. Gauteng’s concentrated poverty rate stands at 38.6 percent in contrast to 25 percent in New York and 31 percent in Washington.

Compared to other large cities in the OECD, Gauteng’s homeowners pay an extremely high cost for housing relative to their income.

Raising employment
To tackle low growth and high economic inequality, Gauteng needs to raise employment through improved labour market interventions by introducing transfers and subsidies to stimulate income-generating activity.

Provincial and local government needs to develop job creation models for workers in the informal economy and tailor interventions to a labour force that is mobile between the informal and formal categories of employment, says Donovan.

The city-region should improve labour market security to regulate the spread of labour broking, the report says.

Gauteng needs to position economic development policy in a city-region framework. “For example inter-firm linkages across industrial districts need to be better understood and strengthened through additional value-chain approaches. Experimentation with clusters needs to be expanded, since these are limited in number and are confined to the manufacturing sector,” Donovan says.

Rea VayaRea Vaya is proving to be useful to public transport users in JoburgAn extensive electronic database on patents needs to be built and made publicly accessible and a system to enhance and monitor progress in the development of a regional innovation system ought to be established.

Green Gauteng
Gauteng needs to expand its green growth agenda to position the region as a leader in the creation of new green growth sectors such as renewable energy, clean technology and clean production processes in Africa and beyond.

The report also advises the province to build mega-infrastructure for a mega-region, including broadband networks as well as transport networks which address spatial dislocation and marginalisation.

The review found that the city-region has limited finance prospects to fund infrastructure projects that could benefit economic development in the province. Recommendations are that Gauteng should introduce “smart financing” mechanisms that support revenue generation and densification and set up an “infrastructure barometer” to develop an understanding of the region’s network infrastructure system, explains Donovan.

Metropolitan coordination is essential to ensure that sectoral policies are coherent in a metropolitan region that spills over multiple jurisdictions, the report reads.

Political commitment
Advancing the city-region would require political commitment and consensus behind the notion of region-wide policy approaches and new forms of co-operation such as strategic planning partnerships, it advises.

Tourist attraction: The Orlando Towers in SowetoTourist attraction: The Orlando Towers in Soweto“As a priority these inter-governmental cooperation arrangements could focus on the areas of transportation and environmental policy making and data collection,” the report reads.

The territorial review of the Gauteng city-region was commissioned by the Office of the Premier to assess economic and social performance in the province, benchmark the region against comparable areas globally and allow peer review by other governments facing similar challenges elsewhere in the world, says Nkomfe.

He hopes the report will provide a basis for evaluation, public debate about the status of Gauteng in the world and help the provincial government make informed decisions on future policies.

The idea of a global city-region was mooted several years ago to improve the coordination of planning and development across the political and administrative boundaries of Gauteng to help make the province globally competitive and more socially and spatially integrated.

The strategy aims to build Gauteng as a major economic conurbation with broader economic and social benefits so that it competes with other major cities like New York, Paris, London and Berlin.