GDS | Ekur h u le n i lay the foundation for a Capable City (2020 – 2030) and, ultimately, enable a Sustainable City (2030 – 2055).

Ec J o

Sus t u rb an aina b int eg l ra

n

ental ronm g i v En ellbein w

Capable City Delivering City

Social empowerment

Re Mobilize

need to be translated into a 2030 Strategic Implementation Programme, thus providing a direct link to the City’s Integrated Development Plans over the next 20 years, and ensure effective integration into national and regional plans, budgets and programmes. A key aspect of this will be to build the base of local partnerships needed for Ekurhuleni to reinvent itself in a new wave of urban and industrial innovation.

Five imperatives The historical analysis suggests that for Ekurhuleni to be a city among equals, it will need to pursue the following five developmental imperatives: 1. Sustainable Urban Integration Road- and Car-Based City: In the absence of an effective public transport solution, the freeway system facilitated waves of inefficient and inequitable urban sprawl, and required costly and constant upgrading, which only created more demand for motor car use and road freight. Unless the City is restructured fundamentally, further growth will simply intensify reliance on road-based transport and its high environmental and operating costs. The functionality of the rail backbone, which supported the first phase of urban development, was rendered obsolete in the second and third phases of development and

Re G o v ern

ate ener G Re

Sustainable City

Eff ecti ve, c oo p e gover r nan ati v e ce

2030 – 2055: Sustainable City The City of Ekurhuleni will be at the leading edge of urban sustainable innovation and will support a clean, green and sustainable African manufacturing complex as well as a city development network that, together, have reduced poverty and unemployment to below 10%. It will be a place where the poor, old, young and disabled are able to access the opportunities of a global society and move freely about in order to make their contribution to Ekurhuleni and enjoy its amenities. This trajectory lies at the heart of a high-level strategic framework for the City to manage its transition through the five strategic themes of Re-urbanise, Re-industrialise, Re-generate, Re-mobilise and Re-govern. The new strategic framework for the City of Ekurhuleni suggests that the current City vision of being ‘Smart, Creative and Developmental’ should be replaced with a vision that meets the following criteria: 1. Unique, inspiring and compelling 2. Community aspirational 3. Attract external business and investment 4. Foresighted (reflecting of the 2020/2030/2055 trajectory). It is proposed that the agreed vision and high-level strategic framework

ng ati wth e r c ro o b ic g m no

an

ti o

2020 – 2030: Capable City Ekurhuleni will adapt to the needs of the energy transition and facilitate a thriving and inclusive industrial economy and meaningful reduction of unemployment and poverty through excellent intergovernmental cooperation, providing a competitive package of services and investment options, an integrated, efficient and regionally well-connected spatial structure and logistics infrastructure and a well-oiled network of collaborative partnerships with civil society and communities in Ekurhuleni.

Re Ur b

e

The three stages in the trajectory are proposed as follows: 2012 – 2020: Delivering City A coherent, tightly managed, enabled and resourced City institution will rise to the challenge of delivering services that are nationally competitive, consistent, financially sustainable, efficient and modern.

Re I

Understanding the stages

lize

ize

a tri s u nd

Figure 1 City of Ekurhuleni strategic framework

needs to be restored with the obvious efficiencies of air and roadfreight and passenger modes. The imperative for the future is that the transport inequalities be redressed. This will require the development of an urban structure and regional transportation network that is adaptable to, and sustainable from, a mass public transport operational cost and capacity perspective. Fractured Urban Form: The mining towns that grew in an organic way along the gold reef in the first phase of urban development remain a disparity, not organised into a logical services hierarchy. Townships were designed as spatially isolated, inward-looking public housing dormitories with substandard services and single-purpose transport links. The relatively close-knit evolutionary logic of the rail-based Main Reef Spine was overridden by regional freeways, the insertion of massive retail malls at points of freeway accessibility, and large-scale growth of the international airport in the second and third phases of development. It also facilitated the decline of local town centres and further marginalised the townships from a car-based city region. The imperative for the future is that the urban structure needs to be compacted and articulated in a manner that is regionally connected and integrated.

EKURHULENI 2019

13