Un-integrated City – Separate Racial Settlements: The legacy of inequality from the first three phases of development is a demographically fragmented City, resulting in highly dysfunctional informal settlements on well-located land and backyard shacks in established township areas. The imperative for the future is to develop a proactive approach to the continued influx of poor people from rural areas without derogating from the need to facilitate upwardly mobile urbanisation within Ekurhuleni, and to attract middleand upper-income urbanisation, which is essential to grow the tax base, skills base and entrepreneurship in the City. 2. Job Creating Economic Growth Service Driven Economic Growth: The rich, complex and historically embedded nature of Ekurhuleni’s manufacturing sector established in the first phase of urban development resulted in extensive investment and job creation. It somehow survived the neglect of industrial development in the third phase of urban development, which resulted in the growth
of a servicesdriven economy that does not match the skills profile of Ekurhuleni’s workforce or make use of its manufacturing and logistical assets. The imperative for the future is that the ongoing relative and absolute decline of manufacturing as the economic base of the City needs to stop, and efforts must be made to re-stimulate industrial growth that build on current value chains and infrastructural developments. Jobless Economic Growth: The reality of all forms of industrial and services development in the second and third phases is that they have demanded higher basic skill sets as well as industry specific artisanal and computer skills. At the same time, the lessons of the second and third stages of development show that informal settlements, minibus taxis, and spaza shops were able to create livelihoods during apartheid. A key aspect of economic growth going forward will be to necessitate measures to rapidly close the skills gap and provide bridging mechanisms between those who already have skills and the needs of industry, and to incorporate job-rich SMMEs in the emerging industrial and urban services value chains. Consumerism: The third phase of urban development promoted a culture of
economic dependence and entitlement as the state assumed responsibility for meeting the full spectrum of needs through handouts of services (housing and social grants) without being able to create the decent work and business opportunities that would have resulted in a culture of savings and entrepreneurship. This was compounded by the massive extension of credit for consumption purposes, further undermining the capacity of the poor to invest in productive livelihoods. The imperative for the future is to promote a high level of economic responsibility and accessibility through measures that incentivise saving, productive investment and entrepreneurship. 3. Social Empowerment Extended Constitutional Rights Without Additional Resources and Means to Meet these Rights: The Bill of Rights to the Constitution in the third phase of urban development was of little benefit to the poor because they lacked access to economic opportunities. The imperative for the future is to progressively correct the social and spatial inequalities, and ensure level playing fields that give full expression to equality and other clauses in the Bill of Rights in the Constitution. Urbanisation and Intolerances on the Basis of Race: The first phase of urban development was based on undisguised exploitation and discrimination. It is imperative to redress the inherent structural racial inequalities. Urbanisation and Intolerances on the Basis of Race and Ethnicity: The racial inequality of the first phase of urban development is consistent with the concept of ethnic homelands that continued to impact in the third phase. The imperative for the future is that a broadly owned concept of
TABLE 1 Depictions of the global transitions (mega drivers) that are anticipated by 2050
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GLOBAL TRANSITIONS
POSSIBLE SOUTH AFRICAN SCENARIO
POSSIBLE EKURHULENI SCENARIO
LIKELY MANIFESTATIONS
2012 to 2020
Recovery of global economy
Supply-side investments
Reactive built environment investments
Continued reproduction of apartheid urban form and marginalisation of poor
2020 to 2030
Times of turbulence
Demand and markets constraints
Unimaginable infrastructure renewal and maintenance backlog
Operational costs of built environment rise considerably, standard of living falls, economy shrinks, metro revenue base contracts
2030 to 2050
World of sustainability or catastrophe
Contradiction of resourcebased and green economy
Massive urban and socioeconomic development deficits
Poor price out of the market’s social anarchy, increase in natural disasters (famine, floods), built environment decay, metro fails financially
EKURHULENI 2019