Local government restructuring, growth coalitions, and the development process in the Durban Functional Region, c. 1984–1994

Abstract

This paper has attempted to shed light on some of the major events influencing the direction of the development process in the locality of Durban over a ten-year period. The impact that the changing national political context and changes in the global economy have had on these developments has, as far as is possible, been alluded to. Clearly, though, the experience of Durban has to be looked at in terms of the local conjunction of different restructuring forces (deriving from and operating at different spatial levels) with the specific social, cultural, political, and institutional circumstances of the locality itself. This, as has been demonstrated, is an explanatory variable of key importance in attempting to account for and explain particular events in Durban.