Systematic review of critical success factors for developing an Afro-centric neighbourhood sustainability assessment framework

Abstract

Cities across South Africa are predominantly characterised by multiple forms of poverty, growing inequality, environmental degradation, slums and informal settlements, social and economic exclusion, and spatial segregation. These challenges present significant hurdles in planning for and coping with rapid population growth, urbanisation and protecting communities against natural and human-made disasters. This project aims to address the lack of local neighbourhood sustainability assessment (NSA) frameworks to improve the inclusivity, sustainability and connectivity of communities in South Africa. The existing NSA tools promote a specific type of urban development that effectively excludes marginalised communities and is not entirely suited to South African communities’ economic, socio-cultural, and environmental context. To achieve this, seven major assessment tools across the global North and South are selected and scrutinised using content analysis to identify and catalogue the critical success factors (CSFs) for enabling inclusive, smart, sustainable communities in South Africa using existing knowledge on neighbourhood assessment tools and relevant literature. The result is a proposed structure of four categories and 86 CSFs for the Afro-centric NSA framework that can address the challenges encountered in South African marginalised communities.