The Darker Side of Muddling Through: an Analysis of Spatial Planning Policy Decision-Making and Policy Termination in Cape Town, South Africa

Abstract

Successes and failures in the use of urban edges or urban growth boundaries as policy instruments to contain or direct urban growth in order to protect non-urban areas and encourage the development of more compact, contiguous urban areas (Nelson and Dawkins 2004) have been widely documented. This is true particularly for cities in the more developed world where edges and boundaries have been in place for an adequate period of time to allow for evaluation of spatial outcomes. More recently cities in the global south have also embarked on such policy evaluation (Lerise 2000; Mubarak 2004; Msoffe et al. 2011; Du Plessis 2013; Inostroza et al. 2013). The City of Cape Town (CoCT), South Africa, has since the early 2000s employed an urban edge line as a growth management instrument in its spatial development framework (SDF) (CoCT 2009a). However, in the most recent Cape Town Spatial Development Framework (CTSDF) of 2017, an urban edge line is no longer applied as an instrument to contain horizontal urban spatial growth. Instead, the latest CTSDF champions development that will support transit-oriented development in the urban core and notes the city’s intention not to extend services towards the urban periphery in the short-term (CoCT (City of Cape Town Metropolitan Municipality) 2017a). This sees a considerable turn-around from the stated historic apprehension to persistent growth pressure to the northern and eastern urban extremities of the metropolitan area by using an urban edge (CoCT 2012a) and seems to suggest that the former urban edge policy was considered inappropriate or problematic to the CoCTs objectives for spatial development. While the spatial effect of the urban edge over the period of 16 years for which it was employed remains a valuable subject of research, this research is interested more in the reasons behind termination of the policy. The paper postulates that, despite a solid policy foundation, the effectiveness of its intent was gradually eroded by political decision-making counter to the policy.