The Economic Drivers of Urban Change in the Gauteng City-Region: Past, Present, and Future

Abstract

This chapter deals with the economic drivers of urban change in the Gauteng City-Region since the dawn of democracy in 1994. The chapter reflects on matters of economic policy and growth and their impact on the attraction of investments, creation of employment and the reconfiguration of the regional space economy. It is about the history and geography of labour and capital, their location, growth, distribution, and influence on the spatial form of the region. The chapter discusses the economic development of the region in terms of the national administrations of Presidents Nelson Mandela, Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma. It starts by describing the historical and economic location of the city-region. This is followed by a reflection on the national policy development under Mandela and its impact on the city-region. The following sections deal with the impact of the Mbeki era’s economic policy on the development of the city-region, and the influence of national and provincial economic policies under Zuma’s administration. The last section provides concluding remarks giving an overall outlook for the city-region. The thrust of the argument in this chapter is that urban change in the region is shaped by the apartheid legacy; national economic policy; government interventions; spatial mobility of people; and the vicissitudes of political and economic dynamics on the continent. At the centre of this urban change is the pervasive paradigmatic influence of neoliberal urbanism within state projects and programmes, which has led to the creation of various urban landscapes that are signifiers of chronic urban fragmentation in the region.