City Maps Diepsloot South Africa


Book Description

City Maps Diepsloot South Africa is an easy to use small pocket book filled with all you need for your stay in the big city. Attractions, pubs, bars, restaurants, museums, convenience stores, clothing stores, shopping centers, marketplaces, police, emergency facilities are only some of the places you will find in this map. This collection of maps is up to date with the latest developments of the city as of 2017. We hope you let this map be part of yet another fun Diepsloot adventure :)




Pathways to Reconciliation


Book Description

Reconciliation: what makes it possible, what impedes it, how to foster and promote it and how to build the social conditions in which it can flourish? These are pressing questions for an increasingly significant concept in community and international relations. This book is a creative engagement with the central terms of reconciliation - forgiveness, nationhood, conflict resolution, justice and memory - and with approaches to questions of listening and understanding the 'other'. It is premised on the view that an essential pathway to the achievement of reconciliation lies in developing and disseminating critical concepts that capture the nuances of practice. Drawing on fields in the social sciences and humanities, including post structuralism, hermeneutics, subaltern studies and social theory, and elaborated in relation to contemporary sites of conflict and peace-making, this collection brings together a unique range of perspectives on the complex issue of reconciliation while offering responses to the key questions being asked of it today.




Economics of South African Townships


Book Description

Countries everywhere are divided within into two distinct spatial realms: one urban, one rural. Classic models of development predict faster growth in the urban sector, causing rapid migration from rural areas to cities, lifting average incomes in both places. The situation in South Africa throws up an unconventional challenge. The country has symptoms of a spatial realm that is not not rural, not fully urban, lying somewhat in limbo. This is the realm of the country’s townships and informal settlements (T&IS). In many ways, the townships and especially the informal settlements are similar to developing world slums, although never was a slum formed with as much central planning and purpose as were some of the larger South African townships. And yet, there is something distinct about the T&IS. For one thing, unlike most urban slums, most T&IS are geographically distant from urban economic centers. Exacerbated by the near absence of an affordable public transport system, this makes job seeking and other forms of economic integration prohibitively expensive. Motivated by their uniqueness and their special place in South African economic and social life, this study seeks to develop a systematic understanding of the structure of the township economy. What emerges is a rich information base on the migration patterns to T&IS, changes in their demographic profiles, their labor market characteristics, and their access to public and financial services. The study then look closely at Diepsloot, a large township in the Johannesburg Metropolitan Area, to bring out more vividly the economic realities and choices of township residents. Given the current dichotomous urban structure, modernizing the township economy and enabling its convergence with the much richer urban centers has the potential to unleash significant productivity gains. Breaking out of the current low-level equilibrium however will require a comprehensive and holistic policy agenda, with significant complementarities among the major policy reforms. While the study tells a rich and coherent story about development patterns in South African townships and points to some broad policy directions, its research and analysis will generally need to be deepened before being translated into direct policy action.




Immigration and Development


Book Description

This book deals with several issues linking immigration and social development. Following several approaches, from economic to sociological ones, it covers the many effects of the rising phenomenon of immigration. It deals with the effects of immigration on economic growth, on human capital accumulation, and on the government budget. Moreover, it also includes contributions on the social integration of immigrants and on the effects they have in some different cities. It covers studies in countries such as Norway, the USA, Romania, and South Africa. The book Immigration and Development is an essential reading for those who want to get a social sciences multidisciplinary approach to immigration as a social phenomenon.




"Township economies": Uses, meanings and key debates in the Gauteng context


Book Description

This paper presents multiple meanings of ‘township economies’ and the implications of key debates around framing township economic development. Overlaps in various national and provincial government strategies have included government procurement in townships, settlement upgrading, promoting entrepreneurship and creating a conducive regulatory environment for productivity. These efforts notwithstanding, the paper points out the need to include township development within broader national policy and encourages discussion on important concerns such as bringing jobs to people or people to jobs.




The Changing Space Economy of City-Regions


Book Description

This book addresses the South African Space Economy and its stark disparities and dualisms through an assessment of the Gauteng City-Region – the largest economic agglomeration in the country and on a continent bedevilled by a myriad of development challenges. The book’s focus on understanding the overall character of Gauteng City-Region’s Space Economy – through data mining/analysis and mapping – comprehensively supplements the Space Economy literature on the region. It covers the disparities exacerbated by an overlay of apartheid planning ideology and top-down regional development based on selective encouragement of manufacturing investments in growth points or poles and how implementation of past policies intended to cure these disparities have yielded mixed results. This book further offers the Gauteng City-Region as a microcosm of the national economy in the form of evident significant placed-based variations in the intensity and character of economic structure that on the one hand enjoys massive agglomeration economies, while on the other, has high levels of poverty and large numbers of people living below the Minimum Living Level. This book should appeal to urban studies specialists, economists and development studies researchers in the Global South.




Towards applying a green infrastructure approach in the Gauteng City-Region


Book Description

In the context of heightened climate variability, thinking about ways to redesign our urban areas with more sustainable infrastructure solutions is becoming more and more important. Green infrastructure (GI) is emerging as an alternative approach to traditional (‘grey’) infrastructure in urban planning and development. Its emergence can be understood in terms of the growing demand for infrastructure and services, increased concerns over natural resource constraints and climate change, and the negative impacts associated with traditional approaches to designing and building cities. It has been proposed that GI can provide the same services as traditional infrastructure at a similar capital cost, while also providing a range of additional benefits. However, despite the increasing examples of successful urban GI applications, traditional infrastructure continues to dominate due to the lack of systematic evidence to support GI implementation. As a result, there has been an increase in calls from policy- and decision-makers for a greater evidence base on the benefits of GI, as well as for practical guidelines on its implementation. ‘Towards applying a green infrastructure approach in the Gauteng City-Region’ is the GCRO’s third report in its ongoing research into 'Green assets and infrastructure'. The first two reports in this project series were more theoretically grounded and policy-oriented, whereas this third report is more practical in nature. The first report explored the basic principles around GI, assessed the extent of ecological features in Gauteng and the way governments in the province think about planning and maintenance of green assets. The second report responded to some of the challenges identified in the first report, and in particular the importance of government officials and practitioners in exploring how international green infrastructure plans could be applied in the Gauteng context. This third report builds on the findings of the aforementioned reports and the project’s CityLab series, which highlighted the need to build an evidence base as critical for garnering support for and as well as enhancing investment in the GI approach. Unlike the more theoretically grounded earlier reports, this report comprises four technical sections and practical reflections on how a GI approach could be incorporated into urban planning in the GCR and in other similar urban contexts.




Urban Commons, Future Smart Cities and Sustainability


Book Description

This book provides a critical theoretical framework for understanding the implementation and development of smart cities as innovation drivers, with long-term effects on productivity, livability, and the sustainability of specific initiatives. This framework is based on an empirical analysis of 21 case studies, which include pioneer projects from various regions. It investigates how successful smart city initiatives foster technological innovation by combining regulatory governance and private agency. The typologies of smart city-making approaches are thoroughly examined. This book presents the holistic approach of smart cities, which start from current issue and challenges, advanced technological development, disaster mitigation, ecological perspective, social issue, and urban governance. The book is organized into five major parts, which reflect interconnection between theories and practice. Part one explains the introduction which reflects the diversity and challenges of the urban commons and its regeneration. Part two covers the current and future situation of urban growth, anglomeration agglomeration, and urban infrastructure. This section includes rethinking urban sprawl: moving towards sustainable cities, drivers of urban growth and infrastructure, urban land use dynamics and urban sprawl and urban infrastructure sustainability and resilience. Part three describes climate crisis, urban health, and waste management. This section includes climate change and health impacts in urban areas, green spaces: an invaluable resource for delivering sustainable urban health, health and wellbeing and quality of life in the changing urban environment, urban climate and pollution—case study, sustainable urban waste management and urban sustainability and global warming and urban heat Island. Part four covers the ecological perspectives, advanced technology, and social impact for i.e., smart building, ecosystem services, society and future smart cities (SSC). This section includes urban ecosystem services, environmental planning, and city management, artificial intelligence and urban hazards and societal impact, and using geospatial application and urban/smart city energy conservation—case study. Part five covers urban governance, smart solutions, and sustainable cities. It includes good governance, especially e-governance and citizen participation, urban governance, space and policy planning to achieve sustainability, smart city planning and management and Internet of things (IoT), advances in smart roads for future smart cities, sustainable city planning, innovation, and management, future strategy for sustainable smart cities and lessons from the pandemic: the future of smart cities.




The map of Gauteng: evolution of a city-region in concept and plan


Book Description

The mission of the Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO) is to help illuminate trends and dynamics shaping the region of towns and cities in and around Gauteng, and also enhance understanding of the idea of the Gauteng City-Region (GCR) as a project – a different way of thinking about and governing this space. While much of the data collection and analysis work of the GCRO is focused on the present, we also consider the city-region’s past and its possible futures. A 2030 National Development Plan, crafted by the National Planning Commission, has recently been adopted. In addition the Gauteng Provincial Government, working with municipal partners and business, civil society and labour stakeholders, is drafting a G2055 long-term development plan. As our society looks forward to what sort of country and region we need to become, it is also important to look backward. Understanding the past gives us insights into how we have come to be where we are now, and so in turn what paths we should tread into the future. This Occasional Paper is one of two that GCRO has commissioned specifically to deepen our understanding of the past of the GCR. Both focus on aspects of the region’s spatial past, and ought to be read together. This paper by Alan Mabin explores how the idea of a city-region found expression in various statutory planning frameworks over the course of the last century, and how embryonic cityregion concepts influenced spatial decisions and developments. The companion paper by Brian Mubiwa and Harold Annegarn considers the different but related issue of the actual historical spatial evolution of the GCR. It examines key spatial changes that have shaped the region over a century and provides a remarkable picture, based on satellite imagery, of regional spatial growth in the last two decades.




The Intercultural City


Book Description

The resulting cultural differences can often create problems and conflict. In Europe alone, the sheer scale of migration is forcing the issue to the top of the political agenda. The Intercultural City brings together scholars from a range of disciplines - including urban studies, geography, planning, sociology, political science and spatial design - to explore both the failings of existing policies to manage diversity and to examine how one might begin to create ways to remove obstacles and enhance the integration of migrants and minorities. Combining fresh theoretical insights with studies from cities in Europe, North America, Asia and Africa, The Intercultural City offers a timely and important contribution to the challenge of managing diversity in the city of the twenty-first century.