Provocations

Embedding design thinking in transport planning in the Gauteng Provincial Government

The report examines how design thinking is applied in transport planning. Originally, transport planning developed through technocratic scientific modeling. Many practitioners focus mainly on the scientific aspects of transport, often overlooking the human side of transport challenges. The paper emphasizes the importance of human-centred approaches in transport, showcasing global examples of how design thinking has been integrated into transport planning methods.

Exploring possible interventions into dysfunctional local government in Gauteng

Local government constitutes the heartbeat of South Africa’s constitutional and democratic structure. But many South African municipalities, including a number of metropolitan municipalities, are in crisis. Drawing on legislative frameworks, case law and recent empirical data, this Provocation analyses three different intervention options aimed at providing relief to persistent dysfunction in South African municipalities

Governing the GCR series: Displaced urbanisation or displaced urbanism? Rethinking development in the peripheries of the GCR

This Provocation attends to a feature of the Gauteng City-Region (GCR) – its periphery – that continues to receive very limited public and private investment, yet remains home to many hundreds of thousands of largely poor people. The state and other stakeholders have grappled with the question of what to do with the underdeveloped zones of ‘displaced urbanisation’ on Gauteng’s northern periphery for almost three decades. Focusing on the efforts to plan for transport infrastructure along the deadly Moloto Road as a key solution to the problem, this Provocation reveals a set of unresolved divergences within the South African state apparatus. Some players support massive rail infrastructure development along the corridor; others do not. The paper contends that all proponents in the debate miss the significance of the day-to-day actions of residents, formal and informal traders, civil society, traditional leaders, and other actors, who are striving to transform the zones of ‘displaced urbanisation’ they occupy into vibrant spaces of ‘displaced urbanism’.

Governing the GCR series: Unrealistic expectations, unrealised – Bus rapid transit in Johannesburg

Johannesburg’s bus rapid transit (BRT) system, Rea Vaya, was a major intervention into the space economy of the city, intended to build a more just, transit-oriented urban future. Planned and built at great speed in the context of preparations for the 2010 Soccer World Cup, the high running costs and poor service of the system have attracted increasing criticism by policymakers, and the system has never realised its ambitious objectives. This Provocation argues that apart from some extremely preliminary financial analyses, the high costs of the Rea Vaya system were never in doubt, and its construction reflected the decision that its costs were reasonable in light of its social and spatial necessity.

However the Provocation also argues that while building Rea Vaya or something like it was necessary, it was always going to be insufficient to drive major spatial change in Johannesburg. A number of additional spatial interventions were and are essential to support transport reform, including a redistributive approach to urban development; using housing to drive spatial transformation and create the basis for mass public transport; enforcing mixed land use, good urbanism, and walkability; and integrating with other modes of transport, in particular minibus taxis.

Governing the GCR series: The greater Paris debate – reflections for the Gauteng City-Region

This Provocation draws on the stimuli and progression of widespread, deep debate in and about the Paris region in order to contemplate possibilities for wider, creative and informed discussions on the present and future of the Gauteng City-Region (GCR) that it currently lacks. Around the world, large, polycentric and highly diverse ‘city-regions’ pose challenges to the construction of governmental institutions. Residents of such regions do not necessarily share the perceptions of professionals and politicians, and often adhere to more local understandings of their identities. Proposals, plans and debates about the future of city-regions frequently take place out of public view. There are, however, cases in which much broader participation in debate has been accomplished. That has been particularly true in the Paris city-region over the past two decades. The question posed in this Provocation is what there may be to learn from the Paris region case, specifically for widening debate about future prospects for the GCR.

The paper describes the context of the Paris region and the search, over several decades, for ways of institutionalising the region with its multilayered forms of government. Since the early 2000s, competing approaches emerged from national government, the Région of Île-de-France (similar to a province) and the City of Paris (together with its collaborators in other municipalities). National government first stimulated wide debate through sponsoring the production of diverse depictions of the future of the city-region, after which responses from other actors accelerated public discussion through mobilising both histories of change as well as alternative visions of the future. Official public debate in 2010 and 2011 focused on different proposals for massive new investments in a new passenger rail system, emerging as the Grand Paris Express (GPE) project currently under construction. That debate proceeded to overlap into debates about the development of a new governmental entity at a different scale from existing bodies. Such a body came into existence in 2016, namely the Métropole du Grand Paris. Throughout this period, different public, private and non-governmental actors widened and deepened public discussion.

Finally, the Provocation considers how the Paris region experience might inform the expansion of public discussion in the GCR, and suggests roles within this discussion for all stakeholders, including the Gauteng City-Region Observatory (which has already sponsored and produced relevant materials), businesses, not-for-profit organisations and government actors.