The role of the habitat policy agenda in addressing urban planning challenges in South Africa : a case study of the city of Johannesburg

Abstract

Urbanization is a worldwide phenomenon that has gained traction into becoming the most significant megatrend of the 21st century, making cities the focus of most of the world’s development challenges. The United Nations predicts that by 2050, African cities will be home to 2.5 billion people (60% of the population), double the number in 2015 of approximately 1.23 billion people. The global south and African cities are experiencing the most rapid urbanisation rates and cities in South Africa are not indemnified. The City of Johannesburg, like the rest of the world, is facing a rapidly growing population. As it stands Johannesburg is South Africa’s largest city with an urban population of 99.8% and it is predicted that by 2040 four in five people could be living in urban areas. The history of South Africa however, had not prepared for this rate of urban population growth. Colonialist and apartheid planning produced highly inefficient, inequitable, and environmentally damaging outcomes to the spatial landscape of the city and left the city’s urban areas with vast urban planning challenges. These include spatial segregation, urban sprawl, lack of affordable quality housing, and inadequate infrastructure and services, inter alia. To address these glaring urban issues, the City of Johannesburg has recently embraced the Habitat III: New Urban Agenda. This policy is the third-generation document of the Habitat Agenda Policy which seeks to create a mutually reinforcing relationship between urbanization and development. It intends on reinvigorating the global commitment to sustainable urbanisation and making cities and human settlements equitable, prosperous, sustainable, and safe. Against this backdrop, this research study is aimed at establishing what feasible strategies and policy guidelines the Habitat III: New Urban Agenda can provide to reduce the urbanisation crisis and promote sustainable urban development in the City of Johannesburg. The research study uses the City of Johannesburg as a case study and takes on both qualitative and quantitative approaches as it has many dimensions and layers which are portrayed in its multifaceted form. The analysis revealed that the strategies, projects, and programmes developed by the City of Johannesburg to address urban planning challenges experienced by the city, are overall well aligned to the principles of the New Urban Agenda. What is not translated well is the detail stipulated in the sub-themes of the five pillars outlined by the New Urban Agenda, which exposes a gap within the urban legislation, urban economy, municipal finance, and local implementation of the city. This directly contributes to the slow pace and unrealised potential of sustainable urban development within the city. The study recommends, inter alia, that the city places more resources on implementation of instruments prescribed by the descriptions in the sub-themes of the Action Implementation Framework of the New Urban Agenda and prioritise the four pillars of sustainability by incorporating the institutional and environmental pillars more strongly in plans and project. This will enable Johannesburg to better realise sustainable urban development.