Cities to come under pressure
14/04/2008 15:27  - (SA)  

SA cities facing new challenges SA population almost 50 million Cities 'could be swamped'

Johannesburg - Worldwide urban populations are expected to double within 10 to 15 years, presenting threats and opportunities, city planners said at the Planning Africa conference on Monday.

Urban planners from 26 commonwealth countries met in Sandton to debate three global challenges facing all cities - urbanisation, poverty and climate change.

"The way cities are growing is unsustainable, as is government's approach to urbanisation," president of the Commonwealth Association of Planners, Christine Blatt, said.

A developed country's urban population stabilised at around 80% of its national population. If this trend was true for Africa this would require 43 cities the size of New York to house urban populations, she said.

"Global collective action is required to address these challenges," Blatt said.

"Sixty thousand people are urbanised every day in the commonwealth of nations."

Planning was critical to success and needed to be future oriented and focused on capacity building.

Planning had a huge impact on societies and had to be an integrated developmental tool for all government institutions, said Lechesa Tsenoli, chair of the parliamentary portfolio committee on provincial and local government.

Tsenoli said planning had to continually improve. Planners had to identify the needs of the community and had to secure the resources from provincial and national departments. These plans then had to feed into broader development and growth strategies.

The key challenge in terms of South African urban planning was the lack of capacity and skills to meet requirements for service delivery.

Ebrahim Fakir, researcher for Centre for Policy Studies, said that planning had to be multi-disciplinary and able to differentiate between the particular needs and universal needs of people.

Planners had to be cognisant of state needs and market needs and had to engage with a society holistically, he said.

"Such engagement is the hallmark of social capital."

One planning programme in Johannesburg had been short-listed to be presented at the World Urban Forum in Ninxang in November 2008.

"Local examples and ideas get global recognition," said Tsenoli.

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