Robin Bloch

Peripheries, suburbanisms and change in sub-Saharan African cities

The paper reports on developments in the peripheries and suburbs of African cities south of the Sahara. Many African economies are expanding at unprecedented scale and with profound urban results. The paper is based on an extensive review of secondary sources and a modicum of fieldwork. Following Ekers, Hamers, and Keil (2012), the point of departure is suburbanism as “the combination of non-central population and economic growth with urban spatial expansion.” In the immense variety of African urbanisms, the purpose of the review is to explore what forms “suburbs” and peripheries take in various African contexts, including spaces which concentrate new economic activities, zones of middle- and upper-income residence, the meaning of informality of building, land markets and social activity, and the various elements of what is often termed “urban sprawl.” The paper seeks to identify trends in suburban growth, what the drivers of growth are, and how it is shaped by policy and institutional mechanisms that try to direct urban growth (and the reality of what happens in practice). We identify some key actors involved in African suburban growth (property developers, landowners, traditional authorities, administrators, households, associations, politicians). The analytical account of the paper concludes with a modest research agenda.

SDIs: Infrastructure, agglomeration and the region in industrial policy

This article reports on the initial findings of an Industrial Strategy Project Research Programme on a key current element of national industrial policy, namely Spatial Development Initiatives (SDIs). The ISP Research Programme is concerned with industrial investment. The operational industrial SDIs are examined against the backdrops of the pattern of contemporary industrial location in South Africa and the emergence of a regional industrial policy for the country; the long-run experience with SDI-type programmes internationally and in South Africa; and directions in current regional industrial development theory and practice, particularly those interventions aimed at strengthening the economies associated with regional/sectoral clusters or agglomerations typically embedded in metropolitan locations. The preliminary findings of research commissioned on long-run industrial development in Richards Bay, and the current SDI processes under way in the Fish River SDI (Eastern Cape) and the West Coast SDI (Western Cape) are then presented These findings demonstrate that for the SDIs to meet their intentions in terms of maximising inward investment, creating jobs and catalysing durable regional economic development, the large opportunity present to use SDI processes to build the capacity and social infrastructure for economic development at local and regional level on — and between — both public and private sector sides should be grasped. To this end, it is also suggested that SDIs be closely linked to other government industrial promotion and support activities, notably the cluster initiatives and SMME support programmes, both of which may themselves need, at this point, far clearer regional focus.