MSIZI MYEZA

When I think of “a movement”, I think of something that resonates with people, something that galvanises people into action and brings people together.

The majority of South Africans became a movement driven to free the country from apartheid. Their actions were driven by a clear understanding of the devastating impact of such a malevolent system.

However, that drive seems to have dissipated. This is even though the effects of apartheid still impact them every day and they live in a dysfunctional urban environment hijacked by minority groups who seek to sustain the status quo, viz. apartheid’s spatial geography.

Inclusive urban development in SA should be something that dominates our public discourse. It affects the majority of people daily, be it through the long distances to get to and from work, school and even health care; be it where social housing development takes place on the periphery of cities, far from economic opportunities; or be it a lack of well-located land for inclusive development. Yet it remains largely an abstract concept.

Even when President Cyril Ramaphosa raised the concept of the smart city during his state of the nation address in 2018, that topic missed the mark, with very few people engaging with it.

The topic of urban planning and development is not a discourse that is truly valued. Again, in September 2023, Ramaphosa repeated this when he said, “There is a lack of capacity within the state, especially at the local government level. We don’t have well-qualified CFOs, engineers or town planners. Apartheid robbed us of having a plethora of town planners in the education system.”

Let’s take Pixley ka Seme district in the Northern Cape, which has eight municipalities, none of which have suitably qualified town planners to help with urban planning or engineers to help with infrastructure development.

It’s not because there is no demand for these skills, but because they can’t attract and retain these skills in these remote towns.

SA planners who have been taught traditional planning are predominantly clouded by land use management processes, spatial development frameworks, and abstract urban policies.

If we do not have our own authentic SA urban development agenda, there is nothing to be truly passionate about.

SA has, for the longest time, done urban development by copying and pasting Western models onto our local landscape.

The so-called SA urban planners don’t have the wherewithal to mobilise society, let alone lead its transformation.

The fact that schools of urban planning at our universities are nowadays judged by the number of students they admit instead of the quality of the research work they conduct has allowed all and sundry to flood the profession.

Strategic planning comes across as something only a select few can do. Every town planner has the ability to grasp the concepts and expand on them. But this is still a reason why strategic planning has not gained momentum in SA. The result of this is a large cohort of mass–produced, certified, but not technically equipped, urban planners.

To create a movement and transform this country, you need urban and regional planners who are technically equipped with problem-solving capabilities, not just generalists.

Urban planners must provide value to society and not just offer slogans about transformation, densification, inclusion, undermining apartheid geography and the like.

This is the only way urban planners can truly lead a transformation movement and claim their credibility. If not, the politicians, developers, geographers, lawyers, communicators, marketing gurus and non-governmental organisations will direct and lead the urban development discourse.

To create a movement, you need passionate professionals who can mobilise people, from the person who sells fruit on the street corner, to the director in the corner office, to the politicians in parliament.

A great example is the work of journalist, writer and activist Jane Jacobs, who influenced urban studies, sociology and economics through her book The Death and Life of Great American Cities.

Like it or not, people like former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher pushed the concept of neo-liberal planning, managing to get everyone on board, and it completely transformed the UK because everyone had a common goal: to push development and attract private sector investment.

In SA, we are not able to focus on a common developmental goal, as we are all singing from vastly different song sheets.

There is a significant divide between academic institutions and the government. Take the City of Tshwane, the City of Johannesburg, or the City of Cape Town, for instance. There are several academic institutions in the cities, but none work that is aimed at assisting the municipality in resolving its development challenges.

Whenever they are approached by the government or municipalities, these institutions treat it as a business transaction instead of contributing to the development process.