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Pietennaritzburg, limited residential opportunities, lack of diversified shopping facilities,
commuting of government officials to and from Ulundi, cultural events that only attract
limited local participants, lack of recreational facilities and the lack of corporate financing
institutions. There is also lack of higher-order facilities such as a multi-lingual school,
technical college and medical centre.
In the face of the socio-economic problems that prevail in the study area, the research
question was:
'To what extent can planning that takes into account the cultural and physical landscape
attributes improve the chancesfor development actions in the Ulundi Local Municipality '.
In trying to answer the research question above, secondary questions were posed as reflected
in chapter one. Chapter one presented an orientation to the study. This entailed background to
the study, statement ofthe problem, research questions and objectives. Chapter one further
presented the operational definition ofconcepts, the justification ofthe topic in terms ofwider
research. Finally, the chapter concluded with hypothesis formulation and layout ofthe study.
Chapter two has reviewed the pro-growth and pro-poor perspectives of LED. The application
ofthese two dimensions in this study of Ulundi taking into consideration the local needs and
resources is noted. In South Africa, the pro-poor perspective of LED reigns more supreme
than the market driven school of thought. This is more prevalent in developing rural
municipalities with little or no source of local funding for capital expenditure. As part ofthe
literature review, the three models of urban structure namely the concentric, the sector,
multiple nuclei models as postulated by Burgess, Hoyt, and Harris and Ullman respectively
are also presented.
Moreover, a section of theoretical framework presented here has reviewed the challenges
underlying political fragmentation and regionalism. It should however be noted that, support
for regionalism has been weak. Alternatives such as intermunicipal cooperation or functional
consolidation (specific to a service) have been much more popular. These solutions also raise
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