the gauteng spatial development framework - Gauteng Online

urban edge, many of the municipal SDFs still contain the urban edge or boundary as apolicy tool and, in such cases the policy still applies. Thus, while the GSDF no longer definesa 'fixed-line' urban edge as a key policy tool, limitations on unnecessary outward expansionof the urban system into peri-urban and rural land still apply.These limitations are now to be defined more strictly in terms of the types of developmentthat will not be permitted beyond the urban fringe, applied far more strenuously, andreviewable only in terms of the strictest guidelines, performance criteria and adherence tostrict due diligence requirements. There certainly are arguments to be made for creatingstrongly defined, mixed-use activity nodes at strategic points on or within the urban perimeterthat assist in making sense of the displaced populations and marginalised communities leftas a legacy of apartheid. These must be studied, submitted to due diligence investigation,weighed up and structured in terms of policy coordination and alignment of urban directives.It is important to distinguish between restructuring the urban fringe of the GCR and simplyacquiescing to what can otherwise be regarded as typical 'edge-city' development as seenin the context, say, of the USA. 7We need to note, too, that the intention is not simply to seek to restrict the horizontalspatial extent of the city 8 : much has been written on the 'compact city' and the unwiseuse of non-renewable energy; the increased need for poorly utilised and expensiveinfrastructure; and proliferation of the need for excessive commuting by private transportsince the patterns of a sprawled city cannot be supported by sensible public transport.ANNEXURE B: POLICY POSITION PAPERS7. 'Edge-city' has come to refer typically to private-mobility based developments, usually highway-related, that tend to spring up on or beyond the urban periphery of cites in the USA, undertakenas privatized developments, usually exclusive in their socio-economic profile, often associated with capital-flight from degraded urban centres, and not conducive to a city pattern that is cognitiveof wise resource usage or sustainable public transport.8. The 'compact city' was a phrase coined in the 1980s to refer to the need for cities to become more tightly-knit and to be restricted in their horizontal extent. The principle is sensibleand seeks to restrict wasteful, unsustainable urban sprawl and clearly a fundamental of the sustainable city. Nevertheless, it must also be understood in the context of the 'complex city': that is, theintensities, densities and activity patterns of cities must be encouraged to become increasingly complex in their profile and relationships (as opposed to the separation of activities into vast districts of monousesthat inhibit the formation of urbanity) and so absorb a significant amount of urban growth in a positive, sustainable way. Fundamentally, the GSDF is to be understood as directing urban growthin terms of 'the compact, complex city'.129 GAUTENG SPATIAL DEVELOPMENT FRAMEWORK 2011 GAUTENG GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT AGENCY