the gauteng spatial development framework - Gauteng Online

• Creativity and innovation, ensuring that the province can adapt to change inconstructive ways.The development of these ideas is explored in the following section, 'Making sense ofNonsense'.INTERVENTIONS IN THE URBAN SYSTEM ARE TO BE:MAKING SENSE OF NONSENSE• Focused on 'city-building' infrastructural investments predicated on eliciting provincialre-structuring as opposed to getting embroiled in localised, fine-grained urbanfabric issues;• Through investing in social, cultural and physical infrastructure;• Investment in the public environment so that it becomes the springboard of economicopportunity;• Through re-tooling and re-thinking subsidies/ social grants so that they complementone another; and• Introducing economic growth incentives for developers and an approach to urbanmanagement predicated on the need for development by the private sector and howthis is managed to ensure that the wider provincial re-structuring objectives are beingmet. The spatial structure that can best achieve this is a polycentric model anchoredby nodes of different sizes and serving dedicated functions appropriate to their positionin the urban system set within strongly configured urban corridors.Within this, the role of the Province is to:• Ensure the strengthening of this 'polycentric pattern' by managing/regulating,alongside the municipalities in the province, the development of land in such a waythat large-scale development does not happen 'off the grid';• Channel and incentivise both large State and non-State investment and spending tothe grid, especially large infrastructure investments that could 'cement' the grid; and• Ensuring that investment on the grid is of such a nature that it utilises/ maximises thespace on the grid to the fullest, and that investment that is off the grid does notdilute the drawing power of the grid.The mega-city itself requires some clearer understanding than simply the extrapolation ofmetropolitan planning principles largely defined, in South African terms, in the 1960s and70s. One also needs to go beyond the notion of the 'compact city' that developed in thelate-1980s. There are many reasons to reinforce the principles of the 'compact city' in thesense that unbridled, senseless urban sprawl remains and is increasingly unacceptable asa sustainable urban pattern. More particularly, though, the characteristics of sustainableurban form at scale become increasingly defined around complexity within compactnessrather than compact urban limits alone. Few mega-cities remain uni-nuclear in pattern,and even polynucleated urban structures become less obvious at scale. London, by example,is certainly polynucleated and yet still has a strongly defined urban core ('The City'). Yet,wherever one is in the extended urban system, one finds compactness within whichcomplexity offers a wide variety of choice and a range of urban opportunities. Whereopportunities cannot be satisfied directly and locally, an extensive, affordable public transportsystem provides easy commuting to adjacent zones of compact complexity. This is notsimply a structure of nodes within an urban system - the morphology is far more complexand interwoven.In order to explore a more worthwhile understanding of what is happening in Gauteng'surban sub-region, one needs to re-visit some morphological issues. In this regard, anexploration of greater Johannesburg, Tshwane and the Vaal Triangle in its Gauteng contextis required.This is so since Johannesburg, Pretoria and the Vaal Triangle in effect represent a 'city state'when one considers that Gauteng, as a province with a population of about 11 million, isin the order of 9.5 million urbanised.There is thus little distinction between province and city and one is able to observe theevolution of a mega-city.SECTION 2: THE GSDF AS A CONCEPTGAUTENG SPATIAL DEVELOPMENT FRAMEWORK 2011GAUTENG GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT AGENCY24