cities

(environmental thresholds). Living sustainably means grappling with the “perfect storm” associated with
the inseparability of water, food, energy and climate change (Oxford Martin University, 2013: 18).
Cities have control over resources (water, electricity, waste and land, etc.), and the condition of these
resources affects both the local and national economy. Furthermore, revenue generated from
managing these resources is used to subsidise services provided by cities to residents. Efficient
consumption and maintenance of these resources is important because the economy will be negatively
affected if they are depleted or degraded.
In 2011, the State of Cities Report (SoCR) assessed South Africa’s nine major cities under the theme of
resilience (SACN, 2011). Resilience was referred to as the ability of urban systems and institutions to
accommodate different sources of change and adapt to a state of flux. As urban spaces are dynamic
and constantly evolving, an integrated systems thinking approach is required to assess and manage
them. Cities must view sustainability as part of their everyday business (i.e. service delivery), not as a
fringe environmental concept. The SoCR 2011 concluded that resilient cities need to be accountable
for resource usage, which requires high-quality, city-level data on resource stocks and flows.
The country has made good progress in development, but sustainability is not yet seen as central to
service delivery. The percentage of households with “access to a basic level of water (one stand pipe
within 200 metres)” increased by about 35%, from just over 60% in 1994/95 to over 95% in 2011/12
(The Presidency, 2014: 71), and South Africa is considered “one of the few countries in which tap
water is safe for drinking and use” (ibid: 127). Waste management has improved tremendously, with
waste collection in all nine cities above the national average of 65%. However, progress has come at
a cost. For instance, the coastal areas in Cape Town and eThekwini have been the most transformed
from their natural state, which means they are rapidly losing the ability to provide ecosystem services
and to buffer coastal communities from sea level rise.
This chapter aims to provide a perspective on accelerating transition towards sustainable and inclusive
cities. It uses a resource-efficiency lens on energy, waste, water and food security to reflect on environmental
sustainability, and examines how cities understand and manage cross-cutting issues such as land, air
quality, climate change, disaster management, coastal management as well as rural-urban linkages. Foresight
principles are proposed as a tool to operationalise existing growth and development strategies.
City Transitions to Sustainability
In 2015, the Paris climate agreement on cities at COP21 1 emphasised that, unlike cities in the
developed world, African cities, as key drivers of growth, will not have the luxury of riding an
environmental Kuznets curve (i.e. to pollute now and implement sustainability practices later). Cities
1 COP stands for the Conference of Parties, which is held annually to review the implementation of the Rio Convention that includes the UN
Framework on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
164 State of South African Cities Report 2016