Gauteng Global City
Presenter: Lindsay Williams  Guest(s): Topham, Beavon 

Plans are afoot to turn Gauteng into a global city. With Steve Topham from International Organisation Development South Africa (IODSA), and Keith Beavon author of “Johannesburg - The Making and Shaping of the City”

LINDSAY WILLIAMS: “A city region that can effectively compete in the global economy is the key to South Africa’s growth and development, and our ability to address poverty, unemployment and under-development,” says Gauteng Premier Mbhazima Shilowa. “After 120 years sub-Saharan Africa’s most important city Johannesburg and its sister Gauteng cities must play an even greater role in the economic future of South Africa and the continent.” To achieve this Mbhazima Shilowa has launched the Gauteng Global City region. Keith, I started with Steve Topham the other night on Summit Television, but since then you’ve had time to think about this whole Gauteng Global City project - is it bigger than maybe you even realised?

KEITH BEAVON: It is larger than I thought it was - it’s much bigger than just Johannesburg and the PWV region. It extends from the Tshwane Metropolitan area in the north, across to Rustenburg and down to Potchefstroom and Klerksdorp in the south west, and down as far as Sasolburg to the south. The eastern extremity is in the complex of Witbank, Middleburg and Secunda. That’s a very large area. The hard core of this must inevitably be the old PWV region - Pretoria, the central Witwatersrand and down to Sasolburg, Vanderbijlpark and Vereeniging.

LINDSAY WILLIAMS: The geographical aspect. Steve, what is IODSA?

STEVE TOPHAM: We provide technical assistance to the Premier’s office in developing and supporting the concept. To pick up on what Keith said - the core of the Gauteng Global City region is the Johannesburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni metros. The built-up area includes the three metros, Magalies City out to the west, and then down to Vereeniging and Vanderbijlpark in the municipality of Emfuleni. Basically in administrative terms we’ve got three metropolitan authorities, and three district municipalities that have all agreed to work together to improve their planning and approaches to development.

LINDSAY WILLIAMS: So it’s as simple as that? You’ve all got together and said we’ve got these three regions and urban conurbations - - they’re already there and urbanised, we’ve just got to work together to coordinate services. What’s the process of this launch?

STEVE TOPHAM: That’s really the core of the concept. When we talk about building a globally competitive city region cities don’t compete - businesses compete and create employment and growth. What city administrations and provincial government has to do is to create the right circumstances in which enterprises can grow and prosper. The main concept underlying the Gauteng Global City region is how do we increase cooperation to allow businesses to grow and develop to expand and compete externally rather than the tendency for cities to compete between themselves?

LINDSAY WILLIAMS: So that’s the spirit of cooperation. Keith, you were at the Premier’s launch a couple of days ago - what did you get out of that presentation?

KEITH BEAVON: First of all he’s very enthusiastic, and good with a crowd - he speaks very well. He presented a very clear argument that this region’s population is increasing, and will be about 14.4-million in 10 to 14 year - and that in order to make the region work more efficiently than it’s working at the present time, to cut back on unemployment and increase job creation it needs to be competitive, and attract foreign and local investment - and therefore it has to in a sense “tidy up it’s act.” He was blunt in terms of pointing out things that would have to be done - which would be seen as stumbling blocks at the present time.

LINDSAY WILLIAMS: Steve, maybe you can tell us about “tidy up it’s act” and the “stumbling blocks”?

STEVE TOPHAM: An example of what’s happening that relates to property investment - if a company was interested in locating near to a freight airport projecting more growth in the future, at the moment municipalities working individually have come up with proposals for four separate freight airports in the province. Clearly Gauteng doesn’t support four, and there’s the risk of waste and duplication. Also, would an investor know where to go and which are the real runners here? By building and strengthening cooperation, by making sure that plans are a lot more closely aligned, and focusing development efforts that kind of thing would be avoided in the future. That’s what we’re talking about - improving efficiency and management across the whole of the city region.

LINDSAY WILLIAMS: How’s it going to work practically? We’ve had the launch with a very charismatic Premier talking, and he’s won over a sceptical Keith Beavon - where’s it going to go from here?

STEVE TOPHAM: Firstly it’s leadership - city regions internationally are characterised by strong leadership and a strong vision. It’s not only the Premier, the three mayors of the three metropolitan municipalities and the mayors of the three district municipalities have all agreed to work together on this - so that’s a major step forward. There’s going to be an alignment of development plans, and there’s an agreed vision that will be launched next month. There’s a 30-year plan for the city region that we will launch in February 2006. Things are starting to come together. The hard choices will come out about where should investment go - how do we make sure that there are no winners and losers here? That’s the kind of thing that gets hammered out in discussions and debates working with the political leadership, and also at senior officer levels.

LINDSAY WILLIAMS: Theoretical agreed vision is a great thing - and I support that wholeheartedly - but service delivery has come into focus as the South African economy has boomed over the last 12 or 13 years since democracy. How can we change the perception of the way that municipalities deliver services? This is a big service you’re talking about…

STEVE TOPHAM: Absolutely. I would probably argue that things have been getting better - there are major strides forward in service delivery - but as Professor Beavon said earlier Gauteng is going to be a big place in the future. By 2015 there will be 14.4-million people and it will be bigger than Los Angeles. We’re in a race to sustain and continue to grow the economy, and to meet the demands of population growth - that demands redoubled efforts, and also a lot more capacity with municipal officials managing good service delivery.

LINDSAY WILLIAMS: Keith, Steve called you professor - that means he’s getting quite serious about the whole thing! You spoke about transport the other night, and that’s got to be the key to this whole thing. You can talk about three different municipalities, with mayors phoning each other up - but if you can’t get a bus or a train from one to the other then this whole scheme seems to fall on its head?

KEITH BEAVON: A statement someone made at the Urban Age conference that was held in Johannesburg a few weeks ago really caught my imagination. They were saying how the poor people on the south western side of Johannesburg in the region of Ennerdale - that if you don’t have the money to take a taxi to Johannesburg there is no bus, and that if you needed to get to the Johannesburg General Hospital it’s a four-day walk. The unfortunate thing is that as a result of the apartheid system the poor people of the greater Johannesburg area are concentrated on the periphery - and it’s those people that need the services more than most as they can’t afford cars. They can't find the public transport that they want. The difficulty with providing public transport is that the densities are too low to make it profitable for the whole area - how one overcomes this problem is something I can’t answer. Certainly the rail system is reasonably good in terms of its main spines - one could spread out from that. About 20 years ago there was a high speed train experiment held in the Witwatersrand - between Johannesburg and Pretoria. They took a normal 3’6” gauge - which is the main line system in South Africa - and using a system of Sheffield bogies on the coaches, and changing the suspension on the electric unit they were able to reach speeds of something like 160 kilometres an hour on the standard track. Now if you have fast-moving trains, and you can link to that spine - I’m sure the money would be better spent doing that than developing the Gautrain which I don’t see as part of the solution at all.

LINDSAY WILLIAMS: That’s unfortunately a bit late now! Steve, the transport aspect?

STEVE TOPHAM: I don’t want to get into a debate about the Gautrain - as you say it’s there, it’s a statement. More interesting I think over the next 20 years is where would the next phase of Gautrain go? There’s an argument you could extend it to the south and deal with some of the issues that the professor has raised. The point about having to walk to the Johannesburg General Hospital - it’s not just about single centralised facilities, major efforts are going into decentralising facilities out into the dormitory townships and so on. The steps towards establishing a single transport authority - which would reduce this individualism among municipalities in the way in which public transport is handled - I think would be a major stride forward, and help to improve the planning and coordination that’s been highlighted as a major need.

LINDSAY WILLIAMS: When does the breaking down of individual administration systems start - therefore launching this project?

STEVE TOPHAM: Under the constitution there are three spheres of government - we’re not talking about the creation of a megacity government here. This is not the Tokyo model, and I want to make that very clear. It’s actually about intergovernmental cooperation, and if you like the breaking down has already started - the mayors have already agreed to work together, and the Premier is working together with them. The officials have been working together for the last year on putting this together - so the first steps have already been taken.

LINDSAY WILLIAMS: Keith, your final word?

KEITH BEAVON: How many minutes can I have?

LINDSAY WILLIAMS: You can have 30 seconds.

KEITH BEAVON: I wanted to raise the whole business of educating the youth to the complexities of the region they live in - this sort of stuff should be taught in schools, and it’s not.

LINDSAY WILLIAMS: So it’s back to basics.