The paper analyses trends in the location of commercial, industrial, and diff erent residential land uses in the four largest metropolitan cities of South Africa over the past decade. Recent development patterns show strong decentralisation trends of away from core cities to the metropolitan fringes despite proactive containment policies. Elements of the diff erential urbanisation model are used to explain heterogeneous migration patterns within a rapidly urbanising South African population. Indications are that strong centrifugal patterns in the cities are linked to both local decentralisation and defl ected urbanisation at the regional level. This results in continuing social stratifi cation in all four agglomerations and the continuation of the 'post-apartheid city.' The persistent movement of populations and commercial and industrial land uses to the urban fringe has resulted in the strengthening of the multicentric urban framework of the four metropolitan cities.
This research proposes an urban sprawl index as a tool to comparatively analyse the extent of urban sprawl between cities and towns of different sizes, making use of cadastre, land use and population data over time. The Urban Sprawl Index (USI) for the Western Cape put forward by this research will enable the comparative measurement of the extent of urban sprawl proportionately between the Metropolitan and local municipalities in the province and thereby aid in understanding trends in formal and informal development processes, as well as the spatial planning instruments applied to guide development.
The incidence and effects of urban sprawl have been the subject of a great many academic research mainly as a result of the challenges posed by continued urbanisation, especially in
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