Analyzing the temporal location of employment centers relative to residential areas in Cape Town: A spatial metrics approach

Abstract

Abstract:The marginalization of low-income earners, in regard to access to economic activities, is a topical issue in South Africa. The location of residential areas relative to locations of employment plays a large role in determining how accessible employment opportunities are to individuals. This has led to several studies that look at the polarization of growth in places of economic activities in more affluent suburbs within the discourse of social exclusion and transformation. Since South African independence, several policies were drafted to address issues of segregation and social exclusion, among other issues. However, the question remains whether there has been progress in addressing these issues. This research applies landscape metrics to understand the growth trends in the spatial location of residential areas, relative to centers of economic activities, from 1995 (start of democracy) to 2013. The analyses reveal that high-and middle-income residential areas are typically located near commercial land uses. This explains the mixed land-use patterns that are found in middle-income residential areas. On the other hand, low-income residential areas were observed to be, dominantly, in large homogeneous and continuous patches.

Lessons Learned from Applying an Integrated Land Use Transport Planning Model to Address Issues of Social and Economic Exclusion of Marginalised Groups: The Case of Cape Town, South Africa

“…The initial parameter implemented in the model was 0.6 and the land use patterns were evaluated after each model run. The final calibrated parameter was 0.7 and this resulted in land use patterns similar to those observed in the 2005 real map and also those reported in a previous article by authors [30]. The integrated model was then evaluated for process and predictive accuracy using the different variants of the Kappa statistic and the fractal dimension.…”

“…While there has been limited progress in addressing urban spatial issues [26,30] there are still opportunities to direct future urban development, such that previously marginalised groups have access to employment and other social activities.…”

“…development on transport corridors, high density land uses and infilling as a way of redressing some of the spatial inequalities created by the apartheid spatial structure. While there has been limited progress in addressing urban spatial issues [26,30] there are still opportunities to direct future urban development, such that previously marginalised groups have access to employment and other social activities.…”

“…The complete land use classification is presented in Table 1. For a full description of the methods used to classify the land uses see a previous article by the authors [30]. While the research focuses on the dynamics relating to informal settlements and lowincome housing; to have a realistic representation of the urban land use dynamics, middleincome, high-income residential housing, manufacturing services and trade services were also modelled as function land uses.…”