Making Mangaung Metro: The politics of metropolitan reform in a South African secondary city

Abstract

Metropolitan reforms, which include the creation of unified metropolitan governments through municipal mergers and reclassification, are emerging as one strategy to address planning and service delivery challenges in the wake of increasing urbanisation across sub-Saharan Africa. Although metropolitanisation adds service area and mandates, well-functioning secondary cities that are part of a two-tier governance system in South Africa are pursuing metropolitanisation. The case of Mangaung, an early instance of secondary city metropolitanisation, is an opportunity to examine the motivations underlying these reforms, the politics involved and their impacts on urban governance. Mangaung’s political and administrative leadership pursued metropolitanisation to jump scale, attain greater political autonomy vis-à-vis other tiers of government, and obtain fiscal and technical resources available only to metropolitan municipalities in South Africa’s urban municipal hierarchy. Metropolitanisation was no panacea for Mangaung’s governance challenges, however, since it did not resolve the underlying weaknesses in municipal capacity or the regional economy, nor did it address the spatial legacies of apartheid that produced a sprawling metropolitan service area. As other South African secondary cities contemplate metropolitanisation, we recommend revising municipal structures and mandates and strengthening administrative capacities and economies in secondary cities.

The Planning Challenges of Extended Metropolitan Areas: Issues From South Africa

“…One contemporary trend observed in parts of sub-Saharan Africa is for the restructuring of the boundaries of local governments in order to better address the development challenges associated with accelerating urbanization (Resnick, 2021;Subramanyam and Marais, 2022). This paper has examined one of the outcomes of territorial restructuring in South Africa, namely the planning challenges which have emerged with the creation of an extended metropolitan region incorporating significant rural geographies.…”

“…Notwithstanding the existence of extensive rural spaces in a number of South African metropolitan areas there is so far limited academic writing on these issues by local planners or urban geographers. Best documented is Mangaung with the recent work by Subramanyam and Marais (2022). This section provides an overview of available research and debates focused on Tshwane, Buffalo City and eThekwini drawing from the handful of published research studies which cover issues around urban-rural interdependencies in these regions and, most importantly from three unpublished reports which were commissioned by the South African Cities Network (SACN) on Tshwane, Buffalo City and eThekwini and mainly deal with infrastructural issues around water and electricity provision.…”

“…Boundary changes and spatial reorganisation of administrations was associated with the redistribution of power and resources. During the post-apartheid period several rounds of territorial restructuring and reforms have been undertaken and impacted all tiers of the urban hierarchy (Ramutsindela and Simon, 1999;Giraut and Maharaj, 2004;Cameron, 2006;Marais et al, 2016;Marais and Nel, 2019;Subramanyam and Marais, 2022). Arguably, however, the reforms and territorial restructuring have most deeply impacted the landscape and functioning of several of South Africa's metropolitan areas (Visser, 2001;Houghton, 2013;Sutherland et al, 2018).…”

“…Arguably, however, the reforms and territorial restructuring have most deeply impacted the landscape and functioning of several of South Africa's metropolitan areas (Visser, 2001;Houghton, 2013;Sutherland et al, 2018). The process of the spatial reordering of local government boundaries was contested, conflictual and highly controversial as wealthy urban authorities were opposed to the geographical extension of their administrative boundaries because of the costs that would be incurred for provision of services and infrastructure to resourceconstrained poorer marginal spaces (Giraut and Maharaj, 2004;Chirisa, 2010;Subramanyam and Marais, 2022).…”