THE accelerated movement of hundreds of thousands of people into the cities from the rural areas, from other provinces and from the rest of Africa, is transforming South Africa.
Poverty-stricken squatter camps have long been a feature of our cities, but the urban sprawl of Gauteng, which has become one of the fastest-growing emerging cities in the world, is the key to the future.
What happens there goes well beyond the burden that urbanisation is placing on local authorities. The challenge that the new migrants to the cities pose will determine whether or not South Africa continues to resemble a modern, governable state.
Urbanisation is a reality throughout the developing world. The city is the space, the sum of a billion daily human interactions, from which an emerging economy takes off, as has happened in much of the Asian world. It can also be the place where a nation’s failure to rise is writ large in the squalor of its shanty towns.
Will greater Johannesburg resemble Sao Paolo or Rio de Janeiro, or will it look like Lagos or Kinshasa where the bulk of inhabitants are beyond the reach of the state?
Will the residents of our informal settlements ever benefit from state schools, clinics, police protection or even such mundane services as garbage disposal?
Will these communities ever fulfil their civic responsibility by paying taxes? Will they ever have jobs in a formal economy? In short, are they destined to be fully- fledged citizens of South Africa?
Will this informal society spread into the rest of the city, as in Lagos and Kinshasa? Will the existing townships be sucked into the informal areas that are mushrooming around them? Will the rich suburbs become heavily guarded enclaves in a sea of poverty?
The answers to these questions are more germane in determining our future than how many homes the government will build in its first five years.
The disintegration of the state – and with it, the rise of warlordism – is a malady that afflicts much of Africa. The emergence of urban populations who neither benefited from nor contributed to the official state was a central feature in its decline.
The battle against crime in Gauteng is but one indication that South Africa walks the same tightrope as many countries to the north of us. In fact, all the country’s major social problems – including education and poverty – are bound up and dependent upon the ability of the authorities at national, provincial and local level to ride the tiger of urbanisation.
The new migrants to our cities are transforming South African society in ways we do not yet appreciate or understand. The authorities now face critical choices. There are creative alternatives that can harness the energy and potential of the people, that can transform a problem into a virtue. They need to be sought out without delay.