South Africa’s nine major cities have not fully recognised the importance of ”systematically” managing built-up areas and critical stresses have been placed on natural resources, the first State of the Cities report warns.
The report is to be officially launched on Thursday evening.
”Projections for the National Spatial Development Perspective show that at least four cities will place enormous pressure on available water in the next two decades, possibly leading to crises.”
The report brings together detailed empirical data about the country’s nine largest cities that make up the South African Cities Network (SACN) — Buffalo City (East London), the City of Cape Town, the City of Johannesburg, the City of Tshwane (Pretoria), Ekurhuleni (the East Rand), eThekwini (Durban), Mangaung (Bloemfontein), Nelson Mandela (Port Elizabeth) and Msunduzi (Pietermaritzburg).
On the section dealing with urban and natural environmental challenges and the state of ”the sustainable city”, the authors said a city that overburdens its natural resources is not sustainable.
It notes that attempts at correcting the imbalances of the apartheid era have often worsened the impact on natural resources.
In particular, new housing developments have been built on the margins of cities and this extends the ”ecological footprint” of the city.
For example, there was a net increase of 735 627 informal dwellings not in backyards between 1996 and 2001. There was a further increase of 743 843 formal self-standing houses during this period.
The report said part of this new household formation was driven by the net movement of 478 922 households out of backyards and into formal self-standing houses or informal dwellings.
The ”de-densification” created problems in planning public transport.
Turning to the cities’ sewerage grids, the report said these are running at ”near full” capacity, with infrastructure laid down previously reaching the end of its working life. The pressure on the sewerage system has been compounded by an unanticipated population growth and new Reconstruction and Development Programme housing with flush toilets.
The country’s transport routes to SACN cities have also become increasingly congested, impacting on both pollution levels and efficiency. Without low pollution and efficiency city life is not bearable.
”The average travel time for a home-to-work trip in Johannesburg is now 50 minutes. This increases to 91,7 minutes for passengers needing to catch two buses to get to work, and to 120 minutes for passengers having to take a train, bus and taxi.”
The report uses Cape Town as an example to highlight concerns about cities’ ecological impact.
A full ecological footprint analysis for the city showed that although the total municipal area for the city is 2 487 square kilometres, its energy usage, building materials inputs, waste outputs and food and fresh water requirements have an effective impact on about 128 264 square kilometres, the size of the entire Western Cape province. — Sapa