Urban jungle: Cities in South Africa are not geared towards making life easy for young people, particularly those who are looking for work. Photo: Delwyn Verasamy
The African Union estimates that about 60% of Africa’s population will live in urban areas by 2030. This highlights the importance of urban spaces in the governance discourse. One of the unique elements of Africa’s urbanisation is that, demographically, the cities are very young.
For example, in South Africa, youth (defined as ages 15 to 35) make up just over 34% of the population. Of this percentage, the National Youth Development Agency estimates that roughly 63.4% live in urban areas, specifically in Gauteng and the Western Cape.
Despite young people making up a significant demographic in cities, youth are often excluded from policy and decision-making processes. Furthermore they are more vulnerable to some of the most acute problems that have come with urbanisation such as unemployment, poverty and violence. For instance, according to the most recent Labour Force Survey (Q4 2024) 44.6% of young people are unemployed in South Africa; this translates to roughly 4.7 million people.
As 16 June, South Africa’s national youth day, approaches, we should reflect on how we can do better for young people and, more specifically, how our cities can be (re)designed to address some of the key challenges that young people face.
Urban planning is important for how cities function and develop over time. This in turn has an effect on other governance focuses from access to and quality of service delivery, quality of life and addressing socio-economic issues. But cities do not exist in a vacuum and thus decisions that were taken in the past continue to shape the present and future.
Specifically in the context of South Africa, cities were intentionally designed to segregate and control, and undermine people’s dignity. This meant that for post-apartheid local governments, the challenge was not only to deliver services to informal settlements but also try to redress the unjust legacies of the racist policies that were ingrained into the very fabric of South African cities.
One of the most difficult issues since 1994, for instance, was how to incorporate townships and informal settlements into the formal functions of the city, not just from a service delivery point of view but also from a developmental one. Consider Cape Town. Forced removals, prohibitively high property prices and ineffective transport (and other) policies have pushed many to live in settlements all around the city. This has further reinforced the spatial dislocation wrought by apartheid which makes searching for work, and transport to work, exceedingly expensive.
A 2022 YouthCapital report on the cost of looking for work highlighted how the spatial layout of cities has worked against young job-seekers. The report shows that young people spend more than R900 a month to look for work, with a large percentage of this going towards transport and data costs. Despite many frameworks and policies being proposed to address the issue of youth unemployment, there has not been sufficient discussion around removing spatial barriers that put financial strain on job-seekers, further entrenching inequality and poverty.
Urban planning and spatial design can directly address some of these issues by designing and implementing policies that are centred on empowerment, supporting and improving information and communication technology to reduce the need to travel, and to cut travel costs through better designed public transport infrastructure.
Outside of looking for jobs, the spatial design and layout of a city can also be used to promote the development of small businesses and entrepreneurship. This is particularly relevant in the South African context as the informal economy accounted for 19.5% of the total employment in the fourth quarter of 2024. This makes it the second-largest job creation sector in the country. But the informal sector is often overlooked in policy discussions, with local governments either working to remove these spaces, such as the continued fining and removal of street traders, or ignoring them completely.
This sector is a key opportunity for local governments to support and facilitate youth entrepreneurship. One way to do this is through better connecting these markets to the wider city, through designated market spaces for entrepreneurs and customers, improving public safety and improving access to basic services to make it easier for people to do business.
In light of this, not only is urban planning important for youth in job creation but also for enhancing youth entrepreneurship.
Last, urban and spatial design is important for improving and supporting people’s quality of life and overall wellbeing. Often with urban development, the focus is on ways to maximise economic output, but cities and people are more than just their economic value or output. Cities are made up of communities, families and support structures that create and replicate social values and interactions.
As a result, centring youth in cities will allow them to not only realise their potential but also encourage them to create, build community and have fun.
But the urban experience is often marred by a complex set of issues that intersect across social, economic and historical lines. This has made cities increasingly unfriendly towards young people, especially for the most marginalised.
Therefore, there needs to be a greater emphasis on making cities more inclusive and community orientated.
Scholarship on urbanisation has become increasingly focused on this idea of inclusive development. It expands the idea of development beyond the traditional economic or political issues, exploring how cities can be moregreen, community orientated and equitable. In the South African context, many NGOs and communities are creating spaces such as dance groups and art and crafts centres, helping people not only to explore and create but also create community.
Community is important especially when looking to make cities more friendly, because it creates a sense of belonging and support, which can help young people stand against destructive activities such as gangsterism.
While these are just a few ways of centring youth in the conversation about urban planning and development, it highlights a crucial need for more inclusiveness in urban policy. Over the past two decades, a number of urban policies and frameworks have been introduced and revised, but there seems to be a misalignment about who these policies are for.
Perhaps it’s time to rethink who we want to build cities for and what we want our cities to be.
Stuart Morrison is a data analyst in the Governance Insights and Analytics team at Good Governance Africa.