South Africa’s Pursuit of Sustainable Urban Development: a Reality or Rhetoric?

Helen Phosho, Mueletshedzi and Gumbo, Trynos (2022) South Africa’s Pursuit of Sustainable Urban Development: a Reality or Rhetoric? Mobility, Knowledge and Innovation Hubs in Urban and Regional Development. Proceedings of REAL CORP 2022, 27th International Conference on Urban Development, Regional Planning and Information Society. pp. 669-678. ISSN 2521-3938

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Abstract

The attainment of sustainable urban development is one of the biggest challenges that contemporary governments face across the world. Despite many governments adopting and pursuing sustainable development goals following their adoption in the past years, there is still a huge gap in the implementation of the sustainable development principles and the public declarations that these governments ratified. It has been observed that the implementation and efforts being exerted towards the achievement of the SDGs in most cities of the developing world do not reflect the promises that were made in the declarations. The aim of this paper is to assess South Africa’s pursuit of sustainable urban development and make an attempt to determinine the level of sincerity by the government and be able to conlude whether its a reality or rhetoric. The paper looks at sustainable urban development practices and how sustainable urban development has evolved within the South African urban policy context. An analysis of the policies aimed at promoting longterm growth that influences sustainable urban development in the country was conducted. The results showed that in South Arica, there is widespread adoption and growing interest in sustainable urban development principles by government. However, with regards to implemenation, particularly at city levels, sustainable development still needs concerted efforts and commitment to make it reality. In conclusion, the paper opines that there is need for political, economic, institutional and social commitments to support innovative strategies to enhance possibilities for sustainable urban development in South African cities

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	sustainability, urban development, urban policy, South Africa, sustainable development goals
Subjects:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GB Physical geography H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General)
Depositing User:	The CORP Team
Date Deposited:	12 Nov 2022 17:14
Last Modified:	18 Dec 2022 14:01
URI:	http://repository.corp.at/id/eprint/933

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