Medium to longer term applied research projects
Current Projects
A conceptual starting point for the GCRO is that the broader region of towns and cities needs to be thought about as an integrated regional space, which requires coherent territorial policies to promote economic competitiveness, social cohesion, and sustainability.
‘Urban space economy’ is shorthand for the distribution of economic activity in space. A number of questions are relevant here, including:
a) How the spatial form of cities is structured by dynamic changes in economic activity;
b) How economic opportunities and constraints are structured by spatial form, fabric and function; and
Data and information on development challenges and progress, as well as government performance, is frequently inaccessible and difficult to decipher. This project involves pulling together a range of disparate information sources into a Government Barometer, which will represent and reflect on key development trends in an easy to digest form.
“Green infrastructure is a network of open space, woodlands, wildlife habitat, parks and other natural areas that sustain clean air, water and natural resources and enriches quality of life” (Benedict et al, 2002: 3).
Enhanced co-operative governance in the region is essential if the GCR is to address its challenges and realise its potential. This project will entail a large intergovernmental relations conference in 2011/12, enabling a strategic conversation across all parts of government to identify key weaknesses in cross-sphere and cross-department co-operative governance.
A key factor in defining a functional city-region is the flow of people between its constituent parts, as evident in one of the qualifying criteria for defining an OECD metro-region. Traffic flow is also an important development concern, as congestion impacts business efficiency and in turn regional competitiveness, as well as the quality of life of residents.
The GCRO is partnering the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation in a study of the state of non-racialism in South Africa today.
In mid 2011 GCRO commissioned a set of 18 focus groups, where South Africans of all types discussed non-racialism, race, identity, in/exclusion and related issues.
The Territorial Review will be the GCRO’s largest project in the short- to medium-term. It involves an 18-month research and consultation process that will deliver a comprehensive report on the challenges and opportunities facing the city-region, in comparative perspective. It has been proposed to OECD that their published report can form the basis of a subsequent GCRO book project.
Small towns on the edge of the city region, large peri-urban and commercial farming areas, and huge swathes of zones of displaced urbanisation in ex-Bantustans are all poorly understood. Yet there is evidence that they are undergoing rapid change.
When the World Cup was close to taking place, GCRO decided that our best contribution would be to avoid the obvious approaches dominant at the time – that the World Cup would create jobs by the thousand, re-brand and re-create South Africa’s global image on the one hand; or that it was the biggest folly imaginable, with billions spent on inevitably white elephant projects.
Gauteng confronts mounting concern that spatial trends may be compounding the effects of apartheid, the possibility that its population may double by 2055, and the very real prospect of future economic and environmental risks and shocks. There is an urgent need to understand whether its spatial form, fabric and function are resilient enough to cope with change.
This is a short project which involves determining how many government satisfaction, quality of life, or related surveys are being conducted by Gauteng municipalities and government departments.
Richard Florida’s influential concept of the ‘learning region’ captures the notion of regions as “collectors and repositories of knowledge and ideas, and provide the underlying environment or infrastructure which facilitates the flow of knowledge, ideas and learning” (Florida, 1995).
This project collects multiple perspectives on possible transitions to a future economy.
GCRO is currently running the second of its large sample quality of life surveys. The 2009 survey delivered a wealth of data, and the 2011 survey will provide even more, especially given that comparative data will now be available on key indicators across the two years.
