eThekwini on the Edge
A short discussion document
Rough draftfor internal discussion by the City Planning Commission(20/3/2015)
{Confidential – not for circulation beyond the City Planning Commission}
This short discussion document has been prepared by the new City Planning Commission for eThekwini. The purpose is to stimulate dialogueand debate about the situation facing the city-region. It is a selective assessment intended to initiate the process of formulating a long-term plan. It is neither comprehensive nor definitive. The audience is all role players with an interest in the region - not simply the municipality. In reading the document, please think about whether it adequately captures the key challenges and opportunities facing eThekwini into the future.
Introduction
The Durbancity-region faces major uncertaintiesabout the future. Extensive poverty and inequality lie behind growing social discontent andlabour unrest. A sluggisheconomy means high unemployment, strained household finances and pressure on municipalrevenues. Public authorities are struggling to keep up with demand for housing, services and infrastructure. Electricityfailures and loomingwater supply problems add to a sense of malaise and act as a brake on private investment, which is essential for job creation and higher living standards. The inherited pattern of polarised and dispersed urban development continues, making it harder to narrow the gaps between where people live, work, study and socialise. There are doubts about whether public transport policies are doing as much as they could to narrow these divides. Fifteen years on from the creation of eThekwini metro, many ordinary citizens feel thatcivic leaders are too detached and disinterested in their everyday struggles for a better life. They worry that the heart, energy and wealth of the city may be shifting irrevocably to the north, just beyond the grasp of most people.
Perched on the edge of manytough choices and challenges, greater Durban cannot continue along its current fragiletrajectory. Following the path of business-as-usual runs the risk of enteringa cycle of declinewheremany pressures and problems begin to reinforce each other. All kinds of social, infrastructural and ecological systems could break down, with cataclysmic consequences. It is hard to plan the future of the city in the context of such uncertainties, mistrust and instability.
There is renewed support from national government for cities to engage in bold ideas and actions. In his recent 2015 Budget speech, the Minister of Finance called for cities to become the country’s engines of economic growth. This is in line with contemporary global thinking, which sees cities as crucial to economic prosperity, resource efficiency, social cohesion and environmental resilience. He said: “realising the economic dividends of urban growth requires a new approach to providing infrastructure, housing and public transport services, while overcoming the spatial divisions of apartheid”.
eThekwini’smain interest groups and institutionsfacedifficult dilemmasif the city’s fortunes are to be turned around. A crucial question is whetherthe different agencies and actorswithin and outside the municipality canmove beyond their ownshort-term agendas and narrow objectives to work together in the long-term interests of the territory and itspeople?Can stakeholdersstop pulling in different directionsand agree on a few key priorities linked toa common strategy forthe city’s overall development and transformation?[1] With assets that include the busiest seaport in Africa, a quality lifestyle and rich cultural diversity, Durban has unrealised potential for prosperity if its constituencies can broaden their horizons and lifts their sights beyond their immediate preoccupations.
Recent history
How did eThekwini get into its current predicament? South Africa’s democratic transition in 1994 and the subsequent restructuring of local governmentoffered a promising start. Following a detailedstudy of SA’s major cities in the mid-1990s,Jeff McCarthy and Ann Bernstein described Durban as “the country's most promising global competitor” because of its location, political pragmatism and quality of business leaders. They said that to realise its potential, the city had to transcend its legacy of parochialism, build on its ethnic diversity and start thinking globally.The local authority had to take the economy more seriously and do more to attract private investment through excellent services and creative leadership. Unfortunately, the city was held back during this period by the continuing political conflict and violence across KwaZulu-Natal. One of the effects was to deter business and professional talent from the region, as people moved to Gauteng where the opportunities were greater. Compared with other large SA cities, two additional drags on eThekwini’s progress over the last two decades have been the limited presence of government departments and corporate head offices, and the high incidence of HIV-Aids.
Yet the positivepossibilities of the city-region wereenhancedin 2000, wheneThekwini was created as one of sixrelatively powerfulmetropolitan municipalities, recognising that cities were critical to solving many of the country’s biggest problems. The metros wereexpected to tackle the apartheid legacy of spatialinequalityandto accelerate human development by extending basic services to neglected communities.They were also tasked withstrengthening their local economies and promoting popular participation.
Across greater Durban, seven local councils and 16 traditional authority areaswith disparate tax bases (40 separate jurisdictions in all) were amalgamated to form a fully-democratic city government covering an areaof nearly 2,300 km2. Such a bold step reflected the history of struggle against the inequities of the local government system that favoured some racial groups over others and producedskewed settlement patterns with pernicious outcomes.eThekwini’s territory was unusually large, and 45%of it covered tribal areas with extensive poverty, negligible infrastructure and uncertain land tenure. The metro inherited bigger demands on its rates base than any of the other metros because of the severe service backlogs in its extensive rural and peri-urban hinterland.The strategic opportunities and economies of scale available to the metro were set against the risks of its focus being diluted by the pressures of rural redress.
At that time, eThekwini’s three million population broke down roughly as follows:
- one million received ‘first world’ household services and paid rates that enabled the infrastructure to be maintained and replaced before it wore out;
- one million received inferior services provided by the provincial authorities, and were paying little towards the cost. Their infrastructure was poorly maintained and close to collapse; and
- one million received next to no services because they lived in informal settlements or traditional rural areas.
Extensive service delivery
After an initial period of instability and indecision, the new eThekwini metro set about the task of distributing municipal resources more fairly across the citywith considerable vigour and an admirable commitment to innovation. It used the professional skills and administrative capabilities it inherited to good effect in extending water, sanitation, waste collection and electricity to under-served communities. It devised creative ways of providing services in peri-urban and rural environments, such as shared ablution blocks, low pressure water systems and urine diversion toilets. For these efforts the metro received the 2014 Stockholm Industry Water Award as one of the most progressive water utilities in the world, piloting new solutions across both technical and social aspects of service delivery. It also routinely committed a reasonable share of the budget to maintaining its new and existing infrastructure (like replacing 2,000km of old asbestos pipes), unlike many other towns and cities across the country. Fairness was the overriding priority of the ruling party, summed up in the slogan ‘the caring city’. It was reinforced by the system of ward councillors all demanding a share of municipal resources forbetter facilities in their areas.
As long as the local economy was growing and incomes were rising, municipal revenues remained healthy and the metro could afford to roll-out free or heavily-subsidised services to more and more communities. According to the latest Census, between 2001 and 2011, 154,000 additional households in eThekwini were provided with a tap inside their dwelling (an increase of 37%), and 101,000 additional households were provided with access to a flush toilet (up 20%). The number of households without electricity was reduced by 65,500 (down 40%). These were impressive achievements by any standards.
Record housing provision
The Cityalso made the provision offree (RDP/BNG) housing units one of its priorities, in line with national policy. eThekwiniinherited technical capabilities to deliver low cost housing at scale. While the provincepaid for the top structures, the metro paid for the infrastructure, partly through the Municipal Infrastructure Grant from national government. During the first decade eThekwini builtbetween10-16,000houses a year, andwas recognised by the national department withthe Govan Mbeki Human Settlements Awardfor outstanding delivery. It planned and managed what was probably one of the largest programmes of free housing for the poor that any city in the world has ever delivered!
Unfortunately, this did notcut the housing backlog or eliminate shacks because the population kept growing and urbanisation continued. People have been moving to the city at a faster rate than anticipated, with raised expectations of securing a livelihood and better services. Some have also moved under duress as a result of drought and conflict in surrounding rural areas. Almost 150,000 households in eThekwini (one in six) still live in shacks, almost the same number as in 2001. Informal settlements are contested environments and present the municipality with some its biggest headaches. Residents are exposed to squalor, insecurity and physical hazards from living on un-serviced, unauthorised and often unsuitable land. Populardissatisfaction, anger and violent protests seem to be growing, since people’s aspirations are frustrated and theyfeel deprived of fundamental human rights.
The survival of former migrant hostels is another example of deficient housing that has not received sufficient attention from across government, partly because of tensions between the province and municipality. There are some 50,000 units accommodating over 100,000 residents and under the control of so-called ‘warlords’. Hostels remain important sources of social disaffection and crime that require upgrading, security and more family accommodation.
The metro’s approach to informality has been ambivalent, in line with the national conundrum. One body of opinion is that shack areas are illegal and should be cleared because they are eyesores and squatters are only trying to jump the housing queue. An alternative point ofview is that they function asvaluable entry points to urban economic opportunities for rural migrants determined to lift themselves out of poverty. As potential vehicles for enabling human progress, they deserve basic services and security. In some cases the municipality has installed ‘interim’ services into informal settlements as a kind of stopgap pending regularisation or relocation. In other instances it has evicted the shack dwellers and sparked conflict and distress. Very rarely has the metro provided land to accommodate new and expanding informal settlements. The upgrading of the famous inner city district of Cato Manor during the 2000s was unusual because it was designated a national presidential project and secured substantial European funding to pay for a wide range of social and economic facilities within an integrated area-based approach and dedicated project management. Similar funding has not been available for other settlements.
eThekwini’sprincipal response to shack areas has been to build new housing elsewhere in order to provide decent alternative accommodation. To economise on the land costs, many of the new RDP/BNGhouses have beenbuilt in outlying areas far from jobs and amenities. These risk creating dormitory settlements rather than rounded, vibrant communities. Quality standards have sometimes been sacrificed in the push for quantity, and there have been procedural irregularities with some of the tendering. A major remedial programme is now underway to rectify poor workmanship. The cost of this is denting the municipality’s ability to sustain the previous level of house-building. Perhaps most important, the cost of providing free housinghas kept rising (it is currently between R250-300,000 per unit) and delays in receiving payments from the provincethreaten the metro’s financial position.eThekwini’s housing programme has clearly run into severe headwindsand needs a rethink.
Economic stress
Three other closely-related financial challengesfor themunicipalityare:
(i)the cost of continuing to extend free basic services to a growing poor population while the rates base has been under increasing pressure,
(ii)the expanding municipal wage bill as staffing has grown, and
(iii)the very high levels of joblessness across the city-region, which results in serious affordability problems.
In 2011, only 41% of adults in eThekwini had a job, compared with 51% in the other large metros(see Appendix). The low employment rate means there are relatively few earners in each household and large numbers of dependents. Average incomes are also significantly lower than in the other big metros, so people struggle to meet the needs of their dependents, who often experience hunger and hardship. Low incomes underminepeople’s quality of life, hamper theirability to pay for public services, and restrict the growth of a consumer economy. Durban’s relatively low employment rates and average incomes arise partly from the subsistence economyof its large rural hinterland. Unfortunately, the performance of the core urban economyhas also been weakand eThekwini has not benefited froma sizeable presence of provincial and national government departments or corporate head offices, unlike most of the other metros.
Income poverty is associated with other forms of deprivation and exclusion. There are between three-quarters and a million people living below the poverty line, and many households are vulnerable to food insecurity. High rates of child mortality are linked to the persistent high incidence of infectious diseases – mainly TB and HIV-Aids – along with diarrhoea and malnutrition. eThekwini has the largest number of patients on anti-retrovirals of any municipality in the country. Poor education is a related problem: over 300,000 people are illiterate and most young people do not complete secondary school. At the other end of the spectrum, the city suffers from a loss of highly skilled and talented people to Gauteng.Theslack economy is one of the reasons the city’s population has been growing more slowly than the other large metros. Durban has not been acting as a magnet for mobile workers in the same way as the other large metros (see Appendix).
Yet eThekwini hasimportant economic assets with considerable development potential. It is the busiest seaportin Africa and the main trans-shipment point for exports and imports to Gauteng.It is a vital transport and logistics centre, with a variety of port-related industries and activities such as warehousing.Durban hasalways been the logical place to establish industries that depend on imported inputs, such as chemicals, food and drink, paper, printing and engineering.The growth of motor vehicles and components in recent years has been by far the most significant industrial development – achieved largely through foreign direct investment. Durban is also an important commercial centre for the province and a major destination for domestic and business tourism on account of the warm climate, extensive beaches, convention centre and other attractions. It promotes itself as an ‘eventful city’ because of its leisure facilities and other amenities.Its higher education institutions are increasingly important for the growth of advanced industries and knowledge-intensive services, although graduate retention needs to be addressed. The new King Shaka airport couldfacilitate the growth of tourism, special events and time-sensitive industries such as horticulture and high-value manufacturing.
Manufacturing remains a bigger share of the city’s economy than elsewhere, but many sectors have struggled in the face of increasing international competition. Selected firms have survived and indeed prospered where they have upgraded their processes, enhanced their technologies and developed niche markets at home and abroad. Their smart, agile strategies demonstrate the potential for industrial growth on the basis of astute entrepreneurial and managerial capabilities, and enhanced workforce skills. Otherwise, the 2008 global recession and anaemic recovery have generally depressed the demand for labour and discouraged unemployed people from looking for work, resulting in very high levels of economic inactivity.
Methods of stimulating and accelerating economic development need urgent attention, beginning with a better understanding of competitive strengths and sources of dynamism within the local economy.Bottlenecks to business investment and growth also need to be identified and tackledwith vigour, includingbulk infrastructure, logistics costs, deficient skills andunnecessary red tape. The run-down environment of old industrial areasneeds attention to discourage firms from relocating unnecessarily to new business parks on greenfield sites, and the supply of industrial generally needs to be improved to accommodate growth. Current municipal policies towards the informal economy are ambiguous and should be clarified. There is scopeto improve the productivity and viability of all kinds of small enterprisethroughmentoring and training programmes, small scale financial support, marketing advice, incubators and shared infrastructure.