Development Studies Working Paper, no. 39

This Working Paper sets out to investigate what has generally been taken for granted as part and parcel of the urbanisation and development process in South Africa, and to relate this to current government strategies. There has been no comprehensive policy for coping with urbanisation in South Africa. In particular, the urbanisation of Africans has not been accepted as an inevitable process. Instead, past policies have been guided by apartheid ideology and have tended to address only specific issues relating to urbanisation. Essentially, policies have attempted to control the urbanisation process through various pieces of legislation directed at, for example, housing, population migration, industrial decentralisation etc. Such legislative measures, rather than presenting a coherent urbanisation policy, have provided the main tools for the South African state to control and direct the urbanisation process in the country as a whole.Digitised by Rhodes University Library on behalf of the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER