Reviewing the Evolving Categorisation of Metropolitan Municipalities: A South African Perspective

From a theoretical perspective there is limited understanding of how settlements develop, from villages to metropolitan regions. Research reveals that this limitation is due to settlements developing differently, ascribable to the variation in cultural, politics and topography amongst others, globally. As a result, the United Nations found that countries have categorised and delimited their settlements according to their own definitions. Consequently, there is limited comparable knowledge on how settlements develop or how they are categorised, from an empirical perspective. This paper seeks to unpack how administrative regions were delineated in South Africa (a member of the United Nations) and provides empirical insight into the criteria used in South Africa to categorised metropolitan region (post 1994). The research utilised both qualitative and quantitative data to unpack the Section 2 criteria as prescribed in the Municipal Structures Act, as employed by the Municipal Demarcation Act (MDB). The study found that although the Act has many theoretical sound concepts, the application of these concepts is not easy and this has resulted in many different forms of metropolitan regions in South Africa. This questions the ease with which the criteria could be manipulated and unmasks the challenges the country has experiences in the delimitation of administrative regions. Lessons learnt contribute to the broader understanding of how administrative regions can be re-categoris ed and policy mishaps be avoided