Previous page | New search |
The free AfricaBib App for Android is available here
Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Changing Cities, Global Economics, Urban Restructuring and Planning Response |
Author: | Harrison, Philip |
Year: | 1995 |
Periodical: | Transformation: Critical Perspectives on Southern Africa |
Issue: | 28 |
Pages: | 35-50 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | South Africa |
Subjects: | global economy urban planning Development and Technology Economics and Trade international relations Urbanization and Migration |
External link: | https://d.lib.msu.edu/tran/275/OBJ/download |
Abstract: | This article explores the relationship between global economic transformation and urban restructuring, and gives consideration to implications for the practice of planning within South Africa. One of the most fundamental transformations underway at global level is in the field of technology: the informational society is replacing the industrial society as the basic framework of social organization. The new city contains new elements, associated with postmodernism: transformations within urban architecture, urban governance, the spatial structure of the urban area, and the function of different cities within the 'international division of labour'. The article considers each of these dimensions of transformation separately before turning to the South African city. South Africa is rapidly integrating into an increasingly globalized economy, while the South African city is shifting from the highly regulated apartheid city to the less controllable and more spatially flexible city of the 1990s. Since traditional town planning responses are no longer effective and grand visions for planned urban reconstruction are utopian, new approaches and paradigms should be sought. A focus on partnership and networking offers, perhaps, a more appropriate paradigm of urban development. Bibliogr., notes, ref. |