The Global Development Institute is pleased to host Edgar Pieterse as part of the GDI Lecture Series, talking about: Ambitious and ambiguous public investments in African cities Urban governance in most African cities is marked by weak regulatory enablement by national governments, limited autonomous fiscal resources, limited managerial capacity, overlaid by distortionary politics—read a combination […]

In this paper entitled Urban Governance and Spatial Transformation Ambitions in Johannesburg, for the Journal of Urban Affairs, Vol 41 – 2019, Issue 1: New Urban Governance, Edgar Pieterse explores the history of democratic decentralization reforms in South Africa and Johannesburg with an eye on analyzing the significance of the Corridors of Freedom flagship initiative […]

This working paper was prepared by the African Centre for Cities. It was developed in partnership with the Coalition for Urban Transitions, which is a major global initiative to support national governments to accelerate economic development and tackle dangerous climate change by transforming towns and cities.  (more…)

First published in 2002 Democratising Local Government: The South African Experiment edited by Susan Parnell, Edgar Pieterse, Mark Swilling and Dominique Wooldridge is now available through open access. Local government is at the forefront of development. In South Africa the ambitious policy objectives of post-apartheid reconstruction and development hinge on the successful creation of a democratic […]

African Centre for Cities presents its annual seminar series by the Notations of Theories of Radical Urban Change (NOTRUC) project. The 2017 series is entitled ‘Thinking Emancipatory Change from Cape Town, Nairobi to New Orleans’.