The influence of market forces in urban planning: a South African perspective

The main objective of this study is to illustrate the importance of market forces on the urban form and how these forces should be incorporated into the overall jigsaw puzzle of spatial and urban planning to produce a result that is equitable and fair to the people who are affected thereby. This has been undertaken with specific reference to South Africa. Since the 1980s it became clear that dramatic population increases would take place in the world's urban areas in general, and in particular in the mega-cities of developing countries. Various authors have predicted that economic growth would be accompanied by an acceleration in the rate of urbanisation; a considerable increase would occur in the number of metropolitan conglomerates with over 4 million people each; and mega-city formation would be more massive and rapid in the developing countries than in the developed ones, thus continuing to increase the population glut in many Third World cities.(Botha 1990, Cernea 1993, Potter & Lloyd-Evans 1998, International Monetary Fund 1999a) These forecasts became reality in the late 1990s and have become one of the major challenges for city administrators and planners in the third millennium.