Volume II - The Northern Cape Provincial Spatial Development ...

It is now widely recognised that an economic, social and environmental interdependence
exists between urban and rural areas and the “rural-urban linkage development perspective”
is increasingly becoming the accepted approach in developing countries. Rural-urban linkage
generally refers to the flow of monetary capital, people, goods and information between urban
and rural areas. Infrastructure such as transportation, communications, energy and basic
services, form the backbone of the urban-rural development linkage approach. Adequate
investment in this domain improves rural productivity and better access to markets, jobs and
public services (Weliwita & Okpala, 2004).
Recent developments in the urban and rural development literature focus on Sustainable Degrowth
(Schneider et al, 2010), New Ruralism, Agricultural Urbanism, Post-Productivist
Landscapes, and Slow City Development (Stellenbosch University & CSIR, 2010). Especially
“New Ruralism” is quite relevant and is defined as a framework for creating a bridge between
sustainable agriculture and new urbanism. The theory is that sustainable agriculture can assist
in bringing cities nearer to earth, with a greater commitment to the ecology and the economy
of the surrounding rural hinterland on which the cities depend. Linked to this is the notion of
place-making/sense of place, which can assist agriculture to shift its narrow production focus
to a more broad-based resource-preservation value approach.
According to Tacoli (2004), the spatial aims of regional planning policies assume that small
and intermediate urban centres contribute to regional and rural development in four main
ways, namely by being centres:
(i) Of demand and markets for rural agricultural produce and products;
(ii) In which rural non-farm activities and employment can grow and consolidate;
(iii) Where goods and services to surrounding rural areas are produced and distributed;
(iv) That attract rural migrants from the surrounding rural areas in order to decrease
the labour pressure on larger urban centres.
The recent move to a global economy has been painful for many towns because of the loss of
manufacturing jobs, the vulnerability of export agriculture, and the increased competition in
the energy and mining sectors. Larger commercial towns seem to have a built-in growth
dynamic, based on a sufficient level of diversification. Nel (2005) identifies several noticeable
changes taking place in small towns:
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