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

Table 3.2: Summary of indicator groupings for towns and municipalities
Natural Resources (11)∗
Human Resources (3) Composite Resource Potential
Index (14)
Transportation and
Composite Infrastructure
Communications (4)
Institutional Services (8)
Economic Sectors (5)
Index (12)
Composite Development
Potential Index (40)
Commercial Services (3) Composite Economic
Market and Accessibility (4)
Property Market (2)
Activities Index (14)
Human Development
Composite Needs
Needs (19) Composite Needs Index (19) Index (19)
∗This number refers to the number of variables in each indicator group (See Table 3.4)
Although the main focus of this study is to identify those towns in the province that have
inherent positive growth and development potential, it is also incumbent upon the analysis to
provide guidelines that will allow formulation of nuanced policies for handling places with
low growth potential, but where human needs are high. To this end another set of variables
measuring a fourth dimension on human development needs was derived. These themes and
sub-themes not only comply with the requirements set out in the NSDP and Northern Cape
PGDS policy documents, but also with the guidelines distilled from the international
literature.
Apart from giving a cross-sectional perspective on the status quo in the 115 urban places, the
study also endeavours to add a regional and contextual element to the analysis by computing
and mapping the same set of indices ∗ for the 32 local municipalities, principally based on
2007 data.
Change analysis at local municipality level is done by comparing 2001 data with 2007 data.
Unfortunately not all variables included in the analysis for towns were available to measure
changes at the municipal level between 2001 and 2007. Some variables are not meaningful at
a municipal level for comparative purposes, such as the presence of a municipal seat, whilst
others don’t change over time. The 27 variables in Table 3.3 were used for the measurement
of change at municipal level.
∗ In the case of municipalities, two variables (municipal seat and urban functional index) were not significant and
omitted – thus leaving 57 variables for the measurements at municipal level and 59 at town level.
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