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

Northern Cape PSDF
Volume 2
Office of the Premier &
Department of Rural Development & Land Reform
50
December 2011
constructs. The most basic form of sense is ‘sense of place’. Identity is the degree to which a
person can recognise a place as being distinct from other places and having a character of its own.
Lynch (1998) refers to this quality as a convenient peg to hang personal memories, feelings and
values on.
D.1.3 RELEVANT POLICY FOR RURAL DEVELOPMENT ADOPTED FOR THE PSDF
South Africa in general and the Northern Cape in particular have been experiencing the trends of
declining settlements for many decades already. In the past authorities and other role players
largely ignored this problem and treated all urban settlements in more or less the same way in
terms of investment support. However, the situation has taken on such proportions that
intervention has become essential. Several central government and Northern Cape provincial
policy documents have explicitly addressed this problem recently.
D.1.3.1 NATIONAL SPATIAL DEVELOPMENT PERSPECTIVE (NSDP, 2006)
The NSDP indicates a dramatic new approach in future policy directions with respect to
investment and other support for national, regional and town development. In no country in the
world is social and economic development evenly distributed in geographic space. Spatial
disparities are a universal problem affecting all countries. South Africa is not unique. The NSDP
(2006) puts forward the following principles in this regard:
a) Unfocused infrastructure spending does not necessarily result in improved GDP growth.
b) Regions which already have some economic success are more likely to grow than other
regions.
c) Success is often achieved through focused and polarised investment.
d) Redirecting public investment from economically dominant regions to lagging regions has
not automatically spurred economic activity in these regions.
e) The poor benefit when they have more options to which to turn, and more options are
created in the profile of dynamic growth processes, not in the declining sectors that are left
behind.
In order to identify the development potential of the respective urban settlements, the NSDP
recommended the creation of a composite spatial profile of resource potential, existing economic
activity and human needs. The results of such an analysis should be translated in specific potential
categories. From such an analysis, broad guidelines can be put forward:
(i) The further concentration of people in need in low potential areas should not be
encouraged. Where possible, people should be assisted through social investment to
become more mobile so that they may choose to move out of such an area.
(ii) Future economic growth should primarily be explored in those areas with a medium to high
value resource base where there are economic potential to be exploited. Economic activity
should be encouraged and supported by infrastructure (fixed) investment where there is
already a medium to high level of economic activity and where natural and human
resource potential is medium to high (NSDP, 2006).
(iii) Of course, this does not mean that localities not identified may not have potential, but that
the current interpretation of the available data will need to be supplemented by more local
area assessments of potential as required. In order not to discriminate against people who
are currently locationally disadvantaged, it is proposed that the government seek to
redress these inequities by maintaining the current distribution of fiscal resources to these
areas, but that this investment be shifted to fewer fixed assets. This could mean that only a
Dennis Moss Partnership