Interactive Visualisations

The Quality of Life Index 2020/21

The GCRO’s Quality of Life Index is based on a multidimensional understanding of quality of life. It combines 33 variables into seven dimensions, each of which supports the understanding of a particular aspect of wellbeing. These dimension scores are then aggregated to provide a single, overarching Quality of Life Index score out of 100. This visualisation illustrates the Quality of Life Index scores and dimension scores for Gauteng and its municipalities.

Change in exponential growth of confirmed COVID-19 cases in South Africa and Gauteng

This visualisation shows how the growth rate of confirmed COVID-19 cases has changed over time in the provinces of South Africa and districts in Gauteng. As the first COVID-19 cases were recorded in South Africa, growth was exponential, but the rate of growth has changed over time

Household characteristics in relation to COVID-19 risks in Gauteng

The structure of our households, the infrastructure we have access to, and where we come from, all shape our daily lives, and influence our access to various resources and forms of support. This visualisation explores the relationships between various household characteristics and exposure to factors that are expected to impact vulnerability in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.

De-densifying Gauteng: A thought experiment

The COVID-19 pandemic has raised concerns that dense urban areas increase the risk of transmission and one of the proposed responses includes de-densifying parts of cities in order to reduce the transmission of the virus. In response, this interactive visualisation represents a thought experiment and an attempt to understand the relationship between density, population size and land area in Gauteng.

100 GCRO Maps of the Month

This visualisation explores the themes and keywords of the first 100 Maps of the Month that GCRO started publishing in September 2009 and provides an abbreviated history of the Map of the Month series and as well as the breath of topics covered in ten years of maps.

Income vulnerability in Gauteng

Covid-19 and the subsequent lockdown have brought about a great deal of fear and anxiety around employment and income in Gauteng. This visualisation looks at the sources of income on which people depend and how they are spatially concentrated.

Gauteng's elderly in the context of COVID-19

In light of the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on the elderly, the GCRO has used data from our Quality of Life V survey (2017/18) to better understand the lives of the elderly in Gauteng province. This interactive visualisation looks at how the elderly form parts of families and households, and fulfill key caregiving and economic roles in the province.

COVID-19 cases in South Africa by province

The first COVID-19 confirmed case in South Africa was reported on the 5th of March in KwaZulu Natal. This visualisation tracks the number of confirmed positive cases in South Africa per province, as reported by the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD).

The fabric of the marginalisation index

The GCRO's marginalisation index combines a range of variables measuring various aspects of both subjective and objective marginalisation. It is constructed from responses to 29 Quality of Life survey questions, grouped into 10 different dimensions - relationships; housing; participation; health; connectivity; hunger; crime; alienation; life satisfaction; and government.

The fabric of the Quality of Life index

Using a series of radial plots, this visualisation presents the scores for each dimension of the Quality of Life index for each iteration of the QoL survey since 2011. We illustrate these scores for Gauteng as a whole, as well as each municipality, for 2011, 2013/14, 2015/16, and 2017/18.

The company we keep: The Quality of Life survey compared

This illustration compares the the GCRO's Quality of Life survey with other quantitative surveys in South Africa, according to the relative sample size of each survey.

Academic outputs using the Quality of Life data

This visualisation demonstrates some of the ways in which the GCRO's Quality of Life survey data are used in academic publications.

The evolution of the Quality of Life questionnaire

This visualisation goes through the evolution of the GCRO's Quality of Life survey questionnaires, including which how the questions have been used across the various iterations and within GCRO's indexes.

Ten years of GCRO outputs

GCRO has produced, published and presented 782 outputs since our launch on 11 September 2008. This interactive visualisation enables the viewer to explore all our diverse outputs and see how we have grown.

Shifting borders and building bridges (GCRO Cities exhibition at Seoul Biennale)

Borders are both material and unseen, constructed and imaginary, fixed and fluid. In recent years we have seen the continued relevance of international borders and how these affect the lives of people in different places. While political borders remain as pertinent as ever, this exhibition examines different kinds of ‘urban borders’ in the context of the Gauteng City-Region (GCR).

Cities in South Africa are infamous for their divided and unequal geographies - the legacy of the colonial and apartheid planning policies. Despite significant efforts to integrate the GCR, apartheid’s visible and invisible borders and barriers remain both in the material landscape and in the socio-economic fabric. Although this history is particular to South Africa, the inequality that the city-region faces is mirrored in many other parts of the world.

Transforming transport in the Gauteng City-Region

For October 2015 Transport Month GCRO asks: what is needed to change transport and human settlement planning to radically improve mobility patterns across the GCR? Through a series of maps, data and visualisations, this 'StoryMap' explores how regional mobility patterns reflect stark socio-economic divides, reviews government's current human settlement and transport plans, and concludes with some key considerations for transforming transport in the GCR.

Getting to work in the GCR

A key factor in understanding a functional city-region is the daily flows of people between its constituent parts. Traffic flow is an important urban efficiency, sustainability and inclusivity concern, as congestion impacts the cost of doing business, air-quality and fuel consumption, and residents' quality of life.

Forty years ago a number of large household travel surveys were conducted for the 1975 PWV Transportation Study. These asked respondents for the starting time of all their trips. As an example of historical transport patterns in the region, results for white and African respondents in the 1974 Pretoria survey are compared in the figures below. The comparison tell us that peak trip start times for whites were between 7am and 8am; it was much earlier for Africans.

FIFA 2010 research into the economic legacy for micro-traders

GCRO conducted longitudinal research amongst a sample of small and micro-scale traders in Gauteng in order to assess the extent to which the 2010 FIFA World Cup had fulfilled their expectations for economic development. We administered a survey questionnaire to a group of respondents over 3 phases of the research. The baseline study of June 2010 was conducted with 209 respondents in order to measure their expectations. The number of respondents was whittled down to 150 in subsequent phases of the research in November 2010 and July 2011.

House Prices, GDP and Civil Cases for Debt, 2007 - 2011

Time-series data collected as part of an analysis of the anatomy and impact of the global financial crisis on Gauteng. In the top graphs the user is able to view values for three indicators, with data segmented for each municipality and for each of the years from 2006 to 2011 (Note: GVA data is only up to 2010). The provincial averages for each variable are shown as ‘Gauteng’. The three variables shown are: Average House Prices; Gross Value Add (used here as a proxy for Gross Domestic Product); and Civil Cases for Debt.

Municipal Finances

The graphs below give an overview of expenditure in Gauteng municipalities between July 2006 and June 2011, for each financial year of the last municipal term of office. The graph at the top allows the user to see, separately or in comparison, the total operating expenditure, total capital expenditure and total combined expenditure for each Gauteng metro, and for the combination of district and local municipalities in Metsweding, West Rand and Sedibeng.

State of the Gauteng labour market

At a time when the world is talking about the prospects of a double-dip recession, and there is a deepening debate within South Africa around what can be done about unemployment rates that have not dropped below 20% for many years, even during the strong growth spurt in the mid 2000s, these graphs give a useful perspective on the state of the labour market in the country’s economic heartland.