Map of the month

City regions like Gauteng provide a range of services that contribute to improving quality of life, such as schools, shops, hospitals and clinics, parks and public transport. However, in order to make a difference, these services need to be accessible to potential users. The June 2019 Map of the Month presents an Accessibility Index, derived from the Quality of Life V (2017/18) survey, that measures residents’ overall accessibility to a range of services and opportunities and focuses, in particular, on people living within government housing programmes.

In May 2014, we released a series of ‘dot-density’ maps that plotted the spatial distribution of votes in the 2014 provincial elections. Here we repeat this exercise, this time comparing the distribution of votes in the 2019 provincial elections against that in 2014 for the five top parties. The maps show fascinating patterns of change, in particular the growth of the Vryheidsfront Plus and the EFF in certain areas.

As South Africa prepares for National and Provincial elections on 8 May, our April 2019 map of the month shows the percentage of respondents in each ward in Gauteng who agreed with the statement ‘politics is a waste of time’. The month shows that in many more affluent wards, respondents were less inclined to agree with the statement than other parts of the province. Meanwhile, in inner city wards, township wards and rural wards, higher percentages of respondents agreed with the statement ‘politics is a waste of time’. Further disaggregation of the results suggests that the spatial pattern i...

Our March Map of the Month explores the degree to which residents of Gauteng rely on public services. We make use of our Quality of Life V Survey (2017/18) to illustrate the proportion of respondents living in each ward who report using two key public services – health and education. Even though people are mobile and access services in different places, where a respondent lives can determine to a substantial extent whether they use public sector services. In broad terms the maps confirm what we might expect: that people living in historically disadvantaged areas rely to a far greater degree...

For this month, we provide a 2018 map of racial diversity per ward in order to update the map based on 2011 data published in September 2017. Overall, wards located in old township areas, and on the periphery of the province display low levels of racial integration, while wards located in the core are characterised by high levels of racial integration.