‘Township economies’: Uses, meanings and key debates in the Gauteng context

This GCRO Occasional Paper presents the multiple meanings, uses and key debates associated with the terms ‘township’ and ‘township economies’ in the Gauteng context. Based on analysis of documents, a limited number of interviews with government officials and workshops on township economic development in Gauteng, the paper discusses the implications these different meanings and debates have for framing government-led township economic development strategies in post-apartheid Gauteng.

While the term ‘township’ has had blurred usage in the South African context, in the post-apartheid era, settlements referred to as townships are in most instances characterised by similar racial, socio-economic and spatial dynamics – they are mainly inhabited by lower-income Black Africans, densely populated, often located in the urban peripheries and characterised by poverty and high levels of unemployment.

The common goal across national administrations has been to reconfigure the development patterns of townships so that they become more habitable spaces with access to socio-economic opportunities. Following the transition period, the priority was primarily to provide basic services and infrastructure. This focus has intensified in recent years to emphasise the need to recreate townships as spaces offering meaningful and inclusive economic activities for residents.

In the Gauteng province, township economic development has been anchored by the Transformation, Modernisation and Reindustrialisation agenda championed by the Gauteng Provincial Government (GPG) since 2014 to intensify township economic development. Subsequent strategic directions display common mechanisms – such as government procurement in townships, upgrading of the living environment, entrepreneurship development and creating a conducive regulatory environment for township enterprises to innovate and prosper – and the GPG is investing significant resources to achieve these desired outcomes.

The multiple uses and meanings of the term ‘township economies’ have implications for framing government-led township development strategies in post-apartheid Gauteng. These uses and meanings invoke various explicit and implicit debates regarding township economic development, namely:

• What makes townships underdeveloped? While one view is that townships are underdeveloped because their participation in the economy is limited, another references uneven development, which focuses on the terms of people’s participation in the economy. That is, there is economic participation that improves the wellbeing of participants on one hand and immiserating economic participation on the other.
• Bringing jobs to people or people to jobs: Bringing jobs to people focuses on creating job opportunities where people live. Taking people to jobs entails improvements in infrastructure such as public transport networks to facilitate workers’ efficient commute to job opportunities outside the confines of townships.
• Self-sufficiency vs broader integration: Proponents of the former argue for the creation of township economic bases to create employment opportunities for residents, implying that the township economy can function autonomously from the wider regional economy. Yet township economies cannot be divorced from broader economic conditions, and they cannot succeed unless the economy in general is succeeding.
• Townships as homogeneous or heterogeneous: While the term township often implies they are homogenous, these settlements have heterogeneous features owing to their different spatial position, histories and structural factors.

Although this GCRO Occasional Paper focuses on government policy approaches and interventions, it recognises the role played by other actors who form part of the township ecosystem. Townships have the potential to be revitalised into engines of economic prosperity through collaborations between various stakeholders who are part of the ecosystem. As such, investigating the stakeholders who play a role in township revitalisation should be a crucial focus for further research.