IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/lauspo/v93y2020ics0264837718315217.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Mining towns and urban sprawl in South Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Marais, Lochner
  • Denoon-Stevens, Stuart
  • Cloete, Jan

Abstract

South Africa’s mining towns were established by mining companies mostly after World War II. The workforce lived in company-owned or privately-owned houses, or high-density compounds. Since the demise of apartheid, South African government policy for these towns has promoted integrated mining communities and homeownership. The government’s urban policy aims to densify the country’s urban areas, which have some of the lowest urban densities. This paper compares the changes in urban density and the unintended land-use implications of mining in settlements around five types of mines: iron ore, manganese, coal, gold and platinum, and in a combination of towns during periods of mining boom and bust. We ask how the South African legal framework addresses land issues that are associated with mining settlements, how urban density has evolved in the five case studies; and how this evolution should be explained. We argue that the sprawl is associated with historical path dependencies and interdependencies. Contributing factors are the need to house miners, the unintended consequences of policies designed to minimise compound living, changing labour regimes, the continuation of migrant labour and the presence of traditional-authority land. This sprawl is evident in market-driven housing, government-subsidised housing and informal settlement development.

Suggested Citation

  • Marais, Lochner & Denoon-Stevens, Stuart & Cloete, Jan, 2020. "Mining towns and urban sprawl in South Africa," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:lauspo:v:93:y:2020:i:c:s0264837718315217
    DOI: 10.1016/j.landusepol.2019.04.014
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837718315217
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.landusepol.2019.04.014?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Crush, Jonathan & James, Wilmot, 1991. "Depopulating the compounds: Migrant labor and mine housing in South Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 301-316, April.
    2. Lochner Marais, 2018. "Housing policy in mining towns: issues of race and risk in South Africa," International Journal of Housing Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(2), pages 335-345, April.
    3. Lochner Marais, 2018. "Housing policy in mining towns: issues of race and risk in South Africa," European Journal of Housing Policy, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 18(2), pages 335-345, April.
    4. Marais, Lochner & McKenzie, Fiona Haslam & Deacon, Leith & Nel, Etienne & Rooyen, Deidre van & Cloete, Jan, 2018. "The changing nature of mining towns: Reflections from Australia, Canada and South Africa," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 779-788.
    5. David Littlewood, 2014. "‘Cursed’ Communities? Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Company Towns and the Mining Industry in Namibia," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 120(1), pages 39-63, March.
    6. John Ntema & Lochner Marais & Jan Cloete & Molefi Lenka, 2017. "Social disruption, mine closure and housing policy: evidence from the Free State Goldfields, South Africa," Natural Resources Forum, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 41(1), pages 30-41, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Owen, J.R. & Kemp, D. & Marais, L., 2021. "The cost of mining benefits: Localising the resource curse hypothesis," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    2. Daniela Smiraglia & Luca Salvati & Gianluca Egidi & Rosanna Salvia & Antonio Giménez-Morera & Rares Halbac-Cotoara-Zamfir, 2021. "Toward a New Urban Cycle? A Closer Look to Sprawl, Demographic Transitions and the Environment in Europe," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-14, January.
    3. Bastos, Paulo & Bottan, Nicolas, 2023. "Resource rents, coercion, and local development: Evidence from post-apartheid South Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    4. Camelia Botezan & Veronica Constantin & Monika Meltzer & Andrei Radovici & Alina Pop & Filip Alexandrescu & Lucrina Stefanescu, 2020. "Is There Sustainable Development after Mining? A Case Study of Three Mining Areas in the Apuseni Region (Romania)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(23), pages 1-20, November.
    5. Linlin Zhang & Xianfan Shu & Liang Zhang, 2023. "Urban Sprawl and Its Multidimensional and Multiscale Measurement," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(3), pages 1-17, March.
    6. Muhirwa, Fabien & Shen, Lei & Elshkaki, Ayman & Hirwa, Hubert & Umuziranenge, Gloriose & Velempini, Kgosietsile, 2023. "Linking large extractive industries to sustainable development of rural communities at mining sites in Africa: Challenges and pathways," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    7. Amponsah, Owusu & Blija, Daniel Kwame & Ayambire, Raphael Anammasiya & Takyi, Stephen Appiah & Mensah, Henry & Braimah, Imoro, 2022. "Global urban sprawl containment strategies and their implications for rapidly urbanising cities in Ghana," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    8. Xueru Zhang & Jie Zhou & Wei Song, 2020. "Simulating Urban Sprawl in China Based on the Artificial Neural Network-Cellular Automata-Markov Model," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(11), pages 1-13, May.
    9. Rodrigo Castriota, 2024. "HOUSING BEYOND THE METROPOLIS: Inhabiting Extractivism and Extensions in Urban Amazonia," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(1), pages 32-52, January.
    10. Ling Zhang & Jiawei Zhang & Xiaohui Li & Kaidi Zhou & Jiang Ye, 2023. "The Impact of Urban Sprawl on Carbon Emissions from the Perspective of Nighttime Light Remote Sensing: A Case Study in Eastern China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(15), pages 1-19, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sesele, Kentse & Marais, Lochner & van Rooyen, Deidre, 2021. "Women and mine closure: A case study of policy in South Africa," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    2. Owen, J.R. & Kemp, D. & Marais, L., 2021. "The cost of mining benefits: Localising the resource curse hypothesis," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    3. Marais, Lochner & McKenzie, Fiona Haslam & Deacon, Leith & Nel, Etienne & Rooyen, Deidre van & Cloete, Jan, 2018. "The changing nature of mining towns: Reflections from Australia, Canada and South Africa," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 779-788.
    4. Moore, K.R. & Moradi, S. & Doyle, K. & Sydd, O. & Amaral, V. & Bodin, J. & Brito-Parada, P.R. & Dudley, F. & Fitzpatrick, R. & Foster, P. & Goettmann, F. & Roberts, D. & Roethe, R. & Sairinen, R. & Sa, 2021. "Sustainability of switch on-switch off (SOSO) mining: Human resource development tailored to technological solutions," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    5. John Ntema & Lochner Marais & Jan Cloete & Molefi Lenka, 2017. "Social disruption, mine closure and housing policy: evidence from the Free State Goldfields, South Africa," Natural Resources Forum, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 41(1), pages 30-41, February.
    6. Zhu, Ying & Yan, Xiaxia & Chen, Cong & Li, Yongping & Huang, Guohe & Li, Yexin, 2019. "Analysis of industry-air quality control in ecologically fragile coal-dependent cities by an uncertain Gaussian diffusion-Hurwicz criterion model," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 1191-1205.
    7. Danny Miller & Zhenyang Tang & Xiaowei Xu & Isabelle Breton-Miller, 2022. "Are Socially Responsible Firms Associated with Socially Responsible Citizens? A Study of Social Distancing During the Covid-19 Pandemic," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 179(2), pages 387-410, August.
    8. Arun Kumar, 2022. "Philanthropy and the Making of a New Moral Order: A History of Developing Community," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 177(4), pages 729-741, May.
    9. Van Assche, Kristof & Gruezmacher, Monica & Summers, Bob & Culling, Joshua & Gajjar, Shaival & Granzow, Michael & Lowerre, Andrew & Deacon, Leith & Candlish, Jared & Jamwal, Abhimanyu, 2022. "Land use policy and community strategy. Factors enabling and hampering integrated local strategy in Alberta, Canada," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    10. Haslam McKenzie, Fiona, 2020. "Long distance commuting: A tool to mitigate the impacts of the resources industries boom and bust cycle?," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    11. Valeria Cavotta & Guido Palazzo & Antonino Vaccaro, 2023. "Mobilizing After Corporate Environmental Irresponsibility in a Community of Place: A Framing Microprocess Perspective," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 182(4), pages 1155-1169, February.
    12. Meng Zhao & Xueqi Zhang & Chenxing Wang & Yu Zhao & Gang Wu, 2021. "Research on Residents’ Willingness to Pay for Promoting the Green Development of Resource-Based Cities: A Case Study in Chifeng," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(5), pages 1-24, March.
    13. Van Ha Nguyen & Frank W. Agbola & Bobae Choi, 2022. "Does Corporate Social Responsibility Enhance Financial Performance? Evidence from Australia," Australian Accounting Review, CPA Australia, vol. 32(1), pages 5-18, March.
    14. Jiao, Wenting & Zhang, Xiaosen & Li, Changhong & Guo, Jiaqi, 2021. "Sustainable transition of mining cities in China: Literature review and policy analysis," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    15. Zhao, Yanqi & Yang, Ying & Leszek, Sobkowiak & Wang, Xinyi, 2021. "Experience in the transformation process of “coal city” to “beautiful city”: Taking Jiaozuo City as an example," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    16. Rhee, Sophia & Nyanza, Elias Charles & Condon, Madison & Fisher, Joshua & Maduka, Theresia & Benshaul-Tolonen, Anja, 2018. "Understanding environmental, health and economic activity interactions following transition of ownership in gold mining areas in Tanzania: A case of private to public," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 650-658.
    17. Kevin Money & Anastasiya Saraeva & Irene Garnelo-Gomez & Stephen Pain & Carola Hillenbrand, 2017. "Corporate Reputation Past and Future: A Review and Integration of Existing Literature and a Framework for Future Research," Corporate Reputation Review, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 20(3), pages 193-211, November.
    18. Valente José Matlaba & Maria Cristina Maneschy & Jorge Filipe dos Santos & José Aroudo Mota, 2019. "Socioeconomic dynamics of a mining town in Amazon: a case study from Canaã dos Carajás, Brazil," Mineral Economics, Springer;Raw Materials Group (RMG);Luleå University of Technology, vol. 32(1), pages 75-90, April.
    19. Swoczyna, Bernard & Karaczun, Zbigniew, 2023. "A mainstay of budget? Coal mining as a source of revenue for Polish local governments," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).
    20. Maria Ehrnström-Fuentes & Steffen Böhm, 2023. "The Political Ontology of Corporate Social Responsibility: Obscuring the Pluriverse in Place," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 185(2), pages 245-261, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:lauspo:v:93:y:2020:i:c:s0264837718315217. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joice Jiang (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/land-use-policy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.