Modeling and profiling household car ownership in the post-apartheid South Africa
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Data representation and interpretation found in transportation planning literature tends to overlook the role of influences such as political systems and related history in travel behaviour. This could be as a result of the mature nature of the democracies of the countries from which transportation research is mostly published. The importance of localised research in social sciences such as transportation planning therefore cannot be overemphasised, especially in South Africa where the socio-economic landscape is ever-changing, inherently related to the recent democratisation of the country. In line with the ever-changing socio-economic landscape of South Africa, the paper investigates an alternative household car ownership modelling approach for use in strategic transportation modelling exercises, founded on the spatial attributes of a typical South African city. Furthermore, the model is applied to critically review some of the spatial variables mooted in literature to have influence on household car ownership. The City of Johannesburg is used as a case study within the context of South African development planning paradigm. The findings of the research can be used in trip generation sub-models using household car ownership as a variable, and also in spatial planning exercises aimed at managing travel demand in an urban area.Keywords:
Car ownership
Trip generation
Transportation planning
Profiling (computer programming)
Spatial Planning
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This research considers the changing spatial characteristics of the South African commercial property market in in the period 1995-2015. While historic Apartheid city planning continues to have a profound impact on the location of residential and commercial properties in South Africa, the present spatial form of South African cities is also being determined by market driven investor decisions, including their response to the reigning institutional environment. Investors not only respond to the “rules of the game “, but are also influenced by the availability of infrastructure and the quality of the management of the urban environment. In recent years this has resulted in the decentralisation of commercial space, the development of out-of- town shopping centres, the neglect of certain nodes, and a strong institutional investor focus on the commercial property sector.Based on industry data provided by Industry associations and the MSCI / IPD, this research explores the spatial outcomes in the commercial property sector. The research adopts an institutional and behavioural economic approach which juxtaposes public policy decisions, the structure of the market, and the decisions made by market players. The research provides a yet unexplored perspective into the impact of formal as well as informal institutional arrangements on property market outcomes in South Africa. The study considers data and GIS mapping for the period 1995- 2015 and is limited to the Johannesburg and Cape Town property markets.By providing an understanding of private sector decision making, the research results provide an opportunity to inform public sector policy formulation and to improve the understanding of the impact that property market interventions have for spatial market outcomes in the commercial property sector.
Property market
Property management
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Modern cities around the world have been shaped over time through different political, economic, sociocultural and geographical factors. While each city has grown in ways unique to its environment and historical context, there are common patterns of urban growth. For instance, many Western cities grew from centralised markets to form modern economies and a diverse society with population growth fuelled by migration from rural areas. Research on the dynamic aspects of urban change and growth were developed as a system model to explain urban structure and interactions with transport and land uses. People‘s preferences for liveability also factored into urban system research to influence land development and growth patterns. In contrast, Arabian Gulf cities exhibit a range of unique urban system traits different to those of Western cities. Urban growth took place only recently and over a relatively short period. The economy was almost completely driven by a single industry, namely oil extraction and exports, and the countries were governed by a central authority. Urban growth was organised to support the citizen population, but the oil wealth also supported a large population of foreign workers. This led to a distinct urban structure, population densities and land use patterns with separate regions for citizens and the foreigner workforce. With highly centralised planning control, people‘s preferences on housing and future land development policy were limited. This has led to negative urban impacts and social segregation in some Arabian Gulf cities. There is also a lack of planning models suited to Arabian Gulf countries and research on urban dynamics to inform future land policies.This research thesis aims to address this gap by developing urban growth models suited to conditions and the changing dynamics of Kuwait, an Arabian Gulf city. The models address aspects of urban system dynamics for urban forms, growth impacts, new city development, internal population migration and social segregation by nationality. In order to do so, three different urban models have been developed:i) A model that simulates the state of urban systems already in place to 2050 and assesses the effects of continuing with a business as usual approach,ii) A model that simulates the development and impacts of creation of new cities as proposed by Kuwait‘s latest master plan according to the State planning authorities,iii) A model that simulates the effects of people‘s participation in developing the new cities and the infrastructure, social and spatial systems associated with them.The urban modelling in this thesis has been designed on Agent Based Modelling (ABM) and Geographical Information Systems (GIS) frameworks.The contribution of this thesis is twofold. Firstly in terms of theory, it has enhanced the understanding of urban systems for modelling population growth, population distribution and urban issues in Arabian Gulf countries. Secondly in terms of methodologically, the thesis has implemented a set of novel elements in urban modelling of Arabian Gulf countries including: the collection and integration of data directly from the public through surveys, and the modelling of the differences in expectations of citizen and non-citizen groups, as well as residents and decision makers.The outcomes of the research provide strong evidence towards the development of new cities as opposed to the continuation of expanding existing urban areas in Kuwait. In addition, the findings have shown that the potential success of new cities may be bolstered by the direct consideration of public opinion, and the timely development of new infrastructure. Apart from the case study for Kuwait city, the findings may be generalised to other Arabian Gulf cities.
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For urban transportation planners these are challenging times. Mounting practical concerns are mirrored by more fundamental critiques. The latter comes together in the observation that conventional approaches do not adequately account for the irreducible uncertainty of future developments. The author's central aim is to explore whether and how an evolutionary approach can help overcome this limit. Two core hypotheses are formulated. The first is that the urban transportation system behaves in an evolutionary fashion. The second hypothesis is that, because of this, urban transportation planning needs to focus on enhancing the resilience and adaptability of the system. Changes in transport and land-use development patterns and policies, and in the broader context of the postwar period in the Amsterdam region, are analysed in order to illustrate the two core hypotheses. More general implications are also drawn.
Adaptability
Transportation planning
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This thesis consists of four independent chapters. Although the chapters are distinct works, they are related by their focus on urban policy and aim to contribute to the understanding of how planning policies and urban development affect specific outcomes in space. The chapters can be divided into two distinct parts. The first part comprises two studies on conservation planning. The first chapter investigates the complexities at play between conservation planning systems, their applications and how these vary between contexts. Based on a survey of conservation planning systems in 5 countries, focusing on 5 city case-studies, it considers how conservation compares between planning systems of the Global North and Global South and what this suggest about heritage value. The second chapter exploits the Italian context to examine to what extent non-compliance undermines conservation effects given that despite stringent planning regulation, the conditions of the urban environment vary widely throughout Italy, including within protected areas. This study is closely linked to the urban economics literature through an explicit consideration of housing markets and spatial issues. The second part of this thesis comprises two further chapters that focus on the effects of two distinctly urban occurrences: economic and morphological density. The third chapter investigates the costs and benefits of a widely supported policy paradigm: ‘compact urban form’. It asks to what extent even higher densities within cities are desirable by assessing the effects of density on a broad range of outcomes ranging from wages, innovation, rents, various amenities, the cost of providing public services, transport- and environment-related outcomes to health and wellbeing. The final chapter focuses on deregulated planning using Beirut, Lebanon as a case-study given the city’s conspicuous transformations which have dramatically altered the city’s landscape, housing stock, and people-space relations. This chapter specifically investigates how morphological densification affects values residents attach to both their physical urban environments and intangible urban amenities such as neighbourhood belonging. The unifying theme of the thesis is to bring fresh evidence to policy-relevant issues in planning and urban economics by the generation of new datasets for all contexts and the application of multi-disciplinary techniques.
Economic rent
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This paper underlines the role of transport in the city, its influence on urban structure and form, its social and environmental consequences and the implications of these for transport policy and approach to planning in the South African metropolitan context. It questions the prevailing values and assumptions concerning urban growth and transportation provision, and makes the case for a more developmental approach to transportation based on social, physical, environmental and resource criteria. Finally, it posits a set of principles to guide urban transportation policy. For the covering abstract of the conference see IRRD no 288720. (Author/TRRL)
Transportation planning
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This research was supported by a DATAR (the French organization for regional development) research grant, with the aim of defining a basis for the prospect of mobility in large conurbations. The first part of the research is devoted to cross‐section comparisons between countries as regards land use and related mobility schemes. As a result of the comparisons, we suggest considering mobility and land use as co‐produced by political, economical and cultural determinants. This comparative exercise is used, in the second part, to build very different images of three possible futures for French conurbations, respectively labelled, ‘Saint Simonian or modernist’, ‘Rhenan or conservative’, ‘Californian or post‐modernist’. Each of them is supported by three different dynamics as regards the economic context, the land use and transport planning. They are characterized by a set of discriminant options related to urban planning, road and public transport issues, telecommunications options. The concluding part analyses the main consequences for daily urban mobility in the hopes of stimulating discussion.
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This research aims to address the impact of globalisation on urban development process in the context of global South, through the case study of the socio-spatial dimensions of retail areas in three provincial Thai towns over the last 50 years. Contemporary issues of urban growth linked to globalisation have been studied in various disciplines but mostly in relation to large cities. They have been less concerned with the local scale and particularly in the transitional/new urban areas of developing countries with loose planning policies and regulations. The methodology and research design uses two different theoretical frameworks, primarily spatial configuration, and secondarily spatial political economy and the relations between them. The analysis focuses on three main types of data: spatial configuration by applying space syntax techniques; secondary data including maps of urban development over a 50-year time period; and fieldwork observations of physical retail area development and retail behaviour of users through systematic recording and analysis of a questionnaire survey.
There are four research questions. The first two focus on the physical and spatial transformation of retail areas in two aspects: the centrality of the town centre (Chapter 5) and urban expansion on the fringe of town (Chapter 6). The last two questions address the relationships between the changing physical and spatial configuration and the political economy, through a particular emphasis on the retail area development (Chapter 7) and retail patterns (Chapter 8).
According to the primary framework of the research, the analysis reveals that the spatial structure of towns has been dominated by the road networks and that urban land use has changed over time, which has altered the spatial properties leading to development, decline and redevelopment, as well as spatial segregation in varying degrees, in some areas of the towns. From the secondary framework, the political economic contexts of the sites were identified as significant in terms of generating production and (re)production of urban spaces through the planning policies and practices, which has been mainly through a top-down and static approach to development although there is evidence of some tensions between the local and global political economy.
The research contributes to the extension of understanding of the globalisation impact on retail urban development in the global South. The analysis of socio-spatial processes of urban development can be emphasised using the multi-disciplinary approach and framework, as shown in the three provincial case study towns in Thailand. The empirical research findings reveal that globalisation in the global South is not static and uniform but dynamic and complex process, for example, the land use conflict between local and multinational retailers at local level. Notably, this research emphasises the importance of local context consideration in terms of informality, traditionalism, localism which influence the characteristics of place, including patterns of socio-spatial relations within urban retail development.
Space Syntax
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The paper investigates the use of an alternative household car ownership modelling approach for South African urban areas, particularly the metropolitan areas, that moves away from existing race-based classifications, but instead uses household income and spatial attributes of an area captured in terms of dwelling unit types. The model has been successfully calibrated for the City of Johannesburg, and tested for other Gauteng areas. The paper also provides limited benchmarking of South African household car ownership against published literature, in which it is illustrated and concluded that localised research on behavioural market responses is critical. Topical issues such as development density and lifestyle choices within the context of the emerging nature of household car ownership in South Africa are also investigated, although the transitional nature of the South African economy presents some analytical challenges. Finally, the paper illustrates the model’s application in the urban development planning context. The model results, supported by other qualitative considerations, point to a potentially explosive growth in car ownership to be expected in historically disadvantaged areas of South African cities as middle-class incomes grow. Thematic areas for further research in the field are also identified.
Car ownership
Disadvantaged
Household income
Benchmarking
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This paper analyzes the factors that explain supply and demand of local public transportation. Together with variables related to economics and mobility, we consider variables reflecting institutional characteristics and geographical patterns. Being a political capital increases supply and demand of local public transportation, inequality is associated with higher supply, and contracting out reduces supply. Furthermore, our regional analysis allows us capturing the effect of geographical characteristics and different traditions of government intervention. In all, we provide first evidence on the role played by institutional and regional characteristics useful to achieve a better understanding of local public transportation supply and demand.
Capital (architecture)
Economic interventionism
Regional economics
Transport economics
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This paper focuses on counter-urbanisation flows and explores their implications for spatial planning, through case study research in the Republic of Ireland. Based on a household survey, the paper focuses on a sample of counter-urban in-migrants identified in a high growth rural area within the Greater Dublin region. The paper seeks to address the principal motives behind such relocations. It is suggested that, while the counter-urbanisation concept has been frequently used to describe rural in-migration movements, relatively little attention has been paid either to the significance of such movements for the settlement pattern (physical change, rural housing growth), or to the implications for planning policy (control of urban-generated rural housing developments). The paper concludes that an understanding of counter-urbanisation trends is crucial in addressing the missing link between urban and rural issues in planning policy. This is particularly important in the context of the revival of strategic pla...
Spatial Planning
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