Secondary Cities and Local Governance in Southern Africa (eBook)

This book is the first to consider the roles, challenges and governance responses of secondary cities in southern Africa to changing circumstances. Among the challenges are governance under conditions of resource scarcity, managing informality, the effects and responses to climate change and the changing roles of the cities within the national space economy. It fills the gap in the literature on secondary cities with original case studies drawn from South Africa, Zimbabwe and Mozambique. The authors are all African scholars, working and living in the region with intimate knowledge of the settings they describe. The book is critical as it includes such regional case studies of different secondary cities in Southern Africa but also because of it's multidisciplinarity: it contains substantive and pertinent issues such as climate change, disaster management, local economic development, and basic services delivery. It considers diverse environments, yet with similar challenges that could provide useful policy and governance proposals for other cities.

Abraham R Matamanda is an NRF Y2-rated Urban Planner lecturing at the University of Free State (UFS) in the Department of Geography. He is currently Editor of the Town Planning Journal published by UFS and serves on the editorial board of Plos Water Journal. He is a fellow of the South African DHET Future Professorate Programme Phase 1, third Cohort. His research focuses on urban governance and planning, climate change adaptation, informal Global South urbanism, urban food systems, and housing studies.

 James Chakwizira is a professor of spatial and transport planning and lecturers in the department of Urban & Regional Planning, University of Venda and an extra-ordinary professor, Unit for Environmental Sciences and Management, North - West University. He has practiced in the public and private sector while leading multidisciplinary teams/units. His research focus on transportation studies, spatial planning and development, urban designing of precincts and neighbourhoods and climate change and adaptation.

Kudzai Chatiza is a local governance, and spatial planning researcher. He is currently a research fellow in the Department of Geography, UFS and Director at Development Governance Institute. With over 30 years' experience in decentralization, development and strategic planning, citizen participation, housing policy and practice, he teaches and supervises research students at UZ and Midlands State University. Kudzai also advises state and non-state development organizations on spatial planning and governance issues. 

Verna Nel qualified as a town and regional planner at Wits University and obtained her MSc and PhD through UNISA. After three decades of working primarily in municipalities, she was appointed as a Professor in the Urban and Regional Planning Department of the UFS and assumed the title of Emeritus Professor with her retirement from 2024. She has diverse research interests that include spatial and urban resilience, local economic development and spatial governance. Her most recent publication is a book on land use management in South Africa.?