Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 November 2008
Jobs and their location provide the key to an understanding of the contemporary thrust of South Africa's ‘separate development’ policy. Within the country's present space economy, dominated by the four metropolitan complexes of the Southern Transvaal, Cape Town, Durban, and Port Elizabeth, this policy seeks to mould a new geography of employment opportunity for the blacks of South Arica. In this process, public policy-makers are attempting to decentralise some economic activities, particularly in the manufacturing sector, away from the nation's metropolitan hubs, and concomitantly to promote new work centres in, or on the borders of, the designated ‘Bantu Homelands’. The current emphasis in the Republic is upon the generation of industrial employment for Africans at selected sites in these Homelands. This short note explores the immediate problems and long-term prospects of this policy with reference to the Bophutatswana growth point of Babelegi.
Page 126 note 1 See Board, C., Davies, R.J. and Fair, T.J. D., ‘The Structure of the South African Space Economy: an integrated approach’, in Regional Studies (Oxford), IV, 3, 10 1970, pp. 367–92.Google Scholar
Page 126 note 2 For details see Bell, Trevor, Industrial Decentralisation in South Africa (Cape Town, 1973), especially pp. 212–13.Google Scholar
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Page 126 note 4 Cf. the statement by H. F. Verwoerd that ‘Private White undertakings — important, big undertakings — will make no contribution toward keeping the Native areas truly Bantu’; see Financial Mail (Johannesburg), Special Survey, 30 03 1973, p. 11.Google Scholar
Page 127 note 1 Mangope, Chief Lucas, quoted in ‘Babelegi: progress report’, in Bantu (Pretoria), XIX, 11, 11 1972, pp. 11–13.Google Scholar
Page 127 note 2 Europeans are employed in a managerial capacity at Babelegi, with a ratio to Africans of up to 1:40.
Page 127 note 3 Human Sciences Research Council, Werk geleenthede in die grens gebiede naby die Tswana tuisland (Pretoria, 1972).Google Scholar
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Page 127 note 5 Bantu Investment Corporation of South Africa Ltd., Report on the Labour Situation: Babelegi (Pretoria, 1972, mimeo).Google Scholar
Page 127 note 6 McCrystal, Lawrence, ‘Industrial Development in Metropolitan Areas’; paper presented to the Focus on Metropolitan Areas Symposium at Rand Afrikaans University, Johannesburg, 18 05 1973.Google Scholar
Page 129 note 1 Perhaps best summarised by Darwent, D. F., ‘Growth Poles and Growth Centers in Regional Planning – a Review’, in Environment and Planning (London), 1, 1, 01–02 1969, pp. 5–31.Google Scholar
Page 129 note 2 Ibid. p. 13.
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Page 129 note 4 U.N. Economic Commission for Europe, Criteria for Location of Industrial Plants (New York, 1967).Google Scholar
Page 130 note 1 McCrystal, op. Cit.
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