Rethinking Urban Transport After Modernism Lessons from South Africa

For the last seven decades, urban settlement policy worldwide has been increasingly dominated by modernist precepts and by urban decisions made in discipline-specific ’silos’. The urban management consequences have been invariably negative, with increasing sprawl, fragmentation and separation resulting in a wide range of environmental, social and economic problems. This book explores the role of movement in a more integrated approach to urban settlement, and how thinking, policies and actions need to change. South Africa is used as a particularly good case study, since patterns of sprawl, fragmentation and separation have been exacerbated by apartheid, while recent legislation has demanded a reversal of these tendencies.

Contents: Defining the problem: the objectives of this book; Setting the scene; Approaches to settlement-making: locating the concepts of structure and space; Movement as an element of urban structure and urban space; Movement in urban structure: the case of South Africa; Movement as an element of urban space; Movement in space: the case of South Africa; Conclusion; References; Appendix A: excerpt from the Transport Planning Act; Appendix B: further readings consulted.

Both at the School of Architecture, Planning and Geomatics at the University of Cape Town, David Dewar is Professor and Chair of Urban and Regional Planning and is registered with the South African Council of Town and Regional Planners; Fabio Todeschini is Professor and Convenor of the Master of City Planning and Urban Design Programme and is registered with the South African Council of the Architectural Professions and the South African Council of Town and Regional Planners.