The Ideal City
blurb:isstoday:03122008idealcity
3 December 2008: The Ideal City
According to recent findings by the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR), poverty is one of the major factors contributing to the current surge in violent crimes in South Africa. While inequality between advanced and emerging economies is decreasing, inequality within countries is steadily growing. In addition, international migration is a rapidly growing global phenomenon which is a source of much conflict and dilemmas in many countries. It deepens inequality and turns it into an enduring problem. Analysts in developmental and social studies argue that neoliberalism in the form of unrestrained market forces, promoted by multinationals, international institutions and business media, is producing inequality.
The CSVR findings that poverty causes crime, confirm what most South Africans believe. According to a survey done in 2000 by TNS Research Surveys, a leading marketing and social insights company, adults from seven major metropolitan areas of differing cultural, economic and religious spheres found that respondents living in the informal settlements and backyard dwellings strongly agree that “poverty is the root cause of escalating crime levels in the country”. The CSVR say that this is because high levels of inequality contribute to undermining self confidence and self respect. Thus the issue is not merely one of redistribution, but also of recognition. Youth who are trapped in a cycle of poverty are more likely to lack parental guidance and be inadequately socialised. They thus have ambivalent attitudes regarding crime and the law. With no prospect of a promising future, vulnerable youth turn to crime as a means to achieve recognition and material gains. The key, then, to solving crime is to first attack poverty as a major root cause.
Can this be done through macro-economic policies? Many hail global free trade as the solution to all the world’s problems, or at the very least, likely to make the world a better place. Neoliberal economists will tell anyone who dares to listen about increased competition, comparative advantage, economies of scale and access to a greater range of products and services. There is also evidence of the benefits of being integrated into the global economy: South Africa's economy has been in an upward phase of the business cycle since September 1999 – the longest period of economic expansion in the country's recorded history. It can boast of an average annual economic growth rate of over 4% since 1999. Predication are, however, that this will slow down in 2008 due to the power crisis and global economic slump.
While some believe globalization and technological change produce a “skills revolution”, without a vast programme of re-education and training, skills differentials and urban-rural disparities will remain wide or grow. Of particular relevance to South Africa and other developing countries is that it has been found that policies that pursue fast growth and reflect middle class and urban bias, aggravate rich-poor and urban-rural gaps.
Faced with global and national neoliberal macroeconomic policies, can local government overcome global trends of increasing inequality and move towards reducing poverty, thereby decreasing crime?
The ideal city is one in which there is sufficient employment; housing is integrated and compact; a public transport system that is easily accessible and safe to commute workers to their places of employment, and an education system in which it is as likely for a pupil to enter university from one school as from any other. It is self-reliant in terms of energy, food and economic security and is thus cleaner, healthier, and less expensive. It is needless to say that this ideal city has no crime.
South African cities have greater obstacles to reaching this ideal than many other developing nations due to the segregation policies of its apartheid past. The degradation and squalor of many long-established townships requires intense micro-management, as investors are unlikely to take an interest in these areas that need financing the most. Twelve years on, we are still waiting for the so-called “trickle-down” theory of redistribution to have any results. As national economic policies seem not to be working, local government needs to take action and target these areas for a difference to be seen.
This begs the question: Can even the most optimistic and practical of city plans really produce any change against the strong global trends cities find themselves simultaneously integrated into and fighting against? Sociologist Fredric Jameson paints a picture of globalization as “of standardization on an unparalleled new scale; of forced integration as well, into a world-system from which ‘delinking’…is henceforth impossible and even unthinkable and inconceivable”. So even if in the unlikely event that the South African government sees the error of its ways and chooses to disassociate the state from the free-trade global economy, it will find this a near impossible task, facing resistance from not only foreign and domestic business, but also international institutions such as the World Trade Organisation and the World Bank.
This makes local governments’ goals seem impossible, even contradictory. As neoliberal economic policies in line with global demands attract much-needed direct foreign investment, they simultaneously make poverty insurmountable for a rapidly growing proportion of the population. As a city seeks to improve itself, it becomes attractive not only to the professionals and investors it seeks to attract, but also to the jobless and poor rural population. It also attracts international immigrants, compounding the problems of space, slums, poverty and unemployment, and as a consequence, crime.
However, if a city is to have a social conscience and become a truly successful, crime-free city, poverty-reduction is a task that must be undertaken by local as well as national government. Local government decision-makers must have a special obligation and ability to frame issues, assume leadership, champion initiatives, and keep the imperative to reduce poverty as a priority. With creative leadership we may yet be able to solve one of the greatest problems of our time, and truly provide a better life for all.
Melissa Nefdt,
Intern, Organised Crime and Money Laundering Programme, ISS Cape Town
