A synthetic approach to regional spatial planning in less developed contexts

Abstract

Large numbers of people in South Africa, and indeed globally, live in marginal regions in both rural and urban areas. While systemic problems of ecological breakdown, poverty and inequality affect all in varying ways, marginal regions are least able to cope. These problems are not self-correcting and if not addressed, the possibility of violence is high. While regional spatial planning is a potentially important tool for meeting these challenges, theoretical approaches, which largely ignore regional spatial planning issues, are inadequate as is local practice in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Using the case of KwaZulu-Natal, this study proposes a more appropriate approach to regional spatial planning for marginal regions. This substantive study draws upon methodologies from a number of disciplinary fields. Through an interpretive, synthetic understanding informed by an eco-humanist ethic, the regionalist tradition, observation and precedent, a landscape-based, spatial-structural methodology is extended into regional planning. A method of regional planning, which merges thematic and geographic concepts of space, is proposed: regional spatial planning is conceived of as a counter-movement that tackles disembeddedness directly.