Conceptualization of Rural-Region: The Case of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

South Africa has been facing an increase in poverty and part of this problem, local governments have been going back and forth trying to find sustainable strategies to curb poverty and provide food security. As part of the green economy, sustainability is very important especially searching for innovative ideas on how to grow the agricultural sector without posing threats to the fertility and value of rural land. According to (Food and Agricultural Report 2017), it states that South African rural areas have been recognized as an economic driver of the country and increasing the rural areas agriculture will curb poverty. However, enhancing the agricultural sector is no longer the key driver to rural development due to the newly established spatial economic development zones such as identifying nodes for social and community service concentration along with nodes that favor clustering of business for economic growth and development. The concept of rural region borrows a lot from the city region concept but the difference is that it is applied in a rural context. Based on the case study approach, this research explored local and international case studies to better understand how the concept of city region is implemented. To understand the concept of rural region, Kwa-Zulu Natal province and eThekwini Metropolitan area from South Africa were used as a study area. As per the research, it is clear that KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) is seen as having mostly rural areas/towns located in its boundaries as indicated by the (Municipal Infrastructure Investment Framework (MIIF) classification B4). The (CSIR Functional Town Typology 2018) data/mapping shows that most of KwaZulu-Natal is made up of dense rural settlements and villages. It can also be seen that most of the Traditional Authority falls in this Rural Region. The research provides a framework/ key driver that are important for considering the conceptualization of rural regions.