Johannesburg 2030: The Economic Contours of a “Linking Global City”

Despite Johannesburg’s importance in urban Africa, the city is relatively neglected by urban researchers. Within the global network of cities, Johannesburg assumes a critical role of linking city and articulating the development of the capitalist economy of Southern Africa. Johannesburg’s future will be associated with addressing the multiple challenges of urban growth, management, and absorption. Arguably, the most important single challenge is that of achieving sustained economic growth as well as the creation of new employment and livelihood opportunities for the city’s growing population. Johannesburg’s economic prospects are inseparable from those of South Africa as a whole. Over the past 5 years, in response to the global crisis, the national government has launched a number of long-term development plans that seek to unlock South Africa’s economic constraints in the form of the New Growth Path, initiatives for reindustrialization, and the National Development Plan 2030. It is contended that the economic contours of Johannesburg 2030, to a large extent, will be determined by its role as linking city and by the impacts of these large-scale strategic policy interventions as mediated through metropolitan-level policy.