Managing urban growth in South Africa: Learning from the international experience

The objective is to introduce a special collection of papers on Third World urbanization which aims to offer certain policy lessons for South African policy-makers concerning issues of managing urban growth. Two sections of material are presented. First, the basic challenge of urban management for South African policy-makers is set forth in respect of rectifying past policy omissions and of tackling future needs. In addition, signposts are provided to important sources of comparative material for the study of urban management in the developing world. Second, the paper surveys the broad contours and directions of the Urban Foundation's South African research project on comparative international urbanization and presents key themes in the collection of eight policy studies.