Gaborone

Abstract

The city of Gaborone, like Botswana, the nation of which it is capital, is extraordinary in African terms. Here is a city lacking in mass poverty, extensive squatter settlements or recurrent civil strife: for all appearances, an orderly, affluent urban area. For these reasons, it is an important example of how planning authorities in a developing nation have managed urban growth. Gaborone has had opportunities other African cities have not. Thus it invites questions as to how these have been managed and expressed. A key issue which emerges is the co-location of informal, traditional and modern forms of land allocation both within Gaborone City and the peri-urban regions with which it is increasingly connected. This throws up a number of issues, including the inconsistent way in which planning authorities have managed this ‘balancing act’.

Introduction

There are a number of ways to understand urbanisation which are by no means mutually exclusive. One approach emphasises the benefits of cohesion afforded by successful management and internal dynamics. This angle is essentially interested in explaining successful cities, usually in the developed world, with links to the global economy being the sine qua non of ‘success’. Success is possible through a number of avenues: cultural capital and diversity (Florida, 2002), communicative and participatory decision-making (Healey, 1997) and an interactive, innovative complex of industrial clusters drawing on a range of economic sectors (Porter, 1990). Other approaches focus more on the developing world and not so much on success, as on coping, in the face of conditions that are sometimes extraordinarily difficult. Mechanisms emerge either formally or informally, legally or extra-legally, in the face of transitional and contradictory cultural and economic conditions. ‘Coping’ is explored through perspectives such as the extended metropolitan region (McGee, 1991) and a view of the city as a site where attempts at reconciling tradition and modernity are played out (Balbo, 1993). And in addition, ‘While it is well known that urbanization is affected by several factors, the driving functions of the exploitation of resources should not be neglected’ (Shen, Cheng, Gunson, & Wan, 2005, p. 289).

Gaborone is both engaged with the global economy through the urban-based administration of massive diamond exports, and is successful, particularly in comparison with other African cities, in terms of its orderly civil society, lack of obvious slums, relatively high levels of income and education and, if it were not for the ravages of HIV/AIDS, the general health of its population. Thus it provides an opportunity to reconsider the range of contemporary ideas on cities in the context of the developing world. For in Gaborone, we have what is a fairly rare situation: a city that seems a model both in terms of development and governance. In this profile, the ideas on urbanisation noted above are touchstones to guide an examination, from a planning perspective, of Gaborone, the capital of Botswana. Attention will focus on the growth of the capital. In order to approach an understanding and to draw out the implications of this growth, we further refine the examination by considering housing provision, rights to land ownership and public participation – undoubtedly recurring concerns for studies in democracy and development in urban settings.