Population
2018: 14.717 million (GCRO, 2018)
2050: 25.184 million (Landau &Gindrey, 2008)
Host Institution
Institute for Urban Ministry
Overview of the City:
The African city of study is the Gauteng City-Region, the economic and administrative hub ofSouth Africa. Long before there was a city-region rocky ridges cascading into freshwater valleys sustained human settlements, migrations and economic development for thousands of years (Mabin 2013; Okihiro 1973; Rasmussen 1976, Van Schalkwyk 2014:3). The society and settlements started to take an urban turn with the establishment of Pretoria in 1855 and the Witwatersrand gold rush in the 1880s (Mabin 2013). According to reputable town planners, Fair and Mallows (1959:130), by 1896 ‘the polynuclear structure’ of the modern-day urban pattern was already formed. It was not until 2004 that the notion of the Gauteng City-Region functioning as a ‘continuous polycentric urban region’ captured the imagination of planning processes (Mabin 2013:3; SACN 2004:167). Today, we are enquiring how the Gauteng City-Region can be a flourishing African city in 2050 as urban theology engages urban planning