Papers by Manfred Spocter
South African Geographical Journal
Gated communities have evolved into providing unique residential offerings aimed at specific mark... more Gated communities have evolved into providing unique residential offerings aimed at specific markets. Eco-estates and eco-friendly estates are examples of such niche estates which have witnessed in...
South African Geographical Journal
ABSTRACT The Department of Geography and Environmental Studies at Stellenbosch University is the ... more ABSTRACT The Department of Geography and Environmental Studies at Stellenbosch University is the oldest geography department in South Africa and celebrates its centenary in 2020. This paper provides insight into a range of publications that emanated from the department during that time. The presentation is periodized in three sections of review and analysis: the genesis of the department from 1920 up to 1947; the apartheid period of 1948 to 1993; and the democratic era (1994–2019). Drawing on various sources it appears that published research in the department amounted to a meagre output in the early years by one staff member. Publication numbers grew in the 1960s and 1970s. This period was, however, characterized by publications mostly in South African journals and generally in Afrikaans. This period also consolidated a positivist epistemology that remains to the present. Research output increased in the 1990s. The past decade (2010s) saw publication output rise steeply to register more than half of all publications ever produced in the department. This was due to the establishment of research centres in the department, increased staff complements and the appointment of research fellows.
Journal of Urbanism: International Research on Placemaking and Urban Sustainability
Research into place names has evolved to beyond the encyclopaedic rendition of their etymological... more Research into place names has evolved to beyond the encyclopaedic rendition of their etymological and taxonomic foundations. Toponymy was criticized as atheoretical, apolitical and uncritical until the toponymic turn in the latter half of the 1980s and early 1990s. In South Africa, this change can arguably be traced to the mid-1980s with Pirie's insightful treatment of the torturous process of the naming of Soweto. It was until the early 2000s before geographers again took South African toponymy in their sights. This study, focussing on the toponymy of gated communities in non-metropolitan Western Cape, adds to that growing corpus of knowledge by seeking to understand the message that their naming imprints on the urbanscape. The study employs Bourdieu's notion of symbolic capital to illustrate how the naming of gated communities adds to their exclusionary qualities by creating an illusionary residential territory. Private developers use the symbolic capital of naming to market developments thereby creating economic capital. Using a database of gated-community names collected in a previous study it is shown that developments rely heavily on environmental names and names that display elements of community, heritage and links to European locales. The naming conventions point to names symbolizing notions of status and prestige. Interviews with respondents involved in the naming and government officials who consider the names submitted to them point to a situation where there is very little statutory guidance and control over the naming of gated communities. Questions arise as to who contributes to naming in the postapartheid urbanscape.
The garden is where nature-human interfaces occur through the practice of gardening, a pursuit th... more The garden is where nature-human interfaces occur through the practice of gardening, a pursuit that provides both challenges and opportunities for sustainable practices by householders in residential spaces. The study is framed within sustainability debates with a specific focus on green urbanism. Based on a mixed-methods approach this research explores the influence of suburban gardening practices on natural sustainability in Cape Town, by investigating homeowner gardening practices regarding the use of water, specifically during a period of water restrictions. It is noteworthy that respondents have heeded the call not to use potable water for gardening purposes. Instead, it was found that although the use of borehole water reduced dependency on potable water, the unregulated use of the underground resource could lead to its depletion. In addition, it was established that homeowners exclusively relied on borehole water as a substitute for potable water and very few used other alternative water sources to further reduce water consumption. In addition, the overwhelming majority of respondents did not use rainwater tanks for water storage citing cost, aesthetics and the presence of boreholes as reason not to acquire these tanks. The outcome of this study provides recommendations for sustainable gardening practices in established residential suburbs.
Your article is protected by copyright and all rights are held exclusively by Springer Science +B... more Your article is protected by copyright and all rights are held exclusively by Springer Science +Business Media Dordrecht. This e-offprint is for personal use only and shall not be selfarchived in electronic repositories. If you wish to self-archive your article, please use the accepted manuscript version for posting on your own website. You may further deposit the accepted manuscript version in any repository, provided it is only made publicly available 12 months after official publication or later and provided acknowledgement is given to the original source of publication and a link is inserted to the published article on Springer's website. The link must be accompanied by the following text: "The final publication is available at link.springer.com".
Growth potential modelling is useful as it provides insight into which settlements in a region ar... more Growth potential modelling is useful as it provides insight into which settlements in a region are likely to experience growth and which areas are likely to decline. However, growth potential modelling is an ill-structured problem as there is no universally-agreed set of criteria (parameters) that can be combined in a particular way (rules) to provide a definitive growth potential measure (solution). In this paper we address the ill-structured problem of growth potential modelling by combining multi-criteria decision making (MCDM), geographical information systems (GIS) and planning support systems (PPS) to generate a number of growth scenarios for settlements in Western Cape province of South Africa. A new framework and methodology for selecting, structuring and analysing multiple growth potential criteria is proposed. The framework, based on the principles of innovation potential and growth preconditions,was applied to demonstrate how it can be used to identify a series of candidate criteria relating to the growth potential of settlements. The criteria were subjected to a MCDM process involving criteria selection, weighting and normalisation. Two criteria sets, weighting schemes and normalisation methods were considered. Two different classification techniques were also evaluated. A total of 16 scenarios were generated using a newly-developed growth potential PPS (GPPSS). The paper shows how the GPPSS can be used to quantitatively and qualitatively assess the various scenarios and to select the most appropriate solution.
Growth potential modelling is useful as it provides insight into which settlements in a region ar... more Growth potential modelling is useful as it provides insight into which settlements in a region are likely to experience growth and which areas are likely to decline. However, growth potential modelling is an ill-structured problem as there is no universally-agreed set of criteria (parameters) that can be combined in a particular way (rules) to provide a definitive growth potential measure (solution). In this paper we address the ill-structured problem of growth potential modelling by combining multi-criteria decision making (MCDM), geographical information systems (GIS) and planning support systems (PPS) to generate a number of growth scenarios for settlements in Western Cape province of South Africa. A new framework and methodology for selecting, structuring and analysing multiple growth potential criteria is proposed. The framework, based on the principles of innovation potential and growth preconditions, was applied to demonstrate how it can be used to identify a series of candidate criteria relating to the growth potential of settlements. The criteria were subjected to a MCDM process involving criteria selection, weighting and normalisation. Two criteria sets, weighting schemes and normalisation methods were considered. Two different classification techniques were also evaluated. A total of 16 scenarios were generated using a newly-developed growth potential PPS (GPPSS). The paper shows how the GPPSS can be used to quantitatively and qualitatively assess the various scenarios and to select the most appropriate solution.
Beyond gated communities, 2015
Life in a Changing Urban Landscape, 2014
Gated developments are not only found in urban areas, but have also increasingly become a part of... more Gated developments are not only found in urban areas, but have also increasingly become a part of the rural locale in South Africa. While rural gated developments offer features of security, community and exclusivity in an idyllic rural setting, their proliferation can be linked to a wider process of post-productivist change in the rural locale. Counterurbanisation, the creation of a consumptionist countryside and the extraction of amenity value from the rural landscape are facets of post-productivism. This study explores the spread of rural gated developments in the Western Cape. The degree of amenity and leisure activities, second-home ownership and features of land use change allied to rural gated developments point to a post-productive rurality that is underway. The spread of rural gated developments could have a profound effect on the way that social, physical and economic relations are produced and reproduced in the rural locale.
In his 2001 State of the Nation address former President Mbeki announced the launch of the Urban ... more In his 2001 State of the Nation address former President Mbeki announced the launch of the Urban Renewal Programme (URP) as an area-based approach which would form part of a 10 years initiative to address poverty and underdevelopment in targeted areas. It had a specific emphasis on improving joint government planning and implementation. Townships were spatially engineered by the architects of apartheid and excluded by design. They are today typified by high levels of poverty and crime. It is in the undoing of these two social malaises that the URP has anchored itself on the policy agenda. The URP focused on eight urban townships in the country as pilots that would pave the way for an urban development strategy on urban renewal to be developed and implemented nationally once the 10 years pilot period elapsed. The paper is a review of lessons learnt and best practices in two anchor URP projects in Cape Town, South Africa.
This paper provides a brief overview of the relevant post-2000 South African policy for regional ... more This paper provides a brief overview of the relevant post-2000 South African policy for regional (provincial) spatial development within the context of the quantitative findings of a study conducted on the growth potential of nonmetropolitan settlements in the Western Cape. The findings are presented at municipal level. Five indices (social needs, economic, physical environment, infrastructure and institutional) and 69 indicators were used to determine development potential and social needs for the 24 local municipalities and three district management areas in the province. The potential indicators for each index were subjected to a factor analysis to select appropriate core indicators for inclusion in the composite indices. Based on their overall performance in the various indices, the municipalities were classified into three categories-high, medium and low. The study results prioritise areas according to their developmental potential and social needs at municipal level.
Gated developments, more commonly known as gated communities, have become a feature of urban livi... more Gated developments, more commonly known as gated communities, have become a feature of urban living throughout the world. Gated developments in South African cities are an ubiquitous feature of the contemporary urban landscape with many new housing developments in the form of secure estates or fortified town house complexes. A review of international research on gated developments reveals four broad themes into which such research can be placed. South African gated development research is discussed within these themes and it is found that the themes are present in varying degrees in South Africa. This highlights not only global commonalities in gated development research, but also the importance of local or regional conditions in facilitating the increased proliferation of gated developments.
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Papers by Manfred Spocter