Letting go: Evaluating spatial outcomes and political decision-making heralding the termination of the urban edge in Cape Town, South Africa

In planning literature, there are ample examples of well-documented cases of plan-making and formal decision-making, and an equally substantial amount of literature devoted to implementation. However, limited case analyses exist from the perspective of political decision-making, currently perceived as “a black box to planners” (Albrechts, 2003: 250). The City of Cape Town (CoCT), South Africa, have employed an urban edge as a growth management instrument in its Spatial Development Framework (CTSDF) since 2001 (City of Cape Town, 2009), however, the latest CTSDF (2017) retracted this instrument. Instead, the latest spatial strategy to manage growth centres on encouraging dense development that supports transit-oriented development in the urban core, whilst discouraging peripheral expansion by stating intent not to extend services towards the urban periphery in the short-term. This paper contributes to inquiry that tests the implementation of planning instruments in post-colonial urban settings (Fekade, 2000; Barredo and Demicheli, 2003; and Kombe, 2005) by firstly, evaluating the physical extent of urban sprawl in the CoCT and secondly, by analysing the decision-making process that resulted in two large-scale amendments to the original urban edge, and ultimately the final termination of the urban edge policy.