Urbanization, poverty and the paradox of land reform in South Africa

Abstract

One of the consequences of civilization in Africa was the emergence of cities and massive emigration from the rural areas. In South Africa, apartheid policies underdeveloped the rural areas and appropriated arable lands for the minority population, which broadened the gap between cities and rural areas. This ultimately engendered the impoverishment of 13 million black South Africans, who experienced land dispossessions and were restricted to the hinterland. The abolition of apartheid and development of the cities stimulated massive rural-urban migration. However, these generated contradictions like poverty, unemployment, food scarcity, land hunger, informal settlements and ineffective service delivery. Thus, this chapter explores how land reform impacts on rural-urban migration and the convergence between poverty and urbanization within the land reform framework. The findings revealed that land reform has not addressed the rural-urban surge and the deepening rural poverty. Indeed, effective and equitable land reform schemes, which are the driving forces of a programme of rural development, are an essential corollary for combating rural-urban migration. Government and stakeholders in the urbanization-land reform projects have the responsibility to utilize the gains of land reform for human capacity development, improvement in the livelihood of rural dwellers and elimination of congestion in South African cities.