- Title
- Poverty in Duncan Village, East London: a qualitiative perspective
- Title
- Development Studies Working Paper, no. 69
- Creator
- Bank, Leslie John
- Subject
- Eastern Cape (South Africa) -- Economic conditions Urban poor -- South Africa Rural-urban migration -- South Africa -- East London East London (South Africa) -- Social conditions -- Case studies
- Date Issued
- 1996
- Date
- 1996
- Type
- Book
- Type
- Text
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10962/2003
- Identifier
- vital:20246
- Identifier
- ISBN 0868103209
- Description
- East London is a minor coastal city with a fragile economy based largely on the food, motor and textile manufacturing sectors. Between 1945 and 1960 the economy of the city grew rapidly registering annual growth rates in excess of 10%. This growth was based on secondary industrialization in the manufacturing sector. However, since the inauguration of the homeland policy which wedged East London between two impoverished, self- governing homeland states, Transkei and Ciskei, the economy of the city has fared less well. Low annual growth rates were recorded throughout the 1970s and 1980s despite efforts by the Apartheid government to shore up the local economy by offering attractive industrial decentralization incentives in the region. The fragility of the city is not only based on its regional location, but on the absence of mineral and power sources and its distance from major metropolitan markets. Being situated in one of the poorest provinces in the country, East London's growth has always been limited by a weak local consumer market (Swilling 1987: 140). While the economic prospects for the city have recently improved with the dismantling of the homeland system and the centralization of the Eastern Cape's regional government in nearby capital of Bisho (30 minutes’ drive from East London), the city is still badly in need of major economic investment to cater for its rapidly growing population. During the past decade, there has been a massive transfer of population from rural to urban areas in the Eastern Cape generally. This occurred as a result of a softening of homeland borders in the mid-1980s, the removal of the influx control laws in 1986, as well as the deterioration of agricultural prospects in a region gripped by a crippling drought throughout the 1980s. These factors have ensured that East London became the tar-get of a sustained wave of rural-urban immigration. Dozens of new informal settlements have sprung up all over the city during the past five years, while the established townships within the city limits have become hopelessly overcrowded. The research for this project was conducted in East London's most congested township, Duncan Village. In 1995, it had a population of approximately 100 000 people. Between 1964 and 1979, Duncan Village was the target of massive forced removals.
- Description
- Digitised by Rhodes University Library on behalf of the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER)
- Format
- 86 pages
- Format
- Publisher
- Rhodes University, Institute of Social and Economic Research
- Language
- English
- Relation
- Development Studies Working Paper, no. 69
- Rights
- Rhodes University
- Rights
- http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
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