Marius Pieterse

The South African Cities Network has just released its 2021 edition of the quinquennial “State of South African Cities Report”, which “applies a governance lens to diagnose progress made towards achieving
productive, inclusive, sustainable and spatially transformed cities”. I’m happy to have been contracted to write the bulk of the chapter entitled “Governing South African Cities” alongside the SACN’s Danga Mughogho. The chapter frames the “analysis” section of the report – it tries to explain the notion of “all of society” urban governance, sets out the legal and policy framework of urban governance in South Africa and briefly evaluates the governance trajectory of South Africa’s major cities since the dawn of democracy, with a focus on the tumultuous last 5 years.