KwaDukuza Urban Regeneration – Resources
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Description
KwaDukuza Municipality is situated north of eThekwini in KZN. It is a complex and diverse environment. It includes high end tourism and residential coastal areas, a series of small inland town centres, large areas of sugarcane farming, and is growing into a small conurbation around the City of KwaDukuza.
The area has a rich and important history. The area encompasses the new municipal capital established by King Shaka around 1820, which was incorporated as Stanger town at the centre of the burgeoning sugar industry by Liege Hulett in 1873, as well as Groutville, the birthplace of Albert Luthuli in 1898. In 2006, the City’s name was changed to KwaDukuza and the municipality adopted a City Vision 2030, a grand and ambitious vision of a thriving hub for local commerce and development. The vision was divided into 5-year terms, laying the foundation for different programmes taking incremental steps towards the shared long-term goals.
Systemic transformation of cities is only visible and effective in highly localised spaces. A twenty-year vision can only be implemented in incremental steps, including the development of strategies, the formation of partnerships, the allocation of budgets and the transformation of individual spaces. It likewise takes a big vision for a city to sustainably achieve localised place making. Without a multi-faceted approach, individual interventions will not be sustainable and will not contribute to systemic transformation, as they will be overpowered by prevailing social challenges in underperforming environments. Highly localised and big picture planning go hand-in-hand. Changing a small local space to reflect the needs of community members generates impact that is visible, aligned to tested principles of community development and urban safety, and offers city dwellers direct benefits while exemplifying a much grander process of change.