Economic Transitions in South Africa’s Secondary Cities: Governing Mine Closures

The challenge for many of South Africa’s secondary cities is to shift from their dependence on manufacturing and mining to more diverse economies, to overcome their vulnerability to national government decisions, and to adjust to a global economy that requires high‐level technological skills. These changes will require appropriate governance approaches. However, governing a secondary city and managing its economic transitions is indeed a challenge. The article investigates the way in which local governance and planning are dealing with economic transition occurring due to imminent mine closures using case studies for Emalahleni, Matjhabeng and Newcastle.

Key Findings/Recommendations: Findings in the article illustrates that path dependency, interdependencies and governance informality are making economic transition difficult for the three cities. Path dependency in South Africa’s mining towns has several causes: the colonial influence, which emphasised extraction and neglected beneficiation; the dominance of a single sector; the long‐term problems created by mining; and the lack of the skills needed to bring about economic change. The local governments’ continuing reliance on the New Public Management paradigm, which focuses on steering as opposed to building networks, compounds the problem, along with poor governance, inadequate local capacity and inappropriate intergovernmental relations. Of the three towns, only Newcastle has shown signs of taking a new path.

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