Addressing the challenges of integrating town planning and public health in post 1994 South Africa

Abstract

In South Africa, the challenge of integrating public health concerns with town planning is linked to pre-1994 fragmentation of human settlements. The fragmentation of urban settlements in South Africa has resulted in the disjuncture between public health care and town planning considerations. Town planning originated during the turn of the last century as a result of poor public health created by filthy slums and poorly planned industrial areas because public health and urban planning were not administered together. On the one hand, public health took a mainly biomedical focus on individual genetics, biology and behavior in relation to how clinics could affect them on a biological approach to epidemiology and evidence. On the other hand, urban planning in many developing countries such as South Africa was hijacked by fragmentation of land use planning. It was expected that with the advent of democracy in South Africa in 1994, the gap between public health and urban planning would be narrowed but the current disparity between residential locations show that the problems has not decreased because of the general failure of the two fields to plan together. The paper reviews the South African situation through a desktop study to trace the evolution of the challenges in the integration of public health and town planning in South Africa by highlighting some of the challenges facing practitioners in both fields and suggests integration from eco-social theory and environmental justice under the new urbanism, smart growth and sustainable planning.

Keywords: Public health challenges, urban planning, evolution of the disconnect.