Business

Between the cracks: The George Harrison statue near Eastgate shopping mall. The mall was built in 1979 and straddled the boundaries of the Joburg and Ekurhuleni metros. The line was adjusted in 2013 to move the mall into Ekurhuleni.

Whether you're driving or walking east, there is no noticeable difference as you cross the unmarked boundary between Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni. The streets are lined with the same jacaranda trees, walled gardens and strip malls. Yet this is one of South Africa’s more consequential borders, drawn for administrative convenience and politics rather than around how people actually live. Yasmin Coovadia, the South African Cities Network (SACN) executive manager for programmes and urban governance, and a planning expert, says the lived experience of people in the two metros ignores the border, “until you get different accounts and different systems”.

“Government has these municipal boundaries, but they’re out of touch with what actually happens.” The country has eight metros and 39 intermediate city municipalities, the mid-sized cities that are smaller than metros but bigger than the towns around them. Several are now the size of the smallest metros. Msunduzi (817 725), which includes Pietermaritzburg, and Mbombela (809 674) are each home to roughly as many people as the Mangaung metro around Bloemfontein, which has 811 431 people, according to the last census. Other municipalities must account for the country’s mining, manufacturing and logistics, such as Rustenburg’s platinum belt or eMalahleni’s coal and the port at uMhlathuze. As Coovadia says: “You can’t plan the country’s future by looking at metros alone.”