History of Industrial Decentralization in South Africa (Part I): The Regional Concentration of Industry and Historical Basis of the Policy

Abstract

This research deals broadly with the history and development of industrial decentralization in South Africa. It provides a basic analysis of a number of inseparable historic, political and economic issues, and is presented in two parts. This first part begins by tracing the economic forces that generated current concentrated patterns of economic activity in South Africa, and goes on to review the origins of the industrial decentralization policy. It concludes that despite a relatively rigid natural regional economic structure that developed historically, and despite the continued presence of the economic forces that brought this structure about, the government commenced with a policy of industrial decentralization in 1960. The second part of the research firstly assesses the development of the policy in an attempt to indicate reasons for major changes, and secondly discusses the impact of the policy with reference to current evidence. It concludes that the industrial decentralization policy may have had serious economic consequences to date, but may nevertheless have a continued role to play in the ongoing political development of the country. The approach throughout has been to provide a relatively compact chronology of the policy and its antecedents.