System for the integrated management of urban settlement and infrastructure development

Abstract

The overall economic, physical and decision-making environment in South Africa’s urban areas has changed dramatically in recent years. This paper provides a brief overview of these changes and then proceeds to describe a new approach towards urban management, and the develop­ment of a modular decision support system which can contribute to the management of urban settlement and infrastrucutre development within the framework of an integrated approach. This system includes modules for the indentification of potential urban set­tlement sites (both for new develop­ment and re-development/densification of existing developed areas), exploring the likely development of these areas (given certain urban/infrastrucutre management scenarios), and analysing the resource consumption impacts (both in terms of physical resources and financial resources) associated with each scenario. The system pro­vides the ability to rapidly compare and evaluate the impacts of alternative approaches to accommodate the vari­ous development pressures within a scenario-based approach.