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Sustainable Cities
City Restructuring
This project focuses on exploring the potential to reduce the amount of motorised travel in the three main partner cities
(Cape Town, Dar es Salaam and Nairobi) and investigating the impact of reduced commute distance travelled by workers.
Research Project
Cities of the global South have relatively low car-
ownership rates (between 18 [Kenya] and 144 [South Africa]
vehicles/1,000 persons) compared to cities of the global
North (between 400 and 700 vehicles/1,000 persons).
The growing economies of the cities of the global South
will translate into increased incomes and increased car-
ownership rates. In parallel to this, the populations of these
cities are also growing.
These forces are likely to encourage the development
of space economies and transport infrastructure suited
to the motorcar. In contrast to this trend is the prospect
of declining global fuel resources and increasing costs.
This will reduce the number of persons and households
that can afford to use a car to meet their transport needs.
This will have a significant impact on the economies of
cities and the well-being of their populations, more
especially on those cities that have been structured to
suit private motorised transport, and even more so on
those that are poorer. (It might be argued that coal and
nuclear power can be used to power electric public
transport vehicles, but these resources are also limited.
Oil, coal and nuclear power resources are forecast to
peak in 2006, 2020 and 2040 respectively, resulting in
serious shortages, and therefore very high costs, by
2025, 2070 and 2100 respectively).
The aim of this research is to estimate the positive
and negative effects that would result from restricted
private and even public motorised travel and the effect of
informality in cities of the global South on these estimates.
Project activities in 2012 focused on the administration
of surveys in Cape Town to assess the consequences
to employers and employees of restricting motorised
commuter travel.
The project is led by Associate Professor Romano Del
Mistro and funded by the Volvo Research and Educational
Foundations.
It might be argued that coal and
nuclear power can be used to
power electric public transport
vehicles, but these resources are
also limited.