Transportation : a tool to combat challenges in global city regions

Abstract

Global City-Regions are regional economies that consist of one or more functionally linked metropolitan areas and their surrounding hinterlands. As an increasing number of regions across the world aim to attain Global City-Region (GCR) status, this paper describes a few of the challenges that are faced by these city-regions, as well as transportation interventions that can be used to combat some of these challenges. Broadly categorised, these challenges include socio-economic challenges as well as land use management challenges such as spatial fragmentation. Through consideration of the integral role that transportation plays in GCRs across the world, particularly the role of transportation interventions and their effects on mobility in the Gauteng City-Region, it was concluded that transportation is indeed a tool, when implemented correctly, which can be used to effectively combat challenges in GCRs.