Abstract:
This article argues that brown environmental problems have been given scant
attention in urban planning and governance in favour of profit-making and industrial
development efforts in South Africa, at the expense of public health. Urban South
Africa is plagued by mounting brown environmental problems that arose out of
industrialisation and urbanisation. As a result, informal economic activities have
mushroomed in urban spaces, which are now synonymous with air pollution, waste
and squalid settlement environments. Often the informal economic activities are
pigeonholed in high capital intensive industries, mining companies, manufacturing
institutions as well as processing and heavy metal companies, amongst others. But
the ubiquity of informal business establishments around public transit stations,
pavement/walkways and adjacent formal businesses, notwithstanding a myriad of
bylaws, have contributed significantly towards emissions of toxins, gases, fumes and
liquids into the surroundings with deleterious repercussions on public health. The
informal economy is characterised by congestion, street vending and littering, illegal
disposal of contaminated liquids and refuse on pavements and sidewalks as well as
a series of air polluting activities, which are seemingly ungovernable. This article
explores various brown environmental problems that affect urban South Africa in
order to highlight the deleterious consequences of lax in urban governance.
