In
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...
, a metropolitan municipality or Category A municipality is a
municipality
A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate.
The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...
which executes all the functions of local government for a
city
A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...
or
conurbation
A conurbation is a region comprising a number of metropolises, cities, large towns, and other urban areas which through population growth and physical expansion, have merged to form one continuous urban or industrially developed area. In most ca ...
. This is by contrast to areas which are primarily rural, where the local government is divided into
district municipalities and
local municipalities.
The
Constitution
A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of Legal entity, entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed.
When ...
, section 155.1.a, defines "Category A" municipalities. In the Municipal Structures Act it is laid out that this type of local government is to be used for conurbations, "centre
of economic activity", areas "for which integrated development planning is desirable", and areas with "strong interdependent social and economic linkages".
The metropolitan municipality is similar to the
consolidated city-county
In United States local government, a consolidated city-county is formed when one or more cities and their surrounding county ( parish in Louisiana, borough in Alaska) merge into one unified jurisdiction. As such it has the governmental powers o ...
in the US, although a South African metropolitan municipality is created by notice of the
provincial government, not by agreement between district and local municipalities.
History
Metropolitan municipalities were brought about during reforms of the 1990s so that cities could be governed as single entities. For example, eThekwini (including Durban) is today a single municipality formed from what were more than 40 separate jurisdictions before 1994.
This reform process was a response to the way in which apartheid policy had broken up municipal governance. For example,
Soweto
Soweto () is a township of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality in Gauteng, South Africa, bordering the city's mining belt in the south. Its name is an English syllabic abbreviation for ''South Western Townships''. Formerly a s ...
had, until 1973, been administered by the Johannesburg City Council, but after 1973 was run by an Administration Board separate from the city council. This arrangement deprived Soweto of vital subsidies that it had been receiving from Johannesburg. A key demand of anti-apartheid civics in the 1980s was for 'one city, one tax base' in order to facilitate the equitable distribution of funds within what was a functionally integrated urban space.
Local government reform after apartheid produced six Transitional Metropolitan Councils following the 1995/6 local government elections. These were characterized by a two-tier structure. From 2000, these six Metropolitan Councils were restructured into their final single-tier form. In 2011, Buffalo City (including East London) and Mangaung (including Bloemfontein) were added to the category of metropolitan municipality.
List of metropolitan municipalities
See also
*
Urban planning in Africa
References
Other sources
* Government Communication & Information Services (2005
Categories of municipalities*
Parliament of the Republic of South Africa (1996
Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, Chapter 7: Local Government*
Parliament of the Republic of South Africa (1998
Local Government: Municipal Structures Act Act 117 of 1998.
South African Local Government Association
{{Metropolitan elections in South Africa