Objective 1: To explore the prospects of rural-urban migration in South African metropolitan cities
The study found that metropolitan IDPs view rural-urban migration as raising a range of threats and opportunities for the receiving cities. Some of the benefits of rural-urban migration in metropolitan include the incentive to bring people of diverse talents and cultural identities to contribute to the growth of South African cities. Migration would have a profound positive effect on demographic development and labor and job participation, salaries and incomes, national skills base, and net productivity. It can be further noted that migration is seen as a cost-effective means of livelihood, yielding higher wages and greater wellbeing than for those who stay. Migration has rejuvenated jobs in destinations or towns, allowed conventional sectors such as agriculture and services to be economically viable, encouraged business enterprise, sponsored social welfare and met the needs of emerging high-tech industries.
Migration has a profound positive effect on demographic development and labor and job participation, salaries and incomes, national skills base, and net productivity. In some regions, the influx of skilled labor is contributing to the region’s greater economic development, such as in the
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city of Johannesburg, which remains the country’s economic hub. It was further noted that prospects for human development act as push factors.
Objective 2: To explore rural-urban migration challenges in South African metropolitan cities
Empirically, most local authorities have not established constructive policy approaches to rural- urban migration, as evidenced in the reporting on IDPs. Because of the increased rural-urban migration rates, South African metropolitan municipalities highlight challenges such as service delivery, informal settlement, infrastructure and housing backlog and skills, labour and employment challenges that are placing pressure in the municipalities as rural-urban migration increases. These challenges are common in all South African metropolitan municipalities. The IDP analysis revealed that there are more rural-urban challenges than prospects, and this is evident in the eThekwini and the City of Johannesburg.
The study has also observed that South Africans move to where the jobs are, away from poverty.
Much of the demographic and economic development and job creation in South Africa are generated from metropolitan areas in Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and Cape Town, which demonstrate the high migration rates in these regions. Due to this, rural-urban migration is having a substantial impact on the service delivery backlog. The population growth in cities is putting great strain on the availability of utilities. This places pressure on governments to identify alternatives and establish plans to tackle service delivery issues in communities.
From the various IDPs, the study further found that the movement of massive population growth fueled by immigrants, historic backlogs and low-intensity invasion and the proliferation of illegal settlements in the city of Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni as well as Cape Town has resulted in insufficient housing. As such, the rapid growth of marginalized settlements, often referred to as slums, has mirrored the unprecedented expansion of cities across South Africa. Since there is not enough formal accommodation to accommodate the number of refugees, all of whom are extremely poor, there are slums.
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Objective 3: To assess how metropolitan municipalities manage rural-urban migration
The South African government has developed various informal settlement management measures to address the challenges of informal settlement, housing backlog and the poor or lack of services.
The rapid population and unplanned growth changes contribute to an urban expansion with negative societal, cultural, and economic ramifications. The urban expansion also limits urban resident’s capacity to supply even the most essential facilities such as housing, water sources and sanitation. Rural unemployment is increasing and pushes young people, often influenced by the growing bug of ambition and expanded opportunity to live in urban areas.
The study found that the rising waves of migration in towns suggest that individuals are using their migration independence to boost their levels of human development. The study also found that due to problems with increased migration in urban areas, Strong urban development practices by delivering public utilities such as housing and other services are one of the strategies of urban management that might serve as an attempt to regulate rural-urban migration and informal settlement. Both Cape Town and Johannesburg officials have begun to detail the strategies to recruit and incorporate highly-qualified migrants and immigrants into the city’s socio-economic networks. For the eThekwini Municipality, several other projects aim to encourage the development of jobs and the creation of innovative industries, which aims to give disadvantaged women, youth and disabled people more opportunities.
Objective 4: To propose strategies to prepare metropolitan cities for migration
The study found that Metropolitan municipalities have developed strategies to help deal with challenges that comes with rural-urban, but some of these strategies have not been successful in addressing some of the challenges. The South African government is increasingly designing and adopting modern comprehensive strategic planning and land use management strategies aimed at ensuring maintainable infrastructure services for human settlements in response to rapid urbanisation. The polices of land use are made to endorse mixed-use development and the efficiency use of land. This is significant in that it creates a sense of balance among conflicting private property interests. The biggest issue that makes these policies unsuccessful is that
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politicians should not enforce them systematically and systematically with no regard to cross- cutting matters. There is also a need to improve living conditions in rural areas to monitor rural- urban migration, generate prospects for industrial growth in these areas, and ensure sufficient socio-economic prospects, so people do not see the need for coming to urban areas.