Over the coming decades, urban areas are set to change dramatically: more people will live in cities, and will require more houses and services, public transport, jobs, and places of recreation and learning – all of which take up space and need land. In South Africa, cities also need to transform spatially, to address the legacy of apartheid planning. This deep desire to change how the urban space is structured and ordered is found in policy documents and strategic plans, with the Integrated Urban Development Framework (IUDF) clearly emphasising land governance and management as one of the critical levers for achieving transformation in our cities.

The first volume in The Urban Land Paper Series began the conversation about urban land within the context of achieving spatial transformation in cities. It looked at the role of municipalities within the transformation agenda and attempted to provide insights that would enable cities to better understand the land issues. Each paper approached the urban land issue through a particular lens in order to understand the often-conflicting perspectives. This volume uses the lens of transit-oriented development (TOD) to explore various land questions facing cities because TOD is unequivocally urban in its nature. It has become a central component of the integrated urban development agenda, promoted in the National Development Plan (NDP), IUDF and a fundamental part of many cities’ integrated, spatial and built environment development plans.