This paper provides a brief introduction to the recent history of, as well as the legal and policy framework for, local government in South Africa. It discusses the transformation of local government from a racially configured, illegitimate arm of the apartheid government into a system designed to produce developmentally oriented municipalities. The progress made by South African municipalities towards realising the vision of developmental local government is remarkable and unprecedented. Over the last 13 years, municipalities have embarked on the extension of infrastructure and development, whilst absorbing fundamental changes to their internal governance and management arrangements, financial management systems and intergovernmental responsibilities. The new local government system offers great potential for the realisation of a better life for all citizens, facilitated by a new generation of municipalities. However, the challenges remain huge and some of these can be attributed to institutional fault lines. These include challenges that come with large, inclusive municipalities, new executive systems and the political appointment of senior officials. The paper also identifies the downside of overzealous institutionalisation of community participation. With regard to intergovernmental relations, the paper highlights the need for a clearer definition of local government mandates and a greater recognition of the role of big cities. The current insistence on comprehensive intergovernmental alignment of policies and budgets is questioned, and suggestions are made to substitute this with an approach of selective alignment around key national priorities.

Cities are contemporary metropolises that concentrate human and social activity;

engineered to support and develop the physical environment and the people within it, Smart

cities, we are led to believe, are the immediate future, where smartness is perceived as a

characterisation of advancements or digitalisation, in government, mobility and sustainability.

Therefore it is not surprising that many organisations are marketing their smart solutions and

products, often to a ubiquitous extent and so called smart cities are striving to outperform each

other. But how are smart cities actually being defined and how is performance being measured

in an era where there is increasing access to unprecedented amounts of foreseen data? This

paper identifies the plethora of the smart city definitions and categories evidenced from the

literature and shows that 'Smart cities' lacks a robust coherent definition, with many

contradicting facts within what constitutes a smart vision. Notably, almost every attempt from

organisations, the European Union or cities themselves has failed to define 'smart' in objective

terms that can be accepted globally. Certainly, they all are negotiating with a range of

descriptors and smart ways to improve the city. Even the UK's attempts to develop a clear

definition and set of standards for smart cities (i.e. PAS 180 and PAS 182) appears to suffer

from fundamental differences in how the semantic content of a 'smart' city is defined. This paper

demonstrates the necessity for a single 'Smart Cities' definition that deals with both the physical

and digital using shared parameter value(s) that can be adopted and scaled amongst different

localities and within a range of urban contexts adjusting according to existing city condition(s)

and vision(s) setting the paradigm for further innovative research in this area

This Urban Strategic Planning Guide provides a brief overview of the key components that should be included in an urban strategic planning framework. It also provides a synopsis on the art of facilitating urban strategic planning workshops.