While frameworks to assess the built environments' sustainability at the neighbourhood level are being developed by researchers globally, their application to various contexts has proven largely unsuccessful, especially in developing nations comparable to South Africa. Primary Neighbourhood Sustainability Assessment (NSA) frameworks are in short supply and are rigid in measuring neighbourhoods due to their strong links to building codes, customs, climate, and construction culture of the countries of their inception. Furthermore, South African alternatives and indigenously developed frameworks focus on predominantly black, unregulated, low-income, and marginalised urban regions, neglecting local demographic shifts and social changes to context. This study examined sustainable development in South Africa by evaluating and characterising neighbourhood sustainability across South Africa’s four main spatialities, breaking away from traditional parochialism. This study characterised South African neighbourhood sustainability by examining the relationship between sustainable indicator-factors and seven typologies of South Africa's neighbourhoods, including township, Central Business District (CBD), suburban, gated community, rural, zonal, and industrial types. Findings from the 348 self-reporting questionnaires collected from Gauteng, Western Cape, Kwa-Zulu-Natal, and Mpumalanga provinces, and analysed in SPSS 28 revealed a significant correlation between respondents' neighbourhood sustainability clusters and predictor variables such as race disaggregation, age, income, economic, social, environmental, governance, security, mobility, and culture. Environmental and governance indicator-factors were the most efficient and statistically significant independent variables for characterising and evaluating South African un/sustainable neighbourhoods.
| Date of Award | 4 Jun 2024 |
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| Original language | English |
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| Supervisor | Yun Gao (Main Supervisor) & Patricia Tzortzopoulos (Co-Supervisor) |
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