Multivariate regionalization of economic development in Transkei.

Abstract

In recent years, increasing attention has been devoted to the inequalities in development of countries, especially the third world countries, in formulating national development plans. Geographers interested in the regional dimension of development, now take greater cognisance of issues related to inequalities in development. This thesis is a contribution to the growing area of regional development. It investigates the spatial dimension of development and its associated variations. Transkei has been selected for this study because of its historical past as a "child" of separate development policy of South Africa and as a third world country. The separate development policy and its dependence on its former colonial power, have contributed in evolving inequalities in the spatial pattern of development. Past development plans have failed to produce balanced development. There is, therefore, a need to evaluate the existing factors that have produced these inequalities to see if a different strategy can be adopted to correct the existing inequalities. Transkei's 28 districts were used in this study, based on 19 variables. Factor and Cluster Analyses were the analytical techniques used. The investigation's results are as follows: 1. The factors underlying the relationships between the 19 variables were found to reflect three broad factors: Agglomeration, Industrialization and Education factors, with contributions of 72.36%, 8.24% and 6.47% respectively, to the total variance. 2. These factors were observed to owe their existence to institutional and traditional factors with their particular spatial patterns. The districts associated with the agglomeration and industrialization factors were found to be relatively more developed, forming patterns similar to the letter Y. The districts associated strongly with the education factor, have little development potential and forms a continuous belt running from the north west through central to the eastern coast and a compact block to the south. 3. Five major development groups obtained from the application of cluster analysis, represent a broad framework within which the inequalities of development in Transkei could be discussed. From the findings, it has been proposed that the institutional and traditional factors would have to undergo major changes, if considerable balance in the spatial development of Transkei could be achieved.