The Journey to Transform Local Government is about the challenges and opportunities for municipalities in South Africa as they journey towards delivering on the promise of developmental local government. It deals with various issues on the continuum of local government transformation in South Africa, for example, what does Sustainable Development Goal 11 mean for a municipality? Given that good governance is essential for success, are municipalities implementing anti-corruption policies and are the Municipal Public Accounts Committees functioning? How do we staff municipalities with professionals who see local government as their career of choice? And, given that our ageing infrastructure poses risks for the future, what should municipalities do to ensure proper maintenance? How do we manage the overlapping roles of traditional leaders and municipalities? Can traditional land use allocation and building practices co-exist with municipal planning and building regulations? And, when municipalities insist on town planning and building regulations, how does this affect local entrepreneurs? Lastly, how do we measure spatial transformation in practice? 

The authors grappling with these questions come from universities, government, civil society and the private sector. They fill the pages of this book with some of the latest research on local government, grounded in the reality of today’s South Africa.

• Table of Cases
• Table of Statutes
• Introduction
• The global aspiration of ‘‘safe, sustainable, resilient and inclusive’’ cities: South African local government shaping up
• Service delivery back to basics: what should happen after the ribbon is cut?
• Professionalisation of local government management in South Africa
• The nexus between a career and a job: middle manager narratives on the professionalisation of local government
• Towards a location equity approach to measuring spatial transformation in South African cities
• Post-apartheid spatial inequality: case studies from Ivory Park, Johannesburg, of enforced informalisation of micro-enterprises
• Addressing the shortcomings in the National Building Regulations to strengthen the role of local authorities in traditional areas
• Legal pluralism, land ownership and rural economic development: the power struggle in local government
• The state of anti-fraud and anti-corruption measures in South African municipalities
• Internal oversight as a catalyst for improved financial management in Eastern Cape municipalities: the role of Municipal Public Accounts Committees and internal audit units