This paper argues that planning in the Global South needs to be embedded within a more complex and systemic framework based on understanding cities' functions and transformations, at both local and regional levels, whilst advocating for and incorporating informal and temporary dynamics. This is to differentiate between two competing processes: formal planning and citizen-led place-making, here considered as a form of reactive alternative-substitute place-making that occurs when there is no available alternative. The paper calls for a better integration of such impermanent, adaptable, temporary and alternative forms of place-making into the planning process for regional futures.

The Practice of Everyday Life (de Certeau M (1984) The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press) has become a canonical text in urban studies, with de Certeau’s idea of tactics having been widely deployed to understand and theorise the everyday. Tactics of resistance were contrasted with the strategies of the powerful, but the ways in which these strategies are operationalised were left ambiguous by de Certeau and have remained undertheorised since. We address this lacuna through an examination of the planning profession in South Africa as a lieu propre– a strategic territory with considerable power to shape urban environments. Based on a large interview data set examining practitioner attitudes toward the state of the profession in South Africa, this paper argues that the strategies of the powerful are themselves subject to negotiation. We trace connections with de Certeau’s earlier work to critique the idea that strategies are univocal. We do this by examining how the interests of different powerful actors can come into conflict, using the planning profession as an exemplar of how opposing strategies must be mediated in order to secure changes in society.

This paper reflects on the ongoing debate between theory and practice in planning, using the example of South Africa. Based on survey responses, it discusses how planning education in South Africa is perceived to prepare students for practice. While we acknowledge that the majority of respondents view their planning education positively, the results reveal challenges regarding the practical application of theory, especially in the case of land-use management. We then respond to calls for contextualised practices of knowing, emphasising the 'local' in planning education so that theory and practice can be combined across contexts.

This article analyzes two planned cities—Belo Horizonte (Brazil) and Bloemfontein (South Africa)—to investigate connectivities across geographies and temporalities and reveal the role of urban planning in racial capitalism. Early works in urban sociology underscore the color line in producing differentiation in capitalist development. But color-blind analyses of capitalism have undermined the role of race in the urbanization process and formation of value—of places and people—and how the modern triad—colonial, racial, and capital—is deeply implicated in power modalities. Based on policy analysis, we historicize political choices in discuss urban planning and national developmentalist schemes after redemocratization that produced racial-spatial inequalities. We argue that color-blind urban policies still neglect the role of race in the production of Brazilian and South African cities under the guise of “planning innocence.” This discussion expands our understanding of urbanization and capital accumulation as a dialectical process of black dispossession and the protection of white property in the postcolony.

This paper examines the bus rapid transit (BRT) legacies of mega sporting events (MSEs) held in the Global South cities of Cape Town and Rio de Janeiro. It discusses the extent to which these transport systems have been operationally sustainable, post-MSE; in other words, their ability to be maintained at a certain rate or level and hence their ability to act as public good as planned and according to specific needs. It argues that in both cities, long-term operational challenges have emerged due to conflictual temporalities between the priorities of the MSE and the mid/long term requirements of a transport system, supplemented by a poor spatial contextualisation of BRT design. These include financial viability, providing a service with appropriate frequency and capacity, integration with other transport systems, and resilience to external shocks such as extreme weather. These findings have key academic and policy implications both by opening further areas of research towards MSEs as a tool to deliver sustainable urban transport, and provides important lessons for future MSE hosts and cities considering BRT.Sustainability 2020, 12, 1609 2 of 17 there is very little insight into how these MSE-led infrastructures have been delivering the purposes for which they have been built, and specifically how the MSE imperatives may have affected its long-term development. In other words, we look here at the possible tensions of priorities between short-term ambitions (MSE) and long-term everyday needs. This indeed has a key impact on the authorities and operators who manage and fund public transport systems, and on the passengers who rely on it. To achieve this, the paper uses the term of operational sustainability, which is here shaped around the aim of assessing conflicting temporalities during setup of the project and hence reflecting on the wider implications for the long-term running and management of the network. We do so by bringing together the literature on MSE, sustainability, transport management, and infrastructure [8][9][10][11][12].This paper focuses on two cities whose transport network has been significantly impacted by hosting MSEs: Cape Town (South Africa) with the 2010 FIFA Football World Cup, and Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) with the 2016 Olympic Games. Each city constructed new bus rapid transit (BRT systems) under the auspices of hosting a MSE, and self-identified this in their proprietary communications and strategies as a transport legacy of the MSE. Through interviews with key stakeholders located in each city, this study assesses the benefits of the MSE for transport within the cities, such as reduced travel time in Rio de Janeiro, and a step-change in the quality of transport provision in Cape Town. It also considers the longer-term operational challenges such as financial viability that these BRT systems are facing post-MSE because they have not been sufficiently contextualised to the local transport situation and/or aligned with existing plans or policies. It is worth noting that this comparative rese...