Ekurhuleni Executive Mayor Mondli Gungubele recently outlined bold steps to grow the economy of the city and create jobs. 

Gungubele outlined the three corridors of development to drive the economy of the city in areas such as logistics, manufacturing, education, trade, construction and hospitality.

“The approach of building a new city and an identity means that a significant proportion of this administration’s time was vested in the development of spatial development frameworks.

“This new city design has led to the conceptualisation of an effective way to reconfigure our urban spaces, and economic centres, along three key functional economic corridors,” Gungubele said.

Corridors

These corridors are the Thami Mnyele corridor which concentrates development in a straight line from Tembisa to Vosloorus including all surrounding areas along the corridor.

The main driver for economic development in this corridor is high level roads and transport infrastructure.

OR Tambo Aerotropolis core focuses development along the triangle formed by Kempton Park, Boksburg and Germiston, including Edenvale and Benoni. This corridor leverages on creative, gateway trade, technology research and development, and logistics sectors.

The Thelle Mogoerane corridor runs from Vosloorus to Nigel including developments such as the Carnival Junction and OR Tambo inland port aimed at unlocking the logistic potential of the City.

Mixed land uses

The developments in this area will have mixed land uses that include industry as well as human settlements located nearby.

The city is taking a new approach to densify the provision of houses through building high rise residential units including flats for both RDP, rental and or buying through bank loans.

The Brakpan old location development, for instance, would have yielded 2500 units but will now give us 11 598 units as part of this policy.

“This new approach will lead to a quantum leap in housing development in Ekurhuleni enabling us to efficiently accommodate more people and provide more livable human settlements with a full basket of services and social amenities such as schools, clinics and public transport,” Mayor Gungubele said.