ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the authority based strategies pursued by the local authority in East London from 1992-1995. The experience of Local Economic Development (LED) in East London provides insight into the potential, scope and focus of LED within one of South Africa’s large cities. East London and its associated former ‘Homeland-City’ of Mdantsane constitute a metropolitan area having a population in excess of a million people. The establishment of Berlin as an industrial centre and the transference of the area to the municipality of East London, even though it lay some 40 kilometres from the city, intimately involved the local authority in the era of state regional development and economic assistance. In the 1990s the city of East London has experimented with a range of LED strategies. The initiation of a new LED strategy in 1995 appeared to emerge from a desire, on the part of the City Council, to initiate appropriate local development intervention.
