ABSTRACT
The South African government has in the some years enacted major reforms in the area of urbanization policy. Migrant labour is a common practice in Africa and elsewhere in the world, but in South Africa it has been enforced through the absence of a free labour market, by offcial allocation of labourers to specific jobs and by the requirement that the labourers' families stay behind, at 'home'. This chapter provides short description of urbanization trends. The history of the urbanization policies that gave rise to these trends is well rehearsed and there is only passing mention of them. The major reform was the passing of the Black Community Development Amendment Act of 1986, which introduced home-ownership into black residential areas and instituted procedures through which the supply of land for black housing could be increased. The view is that 'unemployment cannot be solved economically but only contained politically', and the result is a thoroughly contradictory set of reforms.
