ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that the regional and ethnic political competition will mean that regional policy is inevitable in a democratic South Africa. It examines the theory and practice of the most commonly employed regional policies. South Africa's regional policy has been particularly inept and insupportably expensive. The reason for anticipating regional policy is that rapid urban growth is likely to elicit the typical policies intended to relieve growth pressures on the Pretoria-Witwatersrand-Vereeniging. South African policy up until now has predominantly consisted of industrial decentralization to distant locations. The critical difference between decentralization and deconcentration hinges on the distance of the site from a major urban area. A secondary city is defined in terms of the national urban hierarchy and consists of the cities that fall in size immediately below a country's metropolitan areas. Many of the weaknesses of South Africa's industrial decentralization policy derive from its goals – the weaknesses are, in a sense, 'built in'.
