After the elections in 1994, the new democratic Government had to address these problems that existed in the former Homeland areas. The first strategy implemented by the Government was the ‘Reconstruction and Development Programme’ (RDP). The aim of this project was in short to provide people with their basic needs (housing, water, electricity, sanitation, food, work, etc.).
This programme was not viable and another programme had to be implemented to address the problems. Such programmes were the 'Spatial Development Initiatives' (SDI’s) and 'Industrial Development Zones' (IDZ’s). The aim of these projects is to promote economic development. With the SDI’s, eleven regions were identified with the potential of economic growth (people, resources, infrastructure). See Table 1.
Table 1: The SDI’s in South Africa
How was these regions selected? First of all, the areas of former Homelands were included. Areas must have a potential of economic growth - big population to serve as a potential market and labour force; existing infrastructure and favourable climate (not to dry, wet or warm).
Would IDZ's eventually be over populated to the point where solving the space issues would become overturned and turn South Africa into an over populated country like that of China? especially with the amount of illegal Zimbabwean imagrants imagrating into South Africa?
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