21st Century (2000–present)

Cornubia (Durban) Masterplan

2011– · South Africa · Sub-Saharan Africa · Postwar reconstruction, welfare-state urbanism, and mass housing · Planned by Tongaat Hulett; eThekwini Municipality
Cornubia Development Framework plan at 1:20,000: proposed land uses, movement structure and open space system across the 1,200 ha site between Phoenix, Blackburn and Umhlanga north of Durban
Cornubia Development Framework plan at 1:20,000: proposed land uses, movement structure and open space system across the 1,200 ha site between Phoenix, Blackburn and Umhlanga north of Durban · © eThekwini Municipality — used with credit · eThekwini Municipality, Strategic Spatial Planning Branch — Cornubia Development Framework (approved March 2011); consultant Iyer Urban Design Studio

Core idea

Mixed-income housing and logistics

Why it matters

Largest integrated human settlements project in SA

Description

The Cornubia masterplan, initiated in 2011, guides a large mixed-income, mixed-use development on former sugar-cane land north of Durban, South Africa, near Umhlanga. It is a partnership between landowner-developer Tongaat Hulett and eThekwini Municipality, designated a national priority project, combining substantial subsidised and affordable housing with market housing, industrial and logistics platforms, business parks and new road infrastructure. The plan is phased over decades and is among the largest integrated human-settlement projects in the country.

Significance

Cornubia is a leading test of post-apartheid South Africa's 'integrated human settlements' policy, which seeks to break with peripheral, single-class township building by mixing incomes and bringing housing close to employment. Its public–private structure and its location within Durban's northern growth corridor have made it a focus of debate on whether integration is being achieved in practice or whether market logics reproduce separation. It is widely studied as a benchmark for large-scale housing-led urbanism in the region.

What shaped it

Sources

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hub.toekom.st — History of Urbanism · an interactive timeline of 850 planned cities across 6,000 years.