For too long, development in South Africa’s townships and rural communities has been approached in silos. We build houses in one place, shopping centres somewhere else, schools and clinics when budgets permit, and expect transport networks to somehow connect everything together.
Instead of debating whether scarce land and capital should be allocated to affordable housing or convenience retail, we should ask: what combination of uses enables a community to thrive?
The answer starts with recognising that affordable housing and convenience retail are not foes. Properly planned, they are natural partners.
Housing creates community; retail creates economic gravity
Affordable housing addresses one of South Africa’s most pressing social needs: providing people with secure, dignified places to live.
But housing alone does not create a functioning community.
People need access to food, banking, healthcare, education, transport, employment and social spaces. When these are located far from where people live, households pay the price through transport costs and lost time.
A well-positioned neighbourhood or township retail centre brings groceries, pharmacies, banking services, restaurants and essential services closer to communities. It also creates employment, attracts investment and provides infrastructure around which other economic activity can develop.
South Africa’s Integrated Urban Development Framework recognises the importance of bringing housing, transport, jobs and services together to create more compact and connected settlements.
But a shopping centre is not an economic-development strategy
We should nevertheless resist another mistake: assuming that bringing national retailers into a township or rural community automatically constitutes development. Retail investment can produce unintended consequences if it merely redirects local spending towards large national businesses without strengthening the local economy.
This is particularly relevant today. Government’s 2026 Rural and Township Economy Report highlighted obstacles facing informal and township businesses, including access to procurement and distribution networks, high rentals, infrastructure constraints and barriers to formalisation. The opportunity, therefore, is to design retail developments that deliberately accommodate local enterprise.
A successful township retail development should include affordable space for local traders, restaurants, service providers and entrepreneurs alongside national anchor tenants. Local businesses should participate in construction, maintenance, security, cleaning and other procurement opportunities. The objective should be to circulate more of the community’s spending within the community.
What completes the ecosystem?
First is healthcare. Primary healthcare facilities, pharmacies, doctors, dentists and diagnostic services located close to communities materially improve quality of life.
Second is education and skills development. Early-childhood development facilities, schools, vocational training and digital learning centres should increasingly form part of integrated developments.
Third is transport and mobility. Taxi ranks, bus facilities, pedestrian routes and safe connections between homes, shops and workplaces are essential.
Fourth is digital infrastructure. Affordable broadband and reliable connectivity are becoming as fundamental to economic participation as electricity and roads.
Fifth is small-business infrastructure. Markets, trading spaces, shared kitchens, workshops, logistics facilities and flexible commercial premises can enable entrepreneurs to move progressively from informal activity towards sustainable enterprises.
Sixth is social and recreational infrastructure: parks, sports facilities, community halls, libraries and safe public spaces. Communities require places to interact, not merely places to consume.
And finally, there must be reliable basic infrastructure – water, sanitation, electricity, waste management and increasingly renewable-energy and water-resilience solutions.
From property development to community infrastructure
We should stop thinking about residential, retail and social infrastructure as separate asset classes that happen to occupy neighbouring pieces of land. They form an interconnected economic and social system.
Imagine a development where affordable housing surrounds a convenience retail precinct; the retail centre incorporates local entrepreneurs; a taxi facility provides regional connectivity; healthcare and educational facilities are within walking distance; children have safe recreational areas; residents have broadband connectivity; and renewable energy reduces dependence on an increasingly constrained grid.
That is more than a housing development. It is more than a shopping centre. It is community infrastructure.
