Urban-rural demarcation within a metropolitan area: a methodology for using small area disaggregation

Abstract

There is ongoing debate with regard to the levels of service provision in urban and rural areas. However, progress with respect to the delivery of planned services can only be efficiently and equitably measured once benchmarks for different areas have been set. For this purpose, different settlement types need to be defined and spatially delineated. While applying GIS-based service-access planning in eThekwini KwaZulu-Natal, it was agreed that the statistical results of spatially analysed backlogs in social-service facilities needed to be structured according to the varying urban and rural settlement types found in this metropolitan area. This paper explores the methodology that was developed in response and which enabled the demarcation of similar or comparable areas for use in policy development including the evaluation of facility standards for urban and rural areas