Culture and Rural-Urban Revitalisation in South Africa Indigenous Knowledge, Policies, and Planning

Li Zhang, Associate Professor and Assistant Head of the Department of Urban Planning, Tongji University; Secretary general of the 'Small Towns Planning Academic Board' of the Chinese Urban Planning Society.

"This book is an acknowledgement of local cultures and indigenous knowledge as a crucial ingredient for rural-urban development. It is written by authors with a cultural conscience. They question, they answer. They question the urban embodiment of unequal cultural relations embedded in western-centric urban theory of planning and development. They contest this with a riveting critique of the current practice of culture-led urban development.

With a temperament of a post-colonial perspective, the authors aim at challenging the western-centric notion of cultural planning and urban biased forms of development. They advance an appeal for experimentation with more inclusionary culture-led approaches that use innovative traditional indigenous knowledge systems in the development of both rural and urban environments."

Prof Mfaniseni Fana Sihlongonyane, School of Architecture and Planning, Wits University, Johannesburg, South Africa