Ove Arup Foundation

New Director for African Centre for Cities

Professor Edgar Pieterse is the new Director of the University of Cape Town’s African Centre for Cities, set up with the help of The Ove Arup Foundation’s encouragement and financial support (see Our Work section of this website).

Professor Pieterse joins following a three-year stint as a Special Advisor to the Premier of the Western Cape Government focused on regional development, policy development and coordination. He remains an Associate and Board Member of Isandla Institute, an urban policy think-tank which he co-founded in 1998. Currently he also serves on the Boards of the Cape Town Partnership, the Sustainability Institute, Magnet Theatre and the Council of the University of the Western Cape.

As well as numerous book chapters and journal articles his publications include three co-edited volumes: Voices of the Transition: The Politics, Poetics and Practices of Development in South Africa (Heinemann Publishers, 2004), Democratising Local Government: the South African Experiment (UCT Press, 2002), and Consolidating Developmental Local Government (UCT Press, 2008). His manuscript, City Futures: Confronting the Crisis of Urban Development, will be published by Zed Books in May 2008.

Edgar Pieterse holds a PhD from the London School of Economics, an MA in Development Studies from the Institute of Social Studies at The Hague, and BA and BA Honours degrees from the University of the Western Cape.