Table 10. Joint display comparing city... | Emerald Publishing

Table 10.

Joint display comparing city planning and regressive city planning

Quantitative results (n = 300)	Qualitative results (n = 15)	Interpretation
Central tendency: M = 2.74 (SD = 0.91) Range on Likert scale = 1–5 Correlation r = 0.642 (medium positive correlation) Independent samples t-test for growth vs no-growth companies: City planning showed the largest effect (t = −5.357, p < 0.001) Regression: City planning is the second largest predictor in the model (β = 0.211, p < 0.001) Growth firms rate city planning significantly higher than non-growth firms, indicating spatial access is a structural differentiator of ecosystem outcomes	The participants explained that the city’s spatial design remains segregated Indecision or lack of vision regarding land use has created missed economic opportunities Poor maintenance of the city infrastructure has reduced entrepreneurial promotion, moved businesses out of industrial areas and reduced the attractiveness for potential investors Quotations: “So, we have a serious problem with first of all infrastructure spending, new infrastructure, problem of maintenance of infrastructure. We spending too little. I mean, that’s a treasury regulation, where you must spend 8% and we not spending that, so it’s a problem” (P2) “No, definitely no…the town planning would understand that you cannot take 18 months to two years to rezone land … category of business is” (P4) “.. the infrastructure at the moment is going backwards.. there’s potholes as big as a house, everything is going backwards. So that’s why businesses don’t want to move in there anymore” (P15)	Integration type: Divergence (discordance) with supplementary expansion CAS property demonstrated – Path dependence and spatial lock-in: The divergence between the quantitative findings and the qualitative evidence reveals one of the clearest CAS mechanisms in the study. Quantitatively, City planning shows the largest t-test effect in the model (t = −5.357, p < 0.001): firms with access to functioning spatial infrastructure perceive the ecosystem significantly more positively Qualitatively, participants describe systematic and accelerating infrastructure deterioration. The joint display reveals this divergence as analytically significant: quantitative averages obscure a deeply bifurcated spatial reality in which a minority of agents with inherited locational advantage (proximity to functional infrastructure) experience the ecosystem positively, while the majority experiencing spatial fragmentation face a structurally different system This is evidence of path dependence – a CAS property in which the current state of the system is locked into a trajectory set by historical decisions. Apartheid-era spatial planning created geographic exclusion patterns that persist in the post-apartheid ecosystem: segregated land use, underserved townships and industrial areas losing firms because of infrastructure decay. These patterns are self-reinforcing (a CAS feedback loop): infrastructure underinvestment → business exit → reduced tax revenue → further underinvestment. Bureaucratic rezoning delays (18–24 months) act as a friction mechanism that prevents adaptive spatial reconfiguration, locking the system into its prior state even when agents have the capacity and motivation to reorganise The lowest mean score across all ecosystem factors (M = 2.74), combined with the largest effect size and second-highest regression coefficient, indicates that City planning is the principal structural boundary condition constraining ecosystem emergence – consistent with CAS theory’s emphasis on system boundary conditions as determinants of emergence potential

Quantitative results (n = 300)	Qualitative results (n = 15)	Interpretation
Central tendency: M = 2.74 (SD = 0.91) Range on Likert scale = 1–5 Correlation r = 0.642 (medium positive correlation) Independent samples t-test for growth vs no-growth companies: City planning showed the largest effect (t = −5.357, p < 0.001) Regression: City planning is the second largest predictor in the model (β = 0.211, p < 0.001) Growth firms rate city planning significantly higher than non-growth firms, indicating spatial access is a structural differentiator of ecosystem outcomes	The participants explained that the city’s spatial design remains segregated Indecision or lack of vision regarding land use has created missed economic opportunities Poor maintenance of the city infrastructure has reduced entrepreneurial promotion, moved businesses out of industrial areas and reduced the attractiveness for potential investors Quotations: “So, we have a serious problem with first of all infrastructure spending, new infrastructure, problem of maintenance of infrastructure. We spending too little. I mean, that’s a treasury regulation, where you must spend 8% and we not spending that, so it’s a problem” (P2) “No, definitely no…the town planning would understand that you cannot take 18 months to two years to rezone land … category of business is” (P4) “.. the infrastructure at the moment is going backwards.. there’s potholes as big as a house, everything is going backwards. So that’s why businesses don’t want to move in there anymore” (P15)	Integration type: Divergence (discordance) with supplementary expansion CAS property demonstrated – Path dependence and spatial lock-in: The divergence between the quantitative findings and the qualitative evidence reveals one of the clearest CAS mechanisms in the study. Quantitatively, City planning shows the largest t-test effect in the model (t = −5.357, p < 0.001): firms with access to functioning spatial infrastructure perceive the ecosystem significantly more positively Qualitatively, participants describe systematic and accelerating infrastructure deterioration. The joint display reveals this divergence as analytically significant: quantitative averages obscure a deeply bifurcated spatial reality in which a minority of agents with inherited locational advantage (proximity to functional infrastructure) experience the ecosystem positively, while the majority experiencing spatial fragmentation face a structurally different system This is evidence of path dependence – a CAS property in which the current state of the system is locked into a trajectory set by historical decisions. Apartheid-era spatial planning created geographic exclusion patterns that persist in the post-apartheid ecosystem: segregated land use, underserved townships and industrial areas losing firms because of infrastructure decay. These patterns are self-reinforcing (a CAS feedback loop): infrastructure underinvestment → business exit → reduced tax revenue → further underinvestment. Bureaucratic rezoning delays (18–24 months) act as a friction mechanism that prevents adaptive spatial reconfiguration, locking the system into its prior state even when agents have the capacity and motivation to reorganise The lowest mean score across all ecosystem factors (M = 2.74), combined with the largest effect size and second-highest regression coefficient, indicates that City planning is the principal structural boundary condition constraining ecosystem emergence – consistent with CAS theory’s emphasis on system boundary conditions as determinants of emergence potential

Source(s): Authors’ own work