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Successive administrative policies, overlaid on the traditional communal land tenure system in the Qaukeni area of the Eastern Cape, have had the effect of tying people to the land and creating an environment that severely constrains opportunities for development. This article traces the influence of administrative changes on land allocation over the last century. It assesses the impact of the settlement pattern in the early 1980s on accessibility to basic facilities, services and development opportunities. In view of the severe conditions in the study area (internal push factors), coupled with reduced restrictions on movement to South African cities and a general urbanisation trend (external pull factors), population movements could have been expected both out of the region and to more accessible places within it. Primary research, using districts and administrative areas as the units of analysis, revealed that few of the expected changes had occurred in the period between 1982 and 1993. However, recent evidence shows that several of the anticipated changes are taking place. The article concludes that, notwithstanding recent trends, a combination of the land tenure system (in both rural and urban areas), a variety of place-related factors in rural areas, together with risk-spreading strategies on the part of households, continue to exert a strong influence in keeping people on the land, even though their existence is not subsistence based, but linked to the urban economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]