The area was proclaimed a Suburb by Proclamation 448 of 1965 and was initially established to accommodate people who were displaced mainly from Lady Selborne. In other words, although Ga-Rankuwa had been purchased and the community established by the Bakwena Ba Magopa, because it was part of a "Reserve," the apartheid government proposed to use it to accommodate Black people removed from other areas. Ga-Rankuwa was developed in accordance with the Physical Planning Act of 1967 which hoped to divert industrial development away from the city centres to the border areas of the homelands. This would not only serve the purpose of attracting workers directly from the homelands and providing cheap labour to the factories but would also divert the labour flow away from the city, thereby reducing labour migrancy.