Between 1974-1977 people arrived from Macibini Township, Glen Grey, Queenstown, Molteno, Cofimvaba, Port Alfred and as far as the Western Cape.

Sada also provided a home for political activists who were banished from Transvaal after the Sharpeville Massacre, and ex-Robben Island prisoners settled in the area.

Refugees from Herschel and Sterkspruit moved mostly to Thornhill, Glen Grey inhabitants resettled at the nearby Zweledinga, Oxton and Sada.

An urban zone, Dongwe or Ekuphumleni (Whittlesea North), consolidated Sada, absorbed those who did not receive rural land as well as the class of civil servants that had been emerging from the early 1980s.

These factories included Royal Textiles, Golden Knitting and Edward Frank Manufacturers which at some stage employed more than 1500 people.

[5] The area is supplied with water for human consumption and irrigation of agricultural crops by the Klipplaat River, that flows out of the Waterdown Dam stream-up.