The Apartheid City And Beyond

Apartheid as legislated racial separation substantially changed the South African urban scene. Race group areas' remodelled the cities, while the creation of homelands', mini-states and the pass laws' controlling population migration constrained urbanization itself. In the mid-1980s the old system - having proved economically inefficient and politically divisive - was replaced by a new policy of orderly urbanization'. This sought to accelerate industrialization and cultural change by relaxing the constraints on urbanization imposed by state planning. The result was further political instability and a quarter of the black (or African) population housed in shanty towns. Negotiations between the Nationalist government and the African National Congress are working towards the end of the old apartheid system. Yet the negation of apartheid is only the beginning of the creation of a new society. The vested interests and entrenched ideologies behind the existing pattern of property ownership survive the abolition of apartheid laws. Beyond race, class and ethnicity will continue to divide urban life. If the cities of South Africa are to serve all the people, the accelerating process of urbanization must be brought under control and harnessed to a new purpose. The contributors to this volume draw on a broad range of experience and disciplines to present a variety of perspectives on urban South Africa.

This book explains how apartheid changed South Africa's cities, how people responded to regain some control over urban life, and how the forces of urbanization held back under apartheid will affect the post-apartheid era.

This book’s point of departure rests on the premises that dimensions of the mainstream inclusive city discourse fail to capture in detail vulnerable clusters of society (being women, children, and the aging), the minority clusters (i.e., the blind, the disabled), and migrants. In addition, it fails to recognize the increase of spatial inequality driven by racial and class differences—a factor that has seen an increase in community violence and protests. The focus on spatial inequality has, for a long time, blind-folded urban authorities to ignore exclusion arising out of the same environments created with a notion of creating inclusivity. Hence this book “collapses spatial walls” as it seeks to uncover the true perspectives of inclusivity in cities beyond spatial dimensions but within social realms. The depth of this book’s enquiry rests on its critical investigation of Southern African cities’ through historical epochs of apartheid and colonialism in the region.

"Well written and with an extensive bibliography and maps of the urban areas, the volume is an essential source for understanding South Africa's urban future as well as for documenting the legacy of apartheid on South African urbanization." -- Choice ..". an illuminating look at one of the twentieth century's most ignominious failures in social engineering." -- Journal of Interdisciplinary History This book examines the legacy of apartheid in nine of South Africa's major cities (including Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, Johannesburg, and Pretoria), the factors that have influenced their distinctive development, and the possible direction and patterns of urban change in a post-apartheid society.

This study was the first systematically to cover those cities beyond the core that most clearly can be considered world cities: Bangkok, Cairo, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Johannesburg, Mexico City, Moscow, Mumbai, Sao Paulo, Seoul, Shanghai, and Singapore. Fourteen leading authorities from diverse backgrounds bring their expertise to bear on these cities across four continents and consider the major regional and global roles they play in economic, political, and cultural life. Conveying how these cities have followed various pathways to their present position, they offer multiple perspectives on the interplay of internal and external forces and demonstrate that any comprehensive discussion of world cities has to engage a multiplicity of perspectives. With an introduction by Josef Gugler and an afterword from Saskia Sassen, this substantial volume makes a major contribution to the world cities literature and provides an important impetus for further analysis.

As the dynamo of South Africa’s economy, Johannesburg commands a central position in the nation’s imagination, and scholars throughout the world monitor the city as an exemplar of urbanity in the global South. This book offers detailed empirical analyses of changes in the city’s physical space, as well as a host of chapters on the character of specific neighbourhoods and the social identities being forged within them. Informing all of these is a consideration of underlying economic, social and political processes shaping the wider Gauteng province. A mix of respected academics, practising urban planners and experienced policymakers offer compelling overviews of the rapid and complex spatial developments that have taken place in Johannesburg since the end of apartheid, along with tantalising glimpses into life on the streets and behind the high walls of this diverse city. The book has three sections. Section A provides an overview of macro spatial trends and the policies that have influenced them. Section B explores the shaping of the city at district and suburban level, revealing the peculiarity of processes in different areas. This analysis elucidates the larger trends, while identifying shifts that are not easily detected at the macro level. Section C is an assembly of chapters and short vignettes that focus on the interweaving of place and identity at a micro level. With empirical data supported by new data sets including the 2011 Census, the city’s Development Planning and Urban Management Department’s information system, and Gauteng City-Region Observatory’s substantial archive, the book is an essential reference for planning practitioners, urban geographers, sociologists, and social anthropologists, among others.

Cities around the world are undergoing profound changes. In this global era, we live in a world of rising knowledge economies, digital technologies, and awareness of environmental issues. The so-called "modern infrastructural ideal" of spatially and socially ubiquitous centrally-governed infrastructures providing exclusive, homogeneous services over extensive areas, has been the standard of reference for the provision of basic essential services, such as water and energy supply. This book argues that, after decades of undisputed domination, this ideal is being increasingly questioned and that the network ideology that supports it may be waning. In order to begin exploring the highly diverse, fluid and unstable landscapes emerging beyond the networked city, this book identifies dynamics through which a ‘break’ with previous configurations has been operated, and new brittle zones of socio-technical controversy through which urban infrastructure (and its wider meaning) are being negotiated and fought over. It uncovers, across a diverse set of urban contexts, new ways in which processes of urbanization and infrastructure production are being combined with crucial sociopolitical implications: through shifting political economies of infrastructure which rework resource distribution and value creation; through new infrastructural spaces and territorialities which rebundle socio-technical systems for particular interests and claims; and through changing offsets between individual and collective appropriation, experience and mobilization of infrastructure. With contributions from leading authorities in the field and drawing on theoretical advances and original empirical material, this book is a major contribution to an ongoing infrastructural turn in urban studies, and will be of interest to all those concerned by the diverse forms and contested outcomes of contemporary urban change across North and South.

In postapartheid Johannesburg, tensions of race and class manifest themselves starkly in struggles over 'rights to the city'. Martin J. Murray brings together urban theory and local knowledge to draw a picture of this city, where real estate agents and the very poor fight for control of space.