Boxed in

Challenges of escaping the inherited spatial realities of apartheid from the centre to the periphery

Abstract

This paper interrogates the existing spatial realities of Johannesburg as it was shaped by colonialism and the challenges of providing an inclusive urbanism between the centre, the periphery and the in-between. Johannesburg is a major urban centre in South Africa, and Southern Africa, with increasing economic and spatial inequality. The inherited spatial realities are still evident today; these structural realities are restrictive, unsustainable, and disadvantage communities ecologically, economically and socially. The paper is premised on an understanding that economic inequality is related to spatial inequality.

The author draws on the personal lived experiences of being born on the periphery and the limitations of escaping the legacies of colonial spatial planning including the challenges of living on fragmented urban morphology. The author looks at the typology of the segregated post-apartheid township and the negative elements of apartheid spatial planning, especially focused at the restrictions it has on housing, employment opportunities, transport and public space on the periphery in comparison to the centre and how the in-between spaces further perpetuate socio-economic disparity. The author attempts through research to understand the resilience adopted by the Soweto community to have a safe and welcoming place despite the persistence of structural restrictions. The intention is to address the fragmentation and segregation caused by the inherited spatial structures.

The planning of colonial cities, especially Johannesburg was based on achieving maximum control. The urban morphology was many times based on policies that organised people through race, class, and ethnicity.  Its spatial planning was defined by separating citizens into different racial groups and economic classes. The rich white people located in the suburbs in the centre and the poor black people located in townships at the periphery separated by wide natural and man-made buffers in-between. The urban morphology of Johannesburg will be studied with a comparison analysis with other African cities which have similar patterns of spatial fragmentation in urban form due to colonial powers. The aim is to observe, compare and propose a defragmentation process towards the transformation of Johannesburg.