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 richly illustrated study 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 region.
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 infl uenced 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 thelarger 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.

Preface

Cartography

1 Materialities, subjectivities and spatial transformation in Johannesburg

Philip Harrison, Graeme Gotz, Alison Todes and Chris Wray

Section A: The macro trends

2 The ‘thin oil of urbanisation’?

Spatial change in Johannesburg and the Gauteng city-region

Graeme Gotz, Chris Wray and Brian Mubiwa

3 Poverty and inequality in the Gauteng city-region

David Everatt

4 The impact of policy and strategic spatial planning

Alison Todes

5 Tracking changes in the urban built environment: An emerging perspective from the City of

Johannesburg

Peter Ahmad and Herman Pienaar

6 Johannesburg’s urban space economy

Graeme Gotz and Alison Todes

7 Changes in the natural landscape

Maryna Storie

8 Informal settlements

Marie Huchzermeyer, Aly Karam and Miriam Maina

9 Public housing in Johannesburg

Sarah Charlton

10 Transport in the shaping of space

Mathetha Mokonyama and Brian Mubiwa

11 Gated communities and spatial transformation in Greater Johannesburg

Karina Landman and Willem Badenhorst

Section B: Area-based transformations

12 Between fixity and flux: Grappling with transience and permanence in the inner city

Yasmeen Dinath

13 Are Johannesburg’s peri-central neighbourhoods irremediably ‘fluid’?

Local leadership and community building in Yeoville and Bertrams

Claire Bénit-Gbaffou

14 The wrong side of the mining belt? Spatial transformations and identities in Johannesburg’s

southern suburbs

Philip Harrison and Tanya Zack

15 Soweto: A study in socio-spatial differentiation

Philip Harrison and Kirsten Harrison

16 Kliptown: Resilience and despair in the face of a hundred years of planning

Hilton Judin, Naomi Roux and Tanya Zack

17 Alexandra

Philip Harrison, Adrian Masson and Luke Sinwell

18 Sandton Central, 1969–2013: From open veld to new CBD?

Keith Beavon and Pauline Larsen

19 In the forest of transformation: Johannesburg’s northern suburbs

Alan Mabin

20 The north-western edge

Neil Klug, Margot Rubin and Alison Todes

21 The 2010 World Cup and its legacy in the Ellis Park Precinct: Perceptions of local residents

Aly Karam and Margot Rubin

22 Transformation through transportation: Some early impacts of Bus Rapid Transit in Orlando,

Soweto

Christo Venter and Eunice Vaz

Section C: Spatial identities

23 Footprints of Islam in Johannesburg

Yasmeen Dinath, Yusuf Patel and Rashid Seedat

24 Being an immigrant and facing uncertainty in Johannesburg: The case of Somalis

Samadia Sadouni

25 On ‘spaces of hope’: Exploring Hillbrow’s discursive credoscapes

Tanja Winkler

26 The Central Methodist Church

Christa Kuljian

27 The Ethiopian Quarter

Hannah le Roux

28 Urban collage: Yeoville

Naomi Roux

29 Phantoms of the past, spectres of the present: Chinese space in Johannesburg

Philip Harrison, Khangelani Moyo and Yan Yang

30 The notice

Caroline Wanjiku Kihato

31 Inner-city street traders: Legality and spatial practice

Puleng Makhetha and Margot Rubin

32 Waste pickers/informal recyclers

Sarah Charlton

33 The fear of others: Responses to crime and urban transformation in Johannesburg

Teresa Dirsuweit

34 Black urban, black research: Why understanding space and identity in South Africa still

matters

Nqobile Malaza

Contributors

Photographic credits

Acronyms

List of plates

List of figures

List of tables

Index

 

About the editors:

Philip Harrison is the South African Research Chair in Development Planning and Modelling within the School of Architecture and Planning at the University of the Witwatersrand. He is also a member of the South African National Planning Commission. He has authored a series of books on tourism in South Africa, and has also co-authored/ co-edited two books relating to urban planning and urban development.

Graeme Gotz is director of research at the Gauteng City-Region Observatory. His academic focus includes city development and urban renewal, urban economic development, as well as governance and institutions.

Alison Todes is Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. She has been involved in several policy development processes in local, national and international arenas. Alison has researched and published extensively in the field of urban and regional development and planning.

Chris Wray is a senior systems analyst/manager at the Gauteng City-Region Observatory. He is also a registered Professional GISc practitioner with over 17 years’ experience in the GIS profession. His research interests include: urban spatial data analysis, modelling and visualisation; Web GIS and g-government.

Changing Space, Changing City in City Press

Gauteng City-Region Observatory

Wits University School of Architecture & Planning

Link to Review article on the book in City Press: Changing Face of a City. Johannesburg is brought to life in a new book that details how the city transformed itself to forge a new urban identity…

https://www.scribd.com/doc/254440940/Changing-Space-Changing-City-in-City-Press

Changing Space Changing City