Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

Urban Geography in South Africa pp 39–54Cite as

The Apartheid City

  • Chapter
  • First Online:

Part of the book series: GeoJournal Library ((URPGS))

Abstract

The geographical landscape in South Africa (physical, social and economic), was profoundly influenced by the policy of apartheid. This chapter analyses the rise and demise of the apartheid city and is divided into four sections. The first section focuses on compounds and locations, which marked the early phase of colonial segregation, and was often implemented under the guise of health concerns and slum clearance programmes. Municipal officials also viewed locations as a mechanism to control the influx of Africans into cities. The Natives (Urban Areas) Act of 1923 represented the first Union attempt to control, manage and segregate urban Africans. The Group Areas Act (GAA) of 1950 was one of the key instruments used to reinforce the ideology of apartheid and is the theme of the second section. The demise of the GAA and the rise of ‘grey’ and free settlement areas are discussed in the third section. The final section reviews post-apartheid segregation and desegregation trends. There are remarkable continuities between the apartheid and democratic eras in terms of socio-spatial inequalities, and neoliberal policies tend to reinforce race and class segregation, rather than radically challenge the apartheid urban landscape. Although all race-based discriminatory legislation has been scrapped, the legacy of apartheid will be visible in the South African landscape for a long time.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   119.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   159.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD   159.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    This chapter draws on the author’s extensive research on urban segregation and desegregation for almost three decades.

References

  • Ballard, R. (2004). Assimilation, emigration, semigration, and integration: ‘White’ peoples’ strategies for finding a comfort zone. In N. Distiller & M. Steyn (Eds.), Under construction: ‘Race’ and identity in South Africa today. Johannesburg: Heinemann.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ballard, R., & Jones, G. A. (2011). Natural neighbours: Indigenous landscapes and eco-estates in Durban, South Africa. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 101, 131–148.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bonner, P., & Lodge, T. (1989). Introduction. In P. Bonner (Ed.), Holding their ground—Class, locality and culture in 19th and 20th century South Africa. Johannesburg: Ravan Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bremner, L. J. (2000). Post-apartheid urban geography: A case study of Greater Johannesburg’s Rapid Land Development Programme. Development Southern Africa, 17, 87–104.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chapman, T. P. (2015). Spatial justice and the western areas of Johannesburg. African Studies, 74, 76–97.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Christopher, A. J. (1990). Apartheid and urban segregation levels in South Africa. Urban Studies, 27, 421–440.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Christopher, A. J. (1997). Racial land zoning in urban South Africa. Land Use Policy, 14(4), 311–323.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Christopher, A. J. (2001). Urban segregation in post-apartheid South Africa. Urban Studies, 38, 449S–466S.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clarno, A. (2013). Rescaling white space in post-apartheid Johannesburg. Antipode, 45, 1190–1212.

    Google Scholar 

  • Coquetry-Vidrovitch, C. (2014). From residential segregation to African urban centres: City planning and the modalities of change in South of the Sahara. Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 32, 1–12.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Crankshaw, O. (2008). Race, space and the post-Fordist spatial order of Johannesburg. Urban Studies, 45, 1692–1711.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Crankshaw, O., & White, C. F. (1992). Results of the Johannesburg inner city survey. Pretoria: Human Sciences Research Council.

    Google Scholar 

  • Davenport, T. R. H. (1971). The Beginnings of Urban Segregation in South Africa: The Natives (Urban Areas) Act of 1923 and its Background. Occasional Paper No. 15, I.S.E.R., Grahamstown: Rhodes University.

    Google Scholar 

  • Davies, R. J. (1981). The spatial formation of the South African city. GeoJournal Supplementary Issue, 2, 59–72.

    Google Scholar 

  • Davies, R., Kaplan, D., Morris, M., & O’Meara, D. (1976). Class struggle and the periodisation of the state in South Africa. Review of African Political Economy, 7, 4–30.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • De Klerk, M. (1991). A harvest of discontent: The land question in South Africa. Cape Town: IDASA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Didier, S., Morange, M., & Peyroux, E. (2013). The adaptative nature of neoliberalism at the local scale: Fifteen years of city improvement districts in Cape Town and Johannesburg. Antipode, 45, 121–139.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Durrheim, K., & Dixon, J. (2010). Racial contact and change in South Africa. Journal of Social Issue, 66, 273–288.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Edwards, I.L. (1989). Mkhubane our home: Shantytown society in Cato Manor Farm, 1946–1960. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Natal, Durban.

    Google Scholar 

  • Elder, G. (1990). The grey dawn of South African racial residential integration. GeoJournal, 22(3), 261–266.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Frankel, P. (1979). The politics of passes: Control and change in South Africa. Journal of Modern African Studies, 17, 199–217.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Freund, B. (1995). Insiders and outsiders: The Indian working class of Durban 1910–1990. Pietermaritzburg: Portsmouth Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harrison, P. (1993). Town planning in Natal—International and historical perspectives. Interim Report No. 2, Natal Town and Regional Planning Commission, Pietermaritzburg.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hart, D. M. (1988). Political manipulation of urban space: The razing of district six, Cape Town. Urban Geography, 9, 603–628.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hart, G. (1989). On grey areas. South African Geographical Journal, 71, 81–88.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hellmann, E. (1961). The application of the concept of separate development to urban areas in the Union of South Africa. In K. Kirkwood (ed.), St. Anthony’s papers volume 10, African Affairs.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hindson, D., Byerley, M., & Morris, M. (1994). From violence to reconstruction: The making, disintegration and remaking of an apartheid city. Antipode, 26, 323–350.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hindson, D., Mabin, A., & Watson, V. (1992). Restructuring the built environment. Report to Working Group 5, National Housing Forum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Johnson, R. E. (1973). Indians and apartheid: The failure of resistance. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Massachusetts.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kock, E. (1984). The destruction of Marabi culture—Urban segregation in Johannesburg, 1923–1938. Paper presented at the ‘History Workshop’, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.

    Google Scholar 

  • Legassick, M. (1974). South Africa: Capital accumulation and violence. Economy and Society, 3(3), 253–291.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lehulere, O. (1997). The political significance of GEAR. Debate, 3, 73–86.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lemanski, C. (2007). Viewpoint global cities in the South: Deepening social and spatial polarization in Cape Town. Cities, 24(6), 448–461.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lemon, A. (1991). Homes apart: South Africa’s segregated cities. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lipton, M. (1985). Apartheid and capitalism. Aldershot: Gower.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lodge, T. (1983). The destruction of Sophiatown. In B. Bozzoli (Ed.), Town and countryside in the transvaal. Johannesburg: Ravan Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Maasdorp, G., & Ellison, P. A. (1975). Resettlement. In G. Maasdorp & A. Humphreys (Eds.), Form Shantytown to township. Juta: Cape Town.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mabin, A. (1986). Labour, capital, class struggle and the origins of residential segregation in Kimberley, 1880–1920. Journal of Historical Geography, 12, 4–26.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mabin, A. (1992). Dispossession, exploitation and struggle: An historical overview of South African urbanization. In D. Smith (Ed.), The apartheid city and beyond: Urbanization and social change in South Africa (pp. 12–24). London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Maharaj, B. (1994). The Group Areas Act and community destruction in South Africa. Urban Forum, 5, 1–25.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Maharaj, B. (1997). Apartheid, urban segregation and the local state: Durban and the Group Areas Act in South Africa. Urban Geography, 18, 135–154.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Maharaj, B. (1999). The integrated community apartheid could not destroy: The Warwick Avenue Triangle in Durban. Journal of Southern African Studies, 25, 245–262.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Maharaj, B., & Mpungose, J. (1994). The erosion of residential segregation in South Africa: The ‘Greying’ of Albert Park in Durban. Geoforum, 25, 19–32.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Maylam, P. (1990). The rise and decline of urban apartheid in South Africa. African Affairs, 89, 57–84.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McCarthy, J. J., & Smit, D. P. (1989). The history of the urban landuse process, urban planning and urban social movements. Report submitted to the Human Science Research Council.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ministry of the Office of the President. (1995). Urban Development Strategy of the government of National Unity. Government Gazette number 16679, notice 1111.

    Google Scholar 

  • Molteno, D. (1977). The historical significance of the Bantustan strategy. Social Dynamics, 3, 15–33.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Naicker, G. M. (1956). The Group Areas Act and its effects on the Indian people in Natal. Paper presented at a Conference on the Group Areas Act Convened by the NIC, 5–6 May, 1956, Durban.

    Google Scholar 

  • Olufemi, O. (1998). Street homelessness in Johannesburg inner-city: A preliminary survey. Environment and Urbanization, 10, 223–234.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Packard, R. M. (1989). White plague, black labour—Tuberculosis and the political economy of health and disease in South Africa. Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Padayachee, M., & Haines, R. (1985). Capital accumulation, control and the construction of urban space—An overview of some aspects of urbanisation and urban space construction in South Africa 1870–1980. In R. Haines & G. Buijs (Eds.), The struggle for social and economic space in twentieth-century South Africa. Durban: University of Durban-Westville.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pickard-Cambridge, C. (1988). The greying of Johannesburg: Residential desegregation in the Johannesburg Area. Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pieterse, E., & Owens, K. (2018). Johannesburg: Confronting spatial inequality. World resources report case study. Washington, DC: World Resources Institute. Retrieved from www.citiesforall.org.

  • Platzky, L., & Walker, C. (1985). The surplus people—Forced removals in South Africa. Johannesburg: Ravan Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Price, R. M. (1991). The apartheid state in crisis—Political transformation in South Africa 1975–1990. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rex, J. (1974). The Compound, the Reserve and the Urban Location—The essential institutions of Southern African labour exploitation. South African Labour Bulletin, 1, 4–17.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rogerson, C. M., & Rogerson, J. M. (1997). The changing post-apartheid city: Emergent black-owned small enterprises in Johannesburg. Urban Studies, 34, 85–103.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rule. S.P. (1988). Racial Residential Integration in Bertrams Johannesburg. South African Geographical Journal, 70(1), 69–72.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Saff, G. (1990). The probable effects of the introduction of free settlement areas in Johannesburg. Urban Forum, 1, 5–27.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Saff, G. (1994). The changing face of the South African city: From urban apartheid to the racialization of space. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 18, 377–391.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Saff, G. (1996). Claiming a space in a changing South Africa: The “squatters” of Marconi Beam, Cape Town. Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 86, 235–255.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schensul, D., & Heller, P. (2011). Legacies, change and transformation in the post-apartheid city: Towards an urban sociological cartography. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 25, 78–109.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Seekings, J. (2008). The continuing salience of race in South Africa. Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 26, 1–25.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Smith, D. M. (1986). Living under apartheid: Aspects of urbanization and social change in South Africa. London: Unwin Hyman.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith, D. M. (1992). The apartheid city and beyond: Urbanization and social change in South Africa. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Swan, M. (1987). Ideology in organised Indian Politics. In S. Mark & S. Trapido (Eds.), The politics of race, class and nationalism in twentieth-century South Africa (pp. 1891–1948). London: Longman.

    Google Scholar 

  • Swanson, M. W. (1977). The sanitation syndrome: Bubonic plague and urban native policy in the Cape Colony, 1900–1909. The Journal of African History, 18(3), 387–410.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Swilling, M., Cobbett, W., & Hunter, R. (1991). Finance, electricity costs, and the rent boycott. In M. Swilling, W. Cobbett, & R. Hunter (Eds.), Apartheid city in transition. Cape Town: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Urban Foundation. (1990). Opening the cities: Comparative perspectives on desegregation. Indicator Project South Africa.

    Google Scholar 

  • Visser, G., & Kotze, N. (2008). The state and new-build gentrification in central Cape Town, South Africa. Urban Studies, 45(12), 2565–2593.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Welsh, D. (1975). The growth of towns. In M. Wilson & L. Thompson (Eds.), The Oxford history of South Africa—Volume two: South Africa 1870–1966. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Western, J. (1996). Outcast Cape Town. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilhelm-Solomon, M. (2016). Decoding dispossession: Eviction and urban regeneration in Johannesburg’s dark buildings. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, 37, 378–395.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wilhelm-Solomon, M. (2017). The ruinous vitalism of the urban form: Ontological orientations in inner-city Johannesburg. Critical African Studies, 9, 174–191.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wolpe, H. (1972). Capitalism and cheap labour-power in South Africa: From segregation to apartheid. Economy and Society, 1, 425–456.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa

    Brij Maharaj

Authors
  1. Brij Maharaj
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Brij Maharaj .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biological and Geographical Sciences, University of Huddersfield, Huddersfield, UK

    Ruth Massey

  2. UNISA Science Campus, University of South Africa, Johannesburg, South Africa

    Ashley Gunter

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Maharaj, B. (2020). The Apartheid City. In: Massey, R., Gunter, A. (eds) Urban Geography in South Africa . GeoJournal Library(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25369-1_3

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25369-1_3

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-25368-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-25369-1

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation