Abstract
This chapter introduces an in-depth case study which examines the planning and implementation of a housing megaproject in Langa, the oldest African township in Cape Town. It reviews the emergence of housing policy in South Africa and provides a history of Langa as a basis for understanding some of the contestations over space, place and belonging triggered by the N2 Gateway megaproject. The purpose of the case is to combine place-based historical and contemporary ethnographic research to challenge and develop theoretical concepts which can be more widely applicable. This case tests the idea of conflicting rationalities and refines it to contribute to a positioning of a southern perspective in planning theory.
South Africa has had a different political history to the rest of Africa and to many other parts of the global South, but there are also many aspects in common. The township of Langa affords analysis of the genealogy of urban planning approaches and housing policies across the colonial, apartheid and post-apartheid eras and the ways in which these have impacted on city dwellers and rural migrants.
The chapter provides insights into the enduring fissures within the complex social edifice of Langa and examines the ways in which these shape and reflect rationalities and drive contestations over space. It reveals the strategies of struggle of different actors in response to the planning and implementation of the state-driven megaproject and its bid to formalise the informal.
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Notes
- 1.
The IDT was established in 1990 with an R2bn government endowment grant to be invested and the returns used to fund development initiatives in poor communities including site and service schemes.
- 2.
Langa ‘borners’ are those who were born and grew up in the city and had been granted urban residence rights in the pre-democratic era. They are associated with a particular ‘kasi’ or township set of values and attitudes which differentiate them from ‘unsophisticated rural migrants’ . The emergence of this term and its social implications is discussed extensively in subsequent chapters.
- 3.
The mfecane (Xhosa) or difaqane (Sotho) derived from the Xhosa word ‘fetcani’ translated as ‘emaciated intruders’. It is commonly used to refer to a period of Nguni migration induced by a combination of drought and colonial incursions in the first half of the eighteenth century and the far-reaching social conflicts which resulted. The term and the interpretation of its historical significance are at the centre of ongoing debate within South African historiography.
- 4.
Nongqawuse was a 15-year-old orphan girl whose millenarian prophecy in April 1856 announced that the dead would arise to help the Xhosa throw off colonial control. However, before the ‘new people’ would rise from the sea, people were exhorted to purify themselves, refrain from planting crops and kill their cattle. Nongqawuse’s prophecy was popularised by her uncle Nomhlakaza with certain Xhosa chiefs, triggering a complex chain of events which substantially divided and weakened Xhosa society and enlarged the reach of colonial power.
- 5.
‘Galeka’ denotes Gcaleka—a sub-group of Xhosa from the Transkei region.
- 6.
Mfengu were often described as ‘Fingoes’ by colonial authorities.
- 7.
3/CT VOLUME NO 4/1/9/1/94 GN9/21/1/7 Men’s quarters, greater Langa scheme: (A) revised proposals for four blocks men’s quarters and (B) alterations to existing eight blocks to increase accommodation.
- 8.
3/CT VOLUME NO 4/1/9/1/94 GN9/21/1/8/2/3 Men’s quarters, greater Langa. Complaints by National Council of African women (Langa branch) regarding lack of restrictions on visitors to men’s quarters.
- 9.
3/CT VOLUME NO 4/1/9/1/65 GN8/4/6/3 Complaints by Native Residents at Langa regarding rents and seizure of property for outstanding rents.
- 10.
3/CT VOLUME NO 4/1/9/1/63 GN8/1/1/5/3 Unfit and indigent Natives in urban Locations: Enquiry re Langa Location by Assistant Native Commissioner, Cape Town.
- 11.
3/CT VOLUME NO 4/1/5/1247 REF N44/5 Locks and keys, Langa: Request of Advisory Board for different locks on each house. Ironically this was a request that would be repeated in almost identical form by residents occupying rental flats in Phase 1 of the N2 Gateway in 2006/7.
- 12.
A home-brewed beer made from sorghum.
- 13.
The Defiance Campaign in the early 1950s involved a national non-violent programme of resistance to the implementation of racially discriminatory legislation.
- 14.
This policy reserved jobs in the then Western Province for people of mixed race known as ‘Coloureds’ and further restricted access to the city for African work seekers.
- 15.
Section 10 of the Native Laws Amendment Act (No. 54 of 1952) specified stringent criteria defining those Africans who were entitled to live permanently in the urban areas and defining all others as “temporary sojourners” in the city.
- 16.
The South African Labour and Development Unit (SALDRU) is a research unit at the University of Cape Town.
- 17.
Spelling in the original.
- 18.
Circumcision is a cultural practice which marks the rite of passage to manhood for boys aged between 15 and 25. “For the Xhosa male adulthood is marked not by one’s age but by his journey to ‘the mountain’” (Gwata 2009, 4). Although circumcision marks the transition to adulthood, social standing in Xhosa society is age-related with older adult men accorded greater respect.
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de Satgé, R., Watson, V. (2018). Struggles for Shelter and Survival in Post-apartheid South African Cities: The Case of Langa. In: Urban Planning in the Global South. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69496-2_4
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