Contrasts abound as the wealthy wall themselves in and the poor do everything possible to survive
Marie
Huchzermeyer
(Jo’burg
in Fact, Literary Festival 2012 Supplement, Mail
& Guardian August
24 to 30 2012)
City
of Extremes,
the title of Martin Murray’s compelling analysis of contradictions
in Johannesburg’s city building process, suggests a condition
nearing its limit.
From
a basis of well cemented, segregated minority privilege, the past 18
years have propelled Johannesburg into an intensifying display of
wealth and desperation.
Gated
or exclusive residential living goes hand in hand with public life
limited to branded spaces. This, along with its substantial per
capita footprint on the environment, has become the norm at one
extreme. The environment is further strained by the mining industry
on which the city’s wealth is built.
At
the other extreme is the humbling display of an ability to come by on
very little. Unbranded innovation, largely outside of the mainstream
capitalist circuit, recycles anything from street signage and
advertisements to roof sheeting or pressed ceilings. This produces
precarious settlements abuzz with sound and public life.
Anton
Harber’s Diepsloot captures
the intensity of political and other interests embedded in the
so-called reception area on Johannesburg’s north eastern outskirt,
largely housing people evicted and relocated from informal
settlements elsewhere in the city. Harber opens his narrative with a
description of the drive to Diepsloot, past gated luxury estates,
including the ‘most extravagant’ Dainfern.
Increasingly,
these two extremes exist side-by-side. Johannesburg’s fastest
growing informal settlements are in close proximity to rapidly
expanding, gated luxury estates with growing demand for domestic
workers.
A
further contrast: at one extreme is the permanent, at the other
extreme the ephemeral. While developers in the post 2008 economic
climate must have an appetite for risk, their investments are not
insecure. Informal settlements in turn are marked by uncertainty.
The
Zevenfontein informal settlement, located for over two decades on
privately owned land adjacent to Dainfern, today displays only the
light footprints left behind by shacks. While it is commonly thought
that Zevenfontein was relocated to Cosmo City, many of its residents
were displaced into back yard rental or have found other precarious
footholds in the city.
The
threat of being uprooted and displaced, coupled with broken promises
for a permanent home in the city, trigger street protests and
blockades. These threaten to disrupt the seamless functioning of the
city for its elites. Violent and repressive state intervention
deepens the antagonism of the excluded.
One
may ask: Can Johannesburg sustain growing disparity coupled with
environmental degradation, or will the grand narrative of the next
decades be one of the imploding city? Can the City Council’s
strategies of growth and development stem the tide of discontent? Can
it stabilize, if not reduce, the growing inequality?
Johannesburg’s
future is in suspense. The uncertain anticipation adds to many layers
of tension that capture another dimension of a city of extremes.
Tension
marks everyday life in the city. Some experience this as thrilling
and are attracted to the city by this very quality.
Innovative
architect and urban designer Thiresh Govender has an intense
curiosity for what makes this tense city work. Having travelled
widely, he has chosen Braamfontein as a base from which to work, walk
and attempt to find pragmatic solutions to some of the city’s
problems.
Although
tension may inspire the creative class, for most elites it reinforces
a retreat to the secured enclaves. Ivan Vladislavic’s The
Exploded View skillfully captures life behind these confines. The
city is experienced from the motorway, and the near suicidal act of
parking alongside a motorway and walking in the veld leads to the
inevitable.
Yet
the majority of Johannesburg’s residents do not own a car. They
navigate the city with its tensions and contradictions on a daily
basis. Through them, Johannesburg is experienced at a different pace.
Public life on the city’s pavements and chance encounters in
mini-bus taxies shape their daily reflections.
What
attempts has the post-apartheid state made to provide public spaces
where the motorcar owning elite could interact with those more
accustomed with walking the city? Who designs these spaces, and whose
culture and identity are reflected in this design?
Jonathan
Noble’s African
Identity in Post-Apartheid Public Architecture examines
two iconic public spaces created in post-apartheid Johannesburg:
Constitutional Hill adjacent to Hilbrow, and Freedom Square in
Kliptown, Soweto. Analysing the processes involved in the making of
these spaces, Noble draws on Frantz Fanon’s ideas of racialised
identities and colonial subjectivities through the metaphors of masks
and skin.
In
the bigger narrative of a city of extremes, there is something that
informal settlements, sensitive, creative and explorative inner city
activities and public urban places have in common – they defy the
productive demands on a capitalist city. But what are their roles in
shaping the future of the city?
Govender
and Noble are the panelists at the discussion of Cities of Extremes.
Together with the audience, we will discuss recent books on
Johannesburg and explore, debate and test the boundaries of
understanding and representation of the city, its challenges and its
prospects.
Marie
Huchzermeyer is a professor in the School of Architecture and
Planning, and author of Cities with ‘Slums’: From Informal
Settlement Eradication to a Right to the City in Africa (UCT Press,
2011), Tenement Cities: From 19th Century Berlin to 21st Century
Nairobi (AWP, 2011) and Unlawful Occupation: Informal Settlements and
Urban Policy and South Africa and Brazil (AWP, 2004). She chairs the
festival panel J’burg: Citry of Extremes. Session 6, Saturday
September 1, 11.30 to 1pm, Market Theatre
Books
mentioned above:
City
of Extremes: The Spatial Politics of Johannesburg by
Martin Murray (Wits University Press/Duke University Press,
2011)Diepsloot,
by Anton Harber (Wits University Press, 2011)African
Identity in Post-Apartheid Public Architecture: White Skin, Black
Masks,
by Jonathan Noble (Ashgate, 2011)The
Exploded View,
by Ivan Vladislavic (Random House, 2004)
