Search

Copyright of Urban Studies (Sage Publications, Ltd.) is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

From 1950 onwards, under the apartheid regime's Group Areas Act, hundreds of thousands of people were forced to leave their homes across South Africa's cities. While the removals from some areas, notably District Six in Cape Town, are well documented and memorialised, many others have largely been erased from public memory. In a context of burgeoning research into issues of spatial justice in Southern cities, this paper puts forward the argument that the concepts and practice of memory and memorialising in urban spaces deserve more attention. Specifically, we suggest that the relationships between space and memory, shaped by collective, public acts of remembering and forgetting, can expand our understanding of what constitutes spatial justice in our cities. Reflecting on a research project conducted in Lower Claremont, a racially mixed, middle‐class suburb in Cape Town that was declared White in 1969 and subsequently dubbed Harfield Village, we explore some of the ways in which remembering and forgetting take place on the urban scale, and their implications for imagining just cities. We ask, too, what possibilities exist for active remembering in this place and in similarly ordinary city spaces. Analysing oral histories from former residents and interviews with current occupants of the neighbourhood, we open up some of the complications in surfacing forgotten stories and creating landscapes of memory. In the final section of the paper we reflect on an art installation that formed part of the research project, and suggest some possibilities for active memory work in our urban spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops infrastructural citizenship as an analytical framework that bridges geography's sub‐disciplinary silos. While urban geography promotes infrastructure as a core lens for understanding the city, recognising that political struggles are mediated through infrastructure, discourses of citizenship are rarely employed. Similarly, while political and development geography promote citizenship as vital in understanding socio‐political life, often framed by citizen‐led action to secure basic rights and services, critical debates on urban infrastructure are typically overlooked. Consequently, despite the growth in studies recognising the politicised nature of urban infrastructure and the centrality of citizenship to urban life, the multiple ways that citizenship and infrastructure relate in diverse urban settings has received limited critical attention. This paper demonstrates how urban dwellers' relationship to public infrastructure in the domestic spaces of the home and settlement, and the temporal scale of the everyday, offers a representation of broader political identities and perceptions, framed through the language of citizenship. In South Africa, despite 25 years of significant post‐apartheid public investment in housing and services, frustration at poor service delivery and beneficiary (mis)use of public infrastructure remains dominant. While citizens adapt and consume public infrastructure in ways deemed "illegal" and "uncivil" by the state, citizens view these actions as a legitimate form of "citizenship‐in‐action" in the context of rapid urbanisation and poverty, and are frustrated by perceptions of state neglect. Using the analytical framework of infrastructural citizenship, the paper reveals how this state–society disjuncture represents a citizenship mismatch that is embodied in infrastructure, rather than a material product of state disinterest or citizen destruction per se. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In South Africa, young men are generally considered to generate many of the risks associated with informal settlement life, yet their own vulnerability in these environments is seldom considered. Seeking insights into male susceptibility in these impoverished urban spaces is methodologically challenging. How does one encourage poor marginalised young men to speak with candour about their insecurities and challenges? The research methods used, while facilitating openness, should also build their confidence as they reflect on the challenges of everyday life. This paper describes the methodological journey undertaken in a study of young Black men living in informal settlements in Cape Town, South Africa, revealing how they perceive their vulnerability in these environments. It demonstrates how a suite of methods gradually developed through trial and error, with the young men themselves assisting in the adaptation of tools, ranging from interviews using adapted participatory methods to non‐prescriptive diary‐writing. Together they delivered deep and penetrating insights into the lives of the young men, and the nature of their vulnerability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by the United Nations in 2015, aspirations towards creating more inclusive and sustainable cities became global standards of urban development. This presents an almighty challenge for policymakers and urban planners, particularly in the rapidly developing cities of the global South, which have historically been known to possess higher levels of segregation and inequality. This article focuses on an analysis of patterns of accessibility, created through different systems of transport, in relation to potential opportunities they may provide for interaction between different social and racial urban population groups, using Cape Town in South Africa, as the primary case study. It examines the relationship between specific social and spatial variables and the geographic positioning of stops and stations of the public Railway, MyCiti Bus Rapid Transit systems and the paratransit, privately-owned Minibus Taxi system. A relational approach was required in order to address both the physical and social aspects of this paper, thus drawing on the discursive and analytical techniques offered by space syntax. The Minibus Taxi system, born out of the informal sector in South Africa, has widely been stigmatised as "chaotic" and "haphazard", however the empirical evidence shown by this analysis of accessibility, suggests that it possesses an inner spatial and social logic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focusing on the urban enclave in Cape Town known as De Waterkant, this paper examines the product and process of 'quartering' urban space-shaping urban space as the locus for the symbolic framing of culture. This paper advances recent studies of De Waterkant by applying the concept of quartering to understand urban change in an African context. Complicating existing research on De Waterkant, the findings show that the area has witnessed four distinct quartered identities including an ethnic quartering which was dismantled under apartheid, a Bohemian quartering that changed racial dynamics and improved housing stock, a 'gay village' quartering that engaged sexual identity performance as a strategy for place making and most recently a consumer lifestyle quartering that exhibited new notions of citizenship and consumption. This paper advances theorisation of how quartering as a process is articulated through the application of discursive and material tropes to the urban fabric of the city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unprecedented rapid urbanization, accompanied by growing urban informality, have positioned housing delivery at the frontline of national political agendas in the Global South. This paper analyzes the housing redevelopment of the Joe Slovo informal settlement in Cape Town, South Africa (2004 to present) to shed light on the role of architecture and urban design in democracy building and city production. As an alternative framework to the ideas of 'normalization' and 'resistance', this case offers insights into the importance of situating spatialized political tensions and conflict at the heart of the analysis of city production. The Joe Slovo redevelopment initially deployed an inclusionary welfare-state policy that resulted in exclusionary housing design practices, causing political contestation among the residents of the informal settlement. The community materialized their struggle for housing and urban rights in creative examples of 'design from below'. These practices not only re-defined the spatial control over Joe Slovo's territory, but also, by the production of alternative urban space, they challenged institutional spaces, re-defining who plays what role in housing delivery. The findings reveal multidirectional design politics between governments and communities that occur when the state loses control over design decision-making processes. The community's right to not be displaced to distant locations was guaranteed by reducing the state's implementation and delivery capacity, exposing the challenges of city co-production and inviting us to rethink who has the right to design, code and imagine our cities. This case opens a window into understanding design as a political device of urban governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that in central Cape Town different public spaces exist in parallel to each other, continuing the long history of dysfunctional public spaces in South Africa. While some have suggested that the recent spread of privately governed and policed public spaces means that they have become privatised and form part of a segregated landscape of enclaves, the empirical data suggest a different assessment. Although agreeing that privately policed public spaces are distinctly different from ‘regular’, not privately governed spaces. In fact they have become more public than they were before. Here, the middle class that used to hide out in gated communities and shopping malls mingles again. Through this the existence of different parallel existing public spaces is being continued. Since the colonization of Cape Town, public space has always been segregated, especially with the exclusion of non-white parts of the population. Over time, each of the different segregated public spaces has developed their own cultures, norms and values. Within the researched spaces, this ‘tradition’ of dysfunctional public space continues. While the non-white urban poor congregate in ‘regular’ public spaces, a white, latté-consuming class of those who can afford it enjoy peace in the parallel existing public space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay considers public art practice in post- apartheid Cape Town within the notion of symbolic reparations—a concept deriving out of South Africa's Trust Reconciliation Commission. The paper situates developments in public arts practice in the context of developments in cultural politics in South Africa and globally. More especially, it discusses new genre arts projects, which focus on a range of issues related to identity, space and place. The projects—the District Six Museum, District Six Sculpture Project, PTO, Y30, BLAC, Returning the Gaze, and the In Touch Poetry Bus Tour—focus on issues such as rethinking monuments, the memorialising of ‘hidden histories’, engagements with racism and the abuse of power, and the reimagining of the city. The paper asks how these contemporary and often ephemeral projects, critically engage with issues of history, geography, memory and transformation and, in so doing, mark the landscape of Cape Town, making spaces for dialogue and/or standing as poetic symbols and challenges to the inequalities of the city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of educational mobilities on the lives of university students from an urban working-class township in South Africa. In highly unequal urban contexts, these mobilities provide access to valuable material resources and engender subjective transformations that facilitate access to higher education spaces. Based on fieldwork with students from Khayelitsha, a black urban township in Cape Town, it argues that these mobilities are shaped histories of racial segregation, demands of globalizing labour markets, and students' personal readings of changing urban environments. Drawing on the concept of mobility capital, the paper suggests that even as these movements enable access to educational opportunities, they do not automatically generate the forms of capital required for social mobility. While students used mobilities to access higher education, they struggled to develop the social networks, embodied dispositions, language skills and cultural competencies that would provide social advantage. Rather, their experiences on campus reveal how mobility capital is structured by material and symbolic inequalities, which are frequently alienating and exclusionary. Finally, the paper emphasizes the importance of everyday movements and attachments between home and university spaces to the formation of student identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aims to investigates the contribution of the informal sector towards secure livelihoods. Using a case study design, the study focusses on Mandela park, situated in Khayelitsha Township, Cape Town, in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Khayelitsha is predominantly an old township established by the apartheid government using unjust segregation laws to foster spatial planning that isolated people of colour in areas with insufficient infrastructure and informal economic activities. Therefore, informal trading became a survival strategy in Khayelitsha, attracting an increasing number of informal traders in public spaces within the township in pursuit of livelihoods. Informal activities are generally conducted to generate income and secure sustainable livelihoods. Design/methodology/approach: This study uses a qualitative research design, incorporating structured interviews instrumental in data collection and in-depth thematic analysis. Findings: The study findings reveal that the informal sector positively contributes to the sustainable livelihoods of those involved in the informal sector and the relatives of those through income generation, family support, wealth creation, source of employment, business incubation and innovation and creativity. Originality/value: The study concludes that given the increasing unemployment rate in South Africa, caused by the stagnant economic growth rate, policymakers should rethink their policies on the informal economy, acknowledge the sector's relevance and support the sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban agriculture is a contested issue in the larger South African debate on urban poverty alleviation. This paper investigates the economic viability of urban agriculture and informs the debate on the optimal use of open space in Khayelitsha. It compares the economic performance of the Scaga community garden in the low-income township Khayelitsha, predicted in a 1998 study by Fermont et al., with empirical results of a similar study by Fleming in 2003. It concludes that urban agriculture in Khayelitsha is potentially economically viable, subject to certain conditions being satisfied. However, as a land use, urban agriculture competes with housing, ecological corridors, the stormwater management system and nature areas and reserves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• South Africa's four major city centres have experienced tumultuous changes over the last 25 years. • Their recent recovery is fragile, partial and dwarfed by new investment in outlying centres. • Pioneering developers have converted redundant buildings into decent affordable rental housing. • Public sector policies and practices have been disjointed and uneven in their effectiveness. Central cities are vibrant and productive places because of the dense concentration of people, firms and supporting facilities. Yet their dynamism can be undermined by congestion, social tensions and poor urban management. South Africa's four major city centres experienced tumultuous changes during the transition from apartheid and the exodus of many property owners, investors and occupiers to the suburbs. Buildings decayed, infrastructure collapsed, public health and safety deteriorated, and governance was disrupted by unauthorised activities. Despite the general neglect, signs of recovery have emerged and gathered momentum in recent years. The revival is fragile, partial and patchy in most cases, and dwarfed by scale of new investment in outlying economic nodes. The paper uses a resilience framework to examine how enterprising organisations have spurred regeneration by identifying opportunities for the adaptive reuse of redundant buildings and public spaces for affordable housing and social amenities. It also compares the extent, character and causes of the rebound across the four cities, demonstrating elements of continuity (bounce-back resilience) and transformation (bounce-forward resilience) in each case. Cape Town is characterised more by continuity and Johannesburg more by decline and transformation, with Pretoria and Durban in between. City centre recovery is attributed to a combination of pioneering private and public sector actions, albeit disjointed and uneven in their effectiveness. The paper concludes that central cities are relatively open incubators of economic and social progress, but also cauldrons of competing interests which create many dilemmas for decision-makers to negotiate, and which require coordinated attention and determination to realise their potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article informs about the experiences of Black African and colored pupils in schools in predominantly white areas in Cape Town, South Africa. The term Model C is used by the public to refer to all historically white state schools. A desegregated space is conceived of as one where all occupiers of that space are on an equal footing, have equal rights and access with in that space. The occupiers are not viewed only as consumers of space, but also as producers through their interactions with others within these spaces. Parents from historically disadvantaged communities in the city send their children to Model C schools because they believe it will provide their children with opportunities. Model C schools fulfil some aspects of desegregated spaces, yet as spaces still undergoing transition they afford only extremely restricted modes of expression and limited perceptions of belonging and ownership.

In 2013, the Mothertongue Project, a women's theater collective based in Cape Town, South Africa, developed a performance called Walk: South Africa (Walk: SA) as a critique of rape culture. Walk: SA was prompted by the rape and murder of Anene Booysen, a Black South African teenager, in February 2013 and directly inspired by Maya Krishna Rao's Walk , created in response to the similar rape and murder of Jyoti Singh Pandey in Delhi, India, in December 2012. This essay analyzes how a 2014 performance of Walk: SA contributes to theorization on the interconnectedness of racial, gender, and sexual exploitation. I focus on three vignettes within the performance that connect histories of racialized violence against Black South African women to Booysen's case and that of other women in the contemporary period. Using walking as a mnemonic device, and with commentaries on actual women's experiences, the performers make a claim for women's right to traverse the public space, and they exhort their audience to action. With its public engagement and no-holds-barred approach to the issue of sexual violence, Walk: SA participates in feminist discourses that include race and gender in ongoing conversations around democracy in South Africa. More broadly, it exists within the new iterations of women-led public activisms against sexual violence that have taken root throughout the world in the twenty-first century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on township tours outside Cape Town and Johannesburg during the past decade. By examining the subjectivities of guides and tourists, as well as public discourses about townships, I argue that township tours are ethically problematic and ambiguous, but do not go uncontested. Questions about voyeurism and development are negotiated during the tours in a number of ways. First, the morality of witnessing townships - not through the modality of vision, but through participating in contact zones - is asserted. Second, public discourses that valourize the creativity of the poor, and which harness history as a force for reconciliation and development, inform the tours. Third, tour guides attempt to reform charity and to highlight ethical consumption. An ethnographic and discursive analysis leads me to conclude that township tours are part of a larger post-apartheid project of re-imagining and remaking marginalized urban spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses post-apartheid public spaces through social and spatial practices at the Victoria & Alfred (V&A) Waterfront mall in Cape Town. Our empirical evidence suggests that these public spaces involve much more than just consumption patterns, as they sustain and support novel ways of asserting social identities in a new political situation. These changes are, however, quite complex and fraught with ambivalence. Consequently, we scrutinize how race is staged in that space, and how racial diversity produces various kinds of boundaries. We then argue that these urban practices lead us to an understanding of the precarious balance between private and public spaces. We propose the notion of 'publicization' — the process whereby private spaces acquire a more public dimension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study seeks to show that the closure of urban public space by residents in a South African context is not a recent phenomenon and that successful citizen-driven urban public space closures have been a feature of the urban landscape before the rise of gated communities and monitored urban public space. The primary objective of the study was to analyse and investigate spatio-temporal tendencies relating to the citizen-driven privatisation of urban public space in Cape Town. This objective would be driven by the creation of a comprehensive database of provincially gazetted urban land closures dating from 7 February 1975 to 17 December 2004 within one of the six municipal substructure regions of Cape Town. The secondary objective, but by no means less important, is an identification and analysis of the reasons forwarded, practices employed and techniques utilised by individual citizen-driven applications in two distinctly diverse residential suburbs within the study area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]