Inequality in urban development and distribution of basic services
Introduction The three books I read offered unique insight into urban development or re-development in the transition from apartheid to post-apartheid in South Africa, more especially the city of Johannesburg and its surrounding townships, and the inequalities thereof. This essay summarizes some of the topics covered both directly and indirectly in the books, linking them under the theme of urban development post-apartheid.
Inequality became a class issue Theories of urbanization have often placed Johannesburg as the ‘spatial embodiment of unequal economic relations and segregationist policies”(Sarah Nuttal & Achille Mbhebhe, 2001). In their collection titled Johannesburg – The elusive Metropolis different contributors reassess their experiences of post-apartheid Joburg as a city. From some of these compilations, one realizes how although policies that segregated people by race were brought down or taken away post-apartheid, another form of segregation came into effect – a separation between class. Experiences of urban spaces are different for different people from different classes. The use of space in urban contexts by these different classes differs too. This contributes to the present segregation within urban contexts. The different classes group themselves, voluntarily and involuntarily within their urban context.
Advantaged and Disadvantaged Jeremy Seekings and Nicoli Natrass, in their book Race, Class and Inequality in South Africa, further investigate this theory that inequality has moved, post-apartheid, from the issue of race to the issue of class. They argue that although there was a formal deracialization of public policy, this has had no effect on the poor and the rich. The poor still continue in their disadvantaged state and the rich remain advantaged, regardless of their race. Their writings focus more on the socio-economic issues which link to Patrick Bond’s collections of essays on South Africa’s new urban crisis, titled Cities of gold; Townships of coal.