Why johannesburg developed

The forced removals followed a outbreak of bubonic plague in the "Coolie Location" Maud, , pp. At the time, the emerging city was under the administrative control of the British following the Boer War and the municipal area proclaimed by them in was supposedly the largest in the world. Yet when the evictions took place the only "suitable" site that could "be found" for the Black people was a place called Klipspruit see fig. Although permits were later issued to allow some Black workers to reside temporarily closer to their places of work in central Johannesburg, no positive accommodation policy for Black people was formulated by the council Maud, ; Parnell, , On the contrary, slum living conditions in shacks erected in the backyards of residential, commercial, and industrial properties became the lot of tens of thousands of Black workers and their families see, inter alia, Hellman, ; Dikobe, ; Koch, ; Parnell, Eventually armed with clauses contained in the infamous Natives Urban Areas Act of , the City Council began to evict slum dwellers with the intention of accommodating them in a number of segregated peripheral townships called locations.

For a variety of reasons detailed elsewhere inter alia, Kane-Berman, ; Morris, , ; Beavon, , not least the reluctance of white taxpayers to contribute towards the municipal costs of such an exercise, those attempts were less than successful, even after the council monopolized the brewing and sale of traditional African beer in order to generate increased revenues it could use for housing Black people Proctor, ; Rogerson, Instead, Black people began to congregate in increasing numbers in three suburbs of Johannesburg, which had been eschewed by white people because, when laid out in , they were adjacent to the municipal rubbish tip Lewsen, In the suburbs of the Western Areas excluding the "location" , Black people were entitled, through a legal quirk, to own property on a freehold basis, something denied them elsewhere by the fundamental concept built into the Natives Urban Areas Act, namely that Black people "should only be permitted within municipal areas insofar and for so long as their presence is demanded by the wants of the White population" as quoted in Kane-Berman, , p.

The Urban Areas Act was predicated on the notion that Black people would be sojourners, or temporary residents, in the urban areas Horrell, ; Davenport, It was supposed that at some time in the future the Black people would be removed to the "native reserves" later known as Bantustans and Homelands when their services were no longer needed in the white areas. The rapid industrialization that followed South Africa's departure from the gold standard in December Proctor, , and which was given a boost by the demand for manufactured goods to assist the Allied war effort after , saw increasing demands for "cheap" Black labour that aggravated the accommodation crisis.

Pushed by the central government, the City Council set up the second of the south-western townships as late as and named it Orlando see fig. However, it was largely shunned by Black people, who preferred to live in the crowded inner-city slums and the vibrant Western Areas Huddleston, ; Hart and Pirie, often simply but incorrectly referred to as Sophiatown , rather than be subject to the strict regulations that governed life in the distant "locations" Parnell, It appears that they had been attracted to the city by false rumours that the Johannesburg municipality was giving Black migrants pieces of ground on which to build their own homes.

The resultant surge of Black people, soon referred to as squatters, settled "like birds in the cornfields" Stadler, in the vicinity of Orlando. Later the squatter sites would be individually named Jabavu and Moroka fig. Overall it is estimated that the Black population of Johannesburg increased from a nominal , to almost , between and Stadler, By way of a contrast, some indication of what was happening in the white residential parts of Johannesburg is necessary.

From as early as there was a distinction between what can be called the eastern and western suburbs of Johannesburg. The foreigners, or uitlanders, who formed the white majority in Johannesburg, had caused what they perceived as the "undesirable" people, namely the "non-whites" and the unskilled Afrikaners Fourie, , to be concentrated in the suburbs west of what was a white slum called Vrededorp fig.

That action soon had a marked influence on the gross social geography of white Johannesburg as it appeared by the early s Beavon, forthcoming. Even before the Boer War the English-speaking community, from the very rich to the relatively poor, was concentrated to the east of the business district Maud, ; Smith, ; van Onselen, b.

And so the die was cast for residential class separation amongst the English-speaking Johannesburgers, with the more affluent opting for the central northern sector of the expanding town. To the south of the mining land, the area known as the Southern Suburbs became the home of a variety of white groups, including non-English speakers. With relatively high densities it had a distinct mining and working-class character Smith, ; van Onselen a,b. Whereas there was no serious attempt to provide housing for Black people prior to , there was no shortage of housing for white middle-class people and the rich.

For example, when economic boom followed the departure from the gold standard and created massive overcrowding in Black accommodation, there was an immediate building boom in accommodation for whites. Some 10, private residential flats for white people were constructed on the northern edge of the CBD alone City Engineer, ; van der Waal, When the National Party, with its policy of apartheid, formed the government in , it was determined to see the south-western townships grow.

To that end there was a massive building programme that accompanied the growing number of evictions and removals of Black people from white Johannesburg. Forced removals also took place from the Western Areas, after they were declared white group areas, and their Black residents were transferred to Meadowlands fig.

Whereas the preceding statement might give an impression of benevolence on the side of the state, that would be misleading. Rentals were charged for the sites and built accommodation, and defaulters were evicted. In the Natives Urban Areas Act and other repressive Acts that related to Blacks in urban areas were grouped together in the Natives Urban Areas Consolidation Act, which was then amended from time to time Horrell, In terms of the provisions of this Act and its forerunner, the income-earning opportunities for self-employed Black people in the "townships" between and were severely restricted.

There were only seven categories of self-employed businesses they could engage in, namely, general dealerships, "native" eating-houses, restaurants, milkshops, butcheries, greengrocers, and hawking, and then only in the townships. The numbers of businesses that would be allowed in each township were, in any event, controlled and very limited Beavon, , p.

Furthermore, occupation of a house in Soweto would in future be possible only if the occupier had worked continuously for one employer for 10 years. If the occupier took a job in another town, say somewhere on the Witwatersrand other than in Johannesburg, then their residence rights in Soweto could be placed in jeopardy Hlope, , p.

As such, the townships of Soweto grew by accretions and additions see fig. By the mids, when a generation of children who had been born and raised under apartheid lived in the south-western townships, the total population was estimated to be between 1 and 1. Occupancy of a typical "matchbox" house was put in the range of 7 Shuenyane et al.

The townships of Soweto soon belied the claim by National Party politicians that apartheid was a policy of "separate but equal. In addition, houses in those areas were assigned seriatim and so friendship ties and income, if not class differences, typical even in working-class white areas were not catered for.

The dearth of permitted self-employment opportunities and restrictive licensing meant that there was a corresponding dearth of shops and services within the townships.

Consequently "illegal" or pirate dairies and butcheries operated in houses to the detriment of public health, and there were large numbers of hawkers offering foodstuffs for sale, particularly in the vicinity of transportation stopping points and termini Beavon and Rogerson, There were only two hotels and two cinemas Morris, , p.

Roads were unpaved and public open space was covered by coarse veld grass if it was covered at all. There was virtually no reticulation of electric power and only 20 per cent of houses were linked to the supply system by Morris, , p. Residents, therefore, not only were forced to shop in the white city but of necessity had to burn wood and coal for heating and cooking purposes.

As a result, in the early mornings and evenings the whole area would be covered in thick acrid smoke. The inhospitable environment, together with poverty, and aggravated by unemployment, was reflected in the infant mortality rates, which by were Rates of malnutrition and tuberculosis were also high in Soweto. Wages were low and on average only one-third of those earned by whites Bureau of Market Research, In addition, restricted income-earning opportunities made ownership of a motor car almost impossible.

Whereas car ownership amongst whites was 1. The result was that virtually all the working adults were dependent upon the slow, unreliable public transport system that had insufficient capacity to get them punctually to their places of work in what was now officially a white city.

With the all too visible and increasing differences between the comfortable and affluent lifestyles of white Johannesburg and black Soweto, and increasing resolve by organized black political groups to get rid of apartheid, it is surprising that the Soweto revolt of did not occur earlier.

The uprising could have been ignited by any one of a number of privations and measures such as those cited above. When it came, the spark of revolt was dissatisfaction with Afrikaans-medium teaching in some of the schools: the first wave of confrontation in the streets on 16 June was led by schoolchildren and the first mortal casualty was Hector Petersen, a year-old schoolboy Kane-Berman, Although the Soweto revolt was followed by similar upheavals in many parts of the country, prompting the government to declare a general state of emergency, those matters fall outside the focus of this chapter.

What is important to note is that the uprising severely jolted the government and prodded it into a programme of urban reform, based on freedom of movement for urban workers without impairing their residence rights, as would have been the case before. Just prior to the events of 16 June , the state, in response to demands from Black leaders that their people should be free to do business in the Black townships, had lifted restrictions on the variety of self-employment activities open to Blacks from 7 to a paltry Following the uprising, and in an attempt to make reformist concessions while attempting to demonstrate its resolve that it would not capitulate to Black demands in general, the state increased the categories of self-employment allowed in the townships to 65, but then, realizing that such petty restrictions were pointless, it removed all of them by the end of Beavon, , a.

Theoretically, Black residential areas could now have the same range of businesses and services as occurred in the white suburban shopping centres and downtown.

That said, however, the 44 years of severe limitations inevitably meant that Black entrepreneurs had been considerably disadvantaged in terms of developing businesses and business practices. Thus the dearth of business facilities in the townships could not be overcome overnight. Significantly, however, reform in the realm of the taxi industry was to see the extremely limited number of licensed taxis in the form of mini-buses rise to 1.

More noteworthy amongst the reforms was the acceptance that Blacks residing in the urban areas of South Africa would henceforth be there legally and permanently Hart, Of this, tons is in the form of illegal dumping, and 1 tons is litter from the streets Ninety percent of the city's people have to walk less than 1km to access their modes of transport. It is the most powerful commercial centre on the African continent. Johannesburg generates 16 percent of South Africa's GDP and employs 12 percent of the national workforce.

Its infrastructure matches leading first world cities, yet the cost of living is far lower. The city is recognized as the financial capital of South Africa and is home to 74 percent of Corporate Headquarters. The first attempt to create a plan for revitalization was launched in by the Johannesburg City Council.

While the initiative stalled for political reasons, a small booklet was published that proposed private sector regeneration. It suggested the creation of a tripartite partnership between the public sector, the private sector, and the community as well as an independent, non-profit development agency.

Five such districts were established voluntarily by The strategies outlined in the vision were focused on environmental upgrades; development of infrastructure; reducing crime, congestion, and homelessness; and improving public services through public—private partnerships. The implementation phase of this vision was slowed by political and budgetary impediments, including a lack of centralized decision-making powers.

The provincial and local governments started initiatives to revive the Inner City in This plan focused on three pillars, including local economic development, residential development, and social development.

The provincial government called for a summit in to move this strategy forward. The CJP helped form a new business coalition to represent the private sector, which insisted on long-term planning measures.

The private sector committed to allocating human and financial resources to the regeneration in exchange for a public-private policy-making partnership. In , the Provincial Government led the development of a four-point plan for the regeneration of Gauteng Inner Cities, including Johannesburg.

Based on this plan, a work plan was developed to establish a city fund, create a partnership framework, support key instruments, and facilitate and monitor projects. The responsibilities of this office were to coordinate all activities and projects related to the Inner City, and to implement the Inner City strategy developed by the JICDF. The Plan was based on five pillars: Addressing sinkholes, undertaking intensive urban management, maintaining and upgrading infrastructure, promoting ripple pond investments, and supporting economic sectors.

However, due to lack of funding many elements of the plan were not realized. After months of intense stakeholder consultations, a Charter was published that envisioned a regenerated Inner City. It called for a review of all past programs to identify lessons learned. The Charter committed City of Johannesburg and the JDA to scope the development of a major intermodal transport and activity center. The private sector was assigned a major role with regard to inclusionary housing.

Finally and most importantly, the Charter recommended scoping a spatial development plan for the Inner City as a whole. Despite the comprehensive nature of the Charter, it has received criticism due to the lack of enforcement mechanisms and its failure to realize all of its stated aims.

The Roadmap aimed at transforming the inner city of Johannesburg based on five overarching pillars of short and long-term goals to be achieved through initiatives and partnerships.