An Undivided Landscape: Dissolving Apartheid buffer zones in Johannesburg, South Africa

informal settlements;apartheid;slums;south africa;johannesburg;housing;remediation;gold mines;infrastructure;Architecture

Greyling, Michelle

University of Waterloo

关键词: informal settlements;    apartheid;    slums;    south africa;    johannesburg;    housing;    remediation;    gold mines;    infrastructure;    Architecture;   

Others  :  https://uwspace.uwaterloo.ca/bitstream/10012/7504/1/Greyling_Michelle.pdf

瑞士|英语

来源: UWSPACE Waterloo Institutional Repository

【 摘 要 】

Progressive spatial segregation of Whites from other ethnic races in South Africa startedin 1886. Apartheid rulers evicted three and a half million Blacks, Coloureds and Indiansfrom white urban and residential areas between 1904 and 1994. Apartheid plannersused natural, mining, industrial, and infrastructural buffer zones to spatially enforcesegregation. They based their apartheid spatial governance on separation and controland not on urban development. Today remnants of apartheid remain deeply embeddedin the urban framework, where large buffer zones continue to enforce segregation anddisrupt economic growth.Victims of apartheid legislation believed the eradication of apartheid in 1994 meantthe right to live in the city and the end of forced evictions. Since then the post-Apartheidgovernment has conducted 2 million evictions, reminiscent of the 3.5 million evictionsduring the apartheid years. In an attempt to make Johannesburg a `world class city`,the municipality forcefully removed the poor from the city, and relocated them to rurallocations where their livelihoods are severely challenged. To many, a new ``apartheid`has been born; one that segregates the rich and the poor.The government has released several strategies to provide land for the poor near thecity, but the high cost of land in urban areas has disrupted implementation.The thesis proposes a three-fold strategic design intervention to provide land for thepoor near the city and dissolve the apartheid-designed buffer zone between Sowetoand Johannesburg. The site, a landmark from the apartheid spatial legacy and part ofthe Witwatersrand gold mining belt, separates Soweto, home to four million Blacks,from the city of Johannesburg. About one and a half million people commute to thecity each day passing by the 14 km stretch of this toxic mining land.The thesis proposes three urban design strategies to transform the site into acommunity, which the local people would build: Remediation strategies to addressthe toxic mining landscape, infrastructural strategies to provide basic services andeconomic strategies to promote economic growth. These strategies operate in a codependentstructure. Co-op centres implement these strategies, transfering strategytechnologies to the local community.