The South African Research Chair in Spatial Analysis and City Planning

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The South African Research Chair in Spatial Analysis and City Planning is situated in the School of Architecture and Planning, at the University of the Witwatersrand and is headed by Prof Philip Harrison. This collection includes research outputs from the programme, including those under its previous name, the South African Research Chair in Development Planning and Modelling. For information on this collection content, please contact: Bongi Mphuti via email : Bongi.Mphuti@wits.ac.za or Tel (W) : 011 717 1978.

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A picture speaks a thousnd words: understanding women's migration in Johannesburg using visual diaries
(Routledge, 2010-09-23) Kihato, Caroline
Using the visual diaries of a group of African women migrants now living in Johannesburg, this article explores what is now termed "ferminization of migration". It does this less by drawing attention to the fact that women are moving than by using women's own images and narratives to reveal dimensions of that experience that have yet to be understood. Centralto the article's arguement is the assertion that images communicate to us in ways that can reveal not only the material conditions of groups that are often hidden from view, but also their own local political locations, and society's own assumptions about them. Women's visual diaries and their narrative reveal the ways in which they negotiate structural impendiments of asylum offialdom, police harassment, patriarchy, unemployment and poverty. The research argues that current understanding of the ferminization of migration fail to reveal the socio-cultural and political complexities of women's mobility on the African continent.
Alexandra
(Wits University Press, 2014) Harrison, Philip. Masson, Andrian. Sinwell, Luke.
A mix of respected academics, practising urban planners and experienced policymakers offer compelling overviews of the rapid and complex spatial developments that have taken place in Johannesburg since the end of apartheid, along with tantalising glimpses into life on the streets and behind the high walls of this diverse city. The book has three sections. Section A provides an overview of macro spatial trends and the policies that have influenced them. Section B explores the shaping of the city at district and suburban level, revealing the peculiarity of processes in different areas. This analysis elucidates the larger trends, while identifying shifts that are not easily detected at the macro level. Section C is an assembly of chapters and short vignettes that focus on the interweaving of place and identity at a micro level. With empirical data supported by new data sets including the 2011 Census, the city’s Development Planning and Urban Management Department’s information system, and Gauteng City-Region Observatory’s substantial archive, the book is an essential reference for planning practitioners, urban geographers, sociologists, and social anthropologists, among others.
Between fixity and flux: Grappling with transience and permanence in the inner city
(Wits University Press, 2014) Dinath, Yasmeen.
A mix of respected academics, practising urban planners and experienced policymakers offer compelling overviews of the rapid and complex spatial developments that have taken place in Johannesburg since the end of apartheid, along with tantalising glimpses into life on the streets and behind the high walls of this diverse city. The book has three sections. Section A provides an overview of macro spatial trends and the policies that have influenced them. Section B explores the shaping of the city at district and suburban level, revealing the peculiarity of processes in different areas. This analysis elucidates the larger trends, while identifying shifts that are not easily detected at the macro level. Section C is an assembly of chapters and short vignettes that focus on the interweaving of place and identity at a micro level. With empirical data supported by new data sets including the 2011 Census, the city’s Development Planning and Urban Management Department’s information system, and Gauteng City-Region Observatory’s substantial archive, the book is an essential reference for planning practitioners, urban geographers, sociologists, and social anthropologists, among others.
Between the ordinary and the extra-oridnary: socio-spatial transformation in the South of Johannesburg
(South African Geographical Journal, 2014-06-16) Harrison, Philip. Zack, Tanya.
A recent discourse on ‘ordinary cities’ represents cities as unique assemblages rather than as imperfect representations of an ideal such as the ‘world city’. The ‘ordinariness’ of cities is, however, constructed at the intersection of the ‘ordinary’ and ‘extraordinary’. We use the case of the ‘Old South’ of Johannesburg to show how the ordinariness of everyday life has been shaped by continually shifting transnational, or extraordinary, flows and relationships. Strong locally inscribed spatial loyalties emerged historically in the Old South, although these were always overlain by ethnic territorialities. Recently, new socio-spatial configurations have emerged in the context of post-Apartheid migration flows. The emergent identities and territorialities associated with these flows remain fragile and ambiguous, but may offer pointers towards our new urban futures.
Beyond Invented and Invited spaces of participation: The Phiri and Olivia Road court cases and their outcomes
(HRSC Press, 2015) Smith, Laila. Rubin, Margot.
249 requires methods of public engagement that the local authorities responsible for delivery seldom have the knowledge or experience to carry out (as pointed to in Bénit-Gbaffou’s opening chapter). The result has been an increasingly frustrated public that is getting neither access to essential services nor the opportunity to engage meaningfully with the state (Bénit-Gbaffou & Oldfield 2011). The process of the public turning to the courts to hold the state to account for its enactment of socioeconomic rights has been a fascinating terrain where these governance and service delivery battles have merged into a single front. Classical legal theory argues that litigation is sought by groups because of fundamental belief in the ‘direct linking of litigation, rights, and remedies with social change’(Hunt 1990: 309). Ethnographers, such as Merry and Silbey (1984), argue that citizens turn to the law ‘when their situations or their personal, community, or economic problems seemed entirely intractable, unavoidable, and intolerable’(Merry 1990; Merry & Silbey 1984). Political opportunity theorists argue that if channels to decision-making are ‘closed’then citizens and residents will find, or invent, other methods to ensure that their voices are heard and that they are able to engage in some way with the decision-making process (Hilson 2002).
Clearly blown away by the end of the morning's drama: spectacle, pacification and the 2010 world cup, South Africa
(The Journal of the Society for Socialist Studies, 2013) McMichael, Christopher
The massive security assemblages surrounding major sporting events and political summits embody two layers of spectacle. On the one hand, security operations are central to the governance of entertainment and media imagery. Simultaneously these security measures are profoundly theatrical and calibrated for the maximum visual impact: the spectacle of security itself. Some critical thinkers have described this dual spectacle as indicative of a contemporary state-corporate obsession with image and perception management, an obsession which detracts from ‘valid’ security concerns. By contrast I argue that spectacle and theatricality are in fact highly functional components of the pacification projects of state and capital. With reference to Guy Debord’s conception of ‘spectacle’, this article highlights how mega-events reveal, in highly dramatised form, the logic of pacification. Using the 2010 FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) soccer World Cup as a case study, the article demonstrates how police and military power are mobilised to secure accumulation, to enforce social control and to extend the power and arsenal of the state security apparatus. What is truly spectacular about mega event security is not just the incorporation of media templates into the working of state forces. Rather, the rhetoric and concept of security itself becomes a form of spectacular power as it serves to both obscure and justify how mega events are ultimately projects of class power.
Contesting adaptation synergies: political realities in reconciling climate change adaptation with urban development in Johannesburg, South Africa
(Spring-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, 2016-07-25) Hetz Karen
Strategies to promote synergistic responses to both urban development issues and climate change adaptation have become central to policy advice on adaptation. However, the empirical evidence for the effective utilisation of adaptation synergies in planning practices is insufficient. Taking urban planning in Johannesburg as a case study and using the risks of flooding as an illustrative example, this qualitative study explores how adaptation synergies can be realised in planning practices. In this specific case, significant synergy possibilities in planning practices are not observed. Instead, political challenges of reconciling adaptation measures with planning responses to the considerable developmental challenges of urban divide and multiple urban risks in Johannesburg substantially limit the response space for adaptation practices, including those achievable through synergies. Insights gained in this study underline the necessity of giving greater attention to the empirics of observed synergies. The study provides initial indications that it may be necessary to adjust elements of the conceptual arguments concerning adaptation synergies and related policy advice.
Does density drive development?
(South African Research Chair in Development Planning and Modelling, 2012) Msulwa, Rehema. Turok, Ivan.
There is growing interest among governments and researchers around the world in the contribution of cities to economic development. Several influential international organisations have argued that the spatial concentration of economic activity is necessary for faster economic growth. This paper examines whether the density of population and economic activity influences the rate of local economic growth in South Africa. Municipalities are the basic units of analysis and the time frame is 1996-2010. Contrary to expectations, no statistically significant relationship is found between density and growth across the full range of 237 local municipalities. However, searching hard for a relationship among particular kinds of municipality, some evidence does emerge. The influence of human skills on local growth is also examined and is found to be more robust than density. Several reasons are given for why the relationship between density and growth is generally weak or non-existent.
‘Ethnic Enclave of a Special Sort?’ Mozambicans in La Rochelle, Johannesburg
(Journal of Southern African Studies, 2015-01-19) Khangelani Moyoa, Erma Cossaa
Although Mozambican migration to South Africa has a long history, it is only recently that scholarly literature has begun to shift slightly from the defining albatross of the contract labour migration system to provide a much more incisive analysis of the everyday circumstances of individual migrants. Focusing on the suburb of La Rochelle in Johannesburg, we argue that, while this shift represents an important insight for migration research, it remains particularly thin on matters of urban space and migrant spatial decision-making. We look at the spatial presence of Mozambicans in La Rochelle, use property-ownership and interview data to engage in the global discourse on ethnic enclaves, and discuss the peculiar circumstances of the development and life cycle of Johannesburg’s La Rochelle ethnic enclave. Our findings suggest that the Portuguese language has remained central to the development of La Rochelle as an ethnic enclave, though the suburb has taken an atypical trajectory since the end of apartheid that hardly fits the traditional ethnic enclave classification. Importantly, immigrants who move into ethnic enclaves often establish a permanent presence, but the Mozambicans in La Rochelle have forms of permanence in aggregate terms only, as the individual migrants remain transient within La Rochelle and the greater Rosettenville area
Footprints of Islam in Johannesburg.
(Wits University Press, 2014) Dinath, Yasmeen. Patel, Yusuf. Seedat, Rashid.
As the dynamo of South Africa’s economy, Johannesburg commands a central position in the nation’s imagination, and scholars throughout the world monitor the city as an exemplar of urbanity in the global South. This richly illustrated study offers detailed empirical analyses of changes in the city’s physical space, as well as a host of chapters on the character of specific neighbourhoods and the social identities being forged within them. Informing all of these is a consideration of underlying economic, social and political processes shaping the wider Gauteng region. A mix of respected academics, practising urban planners and experienced policymakers offer compelling overviews of the rapid and complex spatial developments that have taken place in Johannesburg since the end of apartheid, along with tantalising glimpses into life on the streets and behind the high walls of this diverse city. The book has three sections. Section A provides an overview of macro spatial trends and the policies that have influenced them. Section B explores the shaping of the city at district and suburban level, revealing the peculiarity of processes in different areas. This analysis elucidates the larger trends, while identifying shifts that are not easily detected at the macro level. Section C is an assembly of chapters and short vignettes that focus on the interweaving of place and identity at a micro level.
Informal Settlements
(Wits University Press, 2014) Huchzermeyer, Marie. Karam, Aly. Maina, Miriam.
A mix of respected academics, practising urban planners and experienced policymakers offer compelling overviews of the rapid and complex spatial developments that have taken place in Johannesburg since the end of apartheid, along with tantalising glimpses into life on the streets and behind the high walls of this diverse city. The book has three sections. Section A provides an overview of macro spatial trends and the policies that have infl uenced them. Section B explores the shaping of the city at district and suburban level, revealing the peculiarity of processes in different areas. This analysis elucidates thelarger trends, while identifying shifts that are not easily detected at the macro level. Section C is an assembly of chapters and short vignettes that focus on the interweaving of place and identity at a micro level.
Inner-city street traders: Legality and spatial practice
(Wits University Press, 2014) Makhetha, Puleng. Rubin, Margot.
A mix of respected academics, practising urban planners and experienced policymakers offer compelling overviews of the rapid and complex spatial developments that have taken place in Johannesburg since the end of apartheid, along with tantalising glimpses into life on the streets and behind the high walls of this diverse city. The book has three sections. Section A provides an overview of macro spatial trends and the policies that have infl uenced them. Section B explores the shaping of the city at district and suburban level, revealing the peculiarity of processes in different areas. This analysis elucidates thelarger trends, while identifying shifts that are not easily detected at the macro level. Section C is an assembly of chapters and short vignettes that focus on the interweaving of place and identity at a micro level.
Making Planning Theory Real
(Planning Theory, 2014) Harrison Phillip
This article argues that contemporary planning theory is underpinned by an anti-realist ontology that has eroded its capacity to engage meaningfully with the materiality of space. The article draws on the experience of the author as a planner in a large city in the global South to illustrate the limits of planning theory. It argues that the ‘southwards turn’ in planning theory has expanded the reach of planning theory but that more is needed. The article then considers the possibility that a new body of philosophical thought known as ‘speculative realism’ may provide an antidote to this anti-realism and support sustained engagement with the objects of planning’s concern.
Materialities, subjectivities and spatial transformation in Johannesburg
(Wits University Press, 2014) Harrison, Philip. Gotz, Graeme. Todes, Alison. Wray, Chris.
As the dynamo of South Africa’s economy, Johannesburg commands a central position in the nation’s imagination, and scholars throughout the world monitor the city as an exemplar of urbanity in the global South. This richly illustrated study offers detailed empirical analyses of changes in the city’s physical space, as well as a host of chapters on the character of specific neighbourhoods and the social identities being forged within them. Informing all of these is a consideration of underlying economic, social and political processes shaping the wider Gauteng region. A mix of respected academics, practising urban planners and experienced policymakers offer compelling overviews of the rapid and complex spatial developments that have taken place in Johannesburg since the end of apartheid, along with tantalising glimpses into life on the streets and behind the high walls of this diverse city. The book has three sections. Section A provides an overview of macro spatial trends and the policies that have infl uenced them. Section B explores the shaping of the city at district and suburban level, revealing the peculiarity of processes in different areas. This analysis elucidates thelarger trends, while identifying shifts that are not easily detected at the macro level. Section C is an assembly of chapters and short vignettes that focus on the interweaving of place and identity at a micro level.
Migrant Women of Johannesburg: Life in an in-between City
(Wits University Press, 2013) Kihato, Caroline.
Johannesburg is filled with many migrants from across Africa and the world, seeking opportunities in the ‘city of gold’. In this book, Caroline Wanjiku Kihato, who began her life in South Africa as a street trader, uses narratives and images to explore the lives of women from Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Congo Brazzaville, Nigeria, Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe, now living in Johannesburg. Using their stories of love, illness, fears, children, violence, family and money, she explores women’s relationships with host and home communities, the South African state, economy and the city of Johannesburg.
Phantoms of the past, Spectres of the present: Chinese space in Johannesburg
(Wits University Press, 2014) Harrison, Philip. Moyo, Khangelani. Yang, Yan.
A mix of respected academics, practising urban planners and experienced policymakers offer compelling overviews of the rapid and complex spatial developments that have taken place in Johannesburg since the end of apartheid, along with tantalising glimpses into life on the streets and behind the high walls of this diverse city. The book has three sections. Section A provides an overview of macro spatial trends and the policies that have influenced them. Section B explores the shaping of the city at district and suburban level, revealing the peculiarity of processes in different areas. This analysis elucidates the larger trends, while identifying shifts that are not easily detected at the macro level. Section C is an assembly of chapters and short vignettes that focus on the interweaving of place and identity at a micro level. With empirical data supported by new data sets including the 2011 Census, the city’s Development Planning and Urban Management Department’s information system, and Gauteng City-Region Observatory’s substantial archive, the book is an essential reference for planning practitioners, urban geographers, sociologists, and social anthropologists, among others.
Practice note on including children in spatial planning and design development processes
(South African Research Chair in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, 2022) Ahmad, Peter. Chetty, Stefanie Mills. de Villiers, Inneke. Halligey, Alex. Harrison, Philip. Hobbs, Stephen. Kruger, Jill. Mayatula, Lekgolo. Swift, Melinda.
There is much work required in Africa to bring the child’s voice into civic processes, and many contextual considerations to take account of, especially in relation to the poverty, vulnerability, and environmental deprivation of many children on the continent. There are some indications, however, of a growing awareness in places of the value of engaging children. By 2022, Child Friendly Cities Initiative programmes have been launched in Mozambique, Senegal, and Guinea, with involvement of UNICEF, national municipal networks, local universities, and civil society, with programmes in the process of setting up in Nigeria and Malawi. The Nairobi headquartered UN-Habitat has also supported child-responsive planning on the continent including through the Future Cities Challenge which encourages children to creatively re-imagine the cities they live in. In Southern Africa, Save the Children has undertaken a broad assessment of children’s participation across the region. South Africa has a National Plan of Action for Children in South Africa which was coordinated by the Department of Women, Children and People with Disabilities, and approved by Cabinet in 2013. It is an important document indicating South Africa’s acceptance of international treaties including the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child but does not address in detail the question of children’s participation in public policy and planning. However, the National Planning Commission, which prepared a National Development Plan (or NDP) in 2012, has launched an initiative called the Children’s NDP. This is an innovative initiative aimed at affirming children’s citizenship and agency. With its play-based experiential and learning method it has taken children through an engaging process of needs analysis and plan making, addressing the lived realities of children in South Africa. The case for children’s participation relates to all forms of future-oriented policy making and planning. This Practice Note however deals specifically with the children’s participation in spatial planning and design development processes that help shape the future form of our towns and cities and is targeted at government officials and private sector professionals in the built environment sector. The Note provides a bit of theory, an introduction to some precedent on engaging children, and some guidance on the process and content of child-friendly planning and design.
Resilient Densification: Four studies from Johannesburg
(2015 University of the Witwatersrand, Gauteng City-Region Observatory, 2015) Todes, Alison. Harrison, Phillip. Weakley, Dylan.
Unlike most cities in the world, over the last 20 years Johannesburg has become more dense and more compact. This reflects the increased rates of rural-urban migration from the late 1980s as urbanisation controls collapsed, but also the relative success of Johannesburg’s economy and democratic-era policies to contain urban sprawl (such as the urban development boundary). The ending of apartheid regulations allowed a release in a pent-up demand for access to large cities with much of the movement directed to the three large metropolitan cities in Gauteng. Densification in the city has occurred in both planned and unplanned ways. In line with directions in planning internationally, post-apartheid planning has placed strong emphasis on urban densification and compaction. At the same time, however, market forces (both formal and informal) have driven densification in the city, in ways that are often unforeseen and sometimes contrary to city policies. In order to plan for further development and to respond effectively to the densification that has happened, and is occurring, research into the processes and effects of densification is clearly needed. In this work we use an “urban resilience lens” to investigate four forms of residential densification in Johannesburg, using four illustrative case-studies. We explore the effects that densification is having in the city, showing how diverse, complex and contingent it often is.
South Africa in the BRICS
(OASIS, 2014) Harrison, Phillip
South Africa’s membership of the BRICS has stirred controversy. A number of observers have argued that South Africa is too small in terms of economy and population to be considered an authentic member of this group. In this article, the author accepts that South Africa may have no place in the analytical construct that Jim O’Neill of Goldman Sachs invented in 2001, but also argues that South Africa is a valuable and legitimate member of the political construct that we know today as the BRIC(S). South Africa has the “soft power” needed to play a constructive role in the rebalancing of geopolitical power globally, and is a potential voice for the continent of Africa. However, South Africa’s position in the BRICS must be understood in terms of its own contested role as a leader in Africa; the ambiguous outcomes of the BRICS engagement with this continent; and the danger that the BRICS may become an exclusive self-selected grouping rather than a potent force for greater global equity.
Soweto: A study in socio-spatial differentiation
(Wits University Press, 2014) Harrison, Philip. Harrison, Kirsten.
A mix of respected academics, practising urban planners and experienced policymakers offer compelling overviews of the rapid and complex spatial developments that have taken place in Johannesburg since the end of apartheid, along with tantalising glimpses into life on the streets and behind the high walls of this diverse city. The book has three sections. Section A provides an overview of macro spatial trends and the policies that have infl uenced them. Section B explores the shaping of the city at district and suburban level, revealing the peculiarity of processes in different areas. This analysis elucidates thelarger trends, while identifying shifts that are not easily detected at the macro level. Section C is an assembly of chapters and short vignettes that focus on the interweaving of place and identity at a micro level. With empirical data supported by new data sets including the 2011 Census, the city’s Development Planning and Urban Management Department’s information system, and Gauteng City-Region Observatory’s substantial archive, the book is an essential reference for planning practitioners, urban geographers, sociologists, and social anthropologists, among others.

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