Urban policy in the Johannesburg region: the case of Eldorado Park and Ennerdale

Abstract

Although urban policy is investigated here, this paper should not be misconstrued as a document in which policy is formulated. Rather, policy itself is subjected to a critical analysis. Changes in urban policy are examined, nationally and locally, with specific reference to Eldorado Park and Ennerdale, two predominantly working-class coloured suburbs in the Johannesburg metropolitan region. Eldorado Park, built since the mid-1960s during a period of relative growth and stability, is largely an expression of socialised housing produced by an in erventionist state. The construction of the suburb appears to fit all too well within the theory which sees collective consumption in terms of the reproduction of labour power. However, confronted by a deepening economic and political crisis since the mid-1970s, the South African state withdrew from the provision of socialised consumption. Construction of the new town of Ennerdale occurred within a context of a new market-oriented urban policy of privatisation and austerity. Evidence from Ennerdale suggests that, during economic crisis, urban policy is oriented toward widening and creating new zones for profitable accumulation. This paper, as well as the broader research project upon which it is based, was born of wonder and astonishment at the incredible event of unprecedented levels of mass struggles shaking an apparently immobile apartheid regime to its very foundations. Moreover, it is a contribution to the new tradition of urban research in the country. The tremendous upheaval and conflict of the 1980s, felt most acutely in our cities, has led to the emergence of a body of radical urban research in South Africa. A deteriorating economy and intensified ideological and political conflict between the state and the dominated classes, manifested as an urban crisis, has provided the context for the rise of this rich body of urban studies.