Imagining Alexandra: conceptualizing and building Alexandra during the Alexandra renewal project (2001-2012)

Abstract

The Alexandra Renewal Project (ARP) was part of a broader national programme of urban renewal that focused on eight central urban nodes that included KwaMashu and Inanda in KwaZulu-Natal; Mdantsane and Motherwell in the Eastern Cape; Khayelitsha and Mitchell’s Plain in the Western Cape; Alexandra in Gauteng; and Galeshewe in the Northern Cape. The research undertaken in this study focuses on a group that has been less interrogated when researching the workings of urban renewal and the ARP- the urban professionals who were involved in the project. By urban professionals, I mean town planners, development consultants, architects, structural engineers, etc. Through in-depth interviews with fifteen key actors who were involved in the ARP’s operations, I sought to gauge how their spatial imaginaries of Alexandra interacted with their material practices throughout their involvement with the ARP’s operations. Using Watkins’ (2015) framing of spatial imaginaries as performative discourse and the Lefebvrian spatial triad as my theoretical framework, my analysis worked to provide insight into how the urban professionals’ spatial imaginaries interacted with the spatial imaginaries of other actors who were directly and indirectly involved with the ARP’s operations. What emerged is that the connection between the urban professionals’ spatial imaginaries and their implementation of the ARP’s aims and objectives was not straightforward. This was because the contestations they encountered during their involvement with the ARP challenged any direct relationship between their spatial imaginaries and their material practices, reshaping both in the process.