Chapter Title: The wrong side of the mining belt? Spatial transformations and identities in Johannesburg’s southern suburbs Chapter Author(s): PHILIP HARRISON and TANYA ZACK Book Title: Changing Space, Changing City Book Subtitle: Johannesburg after apartheid - Open Access selection Book Editor(s): PHILIP HARRISON, GRAEME GOTZ, ALISON TODES and CHRIS WRAY Published by: Wits University Press Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.18772/22014107656.18 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms This content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. Wits University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Changing Space, Changing City This content downloaded from �����������105.243.30.171 on Tue, 06 Jun 2023 09:30:02 +00:00����������� All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 269 14 The wrong side of the mining belt? Spatial transformations and identities in Johannesburg’s southern suburbs P H I L I P H A R R I SO N A N D TA N YA Z AC K Absences and insights Th e southern suburbs are the terra incognita of urban scholarship in Johannesburg. Hart (1968) dealt expressly with this part of Johannesburg and a few other contributions have provided insights into specifi c aspects of the history and development of the southern suburbs (e.g. Mooney 1998; Parnell 1988). Th e seemingly mundane spaces of the historically white working-class south have remained largely outside the purview of the academic elite in Johannesburg, who have directed their att ention to either the spaces of the black working class or to the glitzy spaces of the north. Th e south is the in-between space, seemingly neither poor enough nor rich enough to warrant serious att ention. However, the southern suburbs off er urban researchers a wealth of insight into processes of socio-spatial development in the city. Th ey provide an intriguing window into the social lives and identities of a diversity of groups, but also into the social and cultural construction of space. Th e shaping of space in the south cannot be separated from the emergence and consolidation of a white working class in the early decades of Johannesburg’s mining and industrial history; the state response to an infl ux of largely destitute rural Afrikaners; the arrival of southern European immigrants in signifi cant numbers from the 1940s; the rapid expansion of the white middle class in the 1950s and 1960s; the rapid expansion of a black middle class from the 1990s; and the arrival of large numbers of African migrants, including those from Mozambique, Zimbabwe, the Congo, Nigeria and Somalia. Th e southern suburbs elucidate many other spatial processes shaping Johannesburg with a clarity missing elsewhere in the city. Here the spatial fragmentation of the city is CSCC.indb 269 2014/10/07 5:19 PM This content downloaded from �����������105.243.30.171 on Tue, 06 Jun 2023 09:30:02 +00:00����������� All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Changing SpaCe, Changing City270 barely concealed. The area as a whole retains a level of separateness that has outlasted the south’s distinctive role as a space of the white working class. The suburbs are a motley, poorly connected collection of neighbourhoods, developed separately at different times, with little apparent thought for internal integration or citywide connections. A book celebrating the Turf Club racecourse offers a commentary on its location in the lacklustre southern suburbs: It is not the most beautiful situation; one might even suppose it to have been chosen by mistake. Close by, on the north and west, sit mine dumps … to the south and east lie squat, working class suburbs, their density broken here and there by public transport depots, low-rise commercial and industrial buildings and other uglinesses. (Collings 1987: 10) There are few other spaces in the city where the legacy of mining is so clearly present in the urban landscape. The mining belt creates a physical and perceptual barrier between the southern suburbs and the central-north of the city, and its undermined status for many years froze this belt against development. However, as the old mining land is progressively redeveloped, so the built environment surrounding and intruding into the southern suburbs evolves. This sets the area apart as one of the few places in the city where industrial and residential landscapes are deeply entangled. The development trajectory of the southern suburbs also reflects the spatial effects of state investment in transportation infrastructure. The arrival of freeways in the 1970s and 1980s had a dramatic expansionary impact, opening up a large swathe of land to suburban development. In this chapter we elaborate on these insights with a narrative that broadly follows a chronological ordering. Before doing this, however, we provide a brief scan of the southern suburbs. A scan of the southern suburbs The southern suburbs stretch in an irregular belt between Soweto in the west and Alberton (in the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality) in the east (Figure 14.1). Historically, it was bordered by mining land in the north and the Klipriviersberg in the south but the southern suburbs have now extended into the mining belt, and over and beyond the Klipriviersberg. There is also a sharp differentiation within the area, with common reference to the ‘old South’ – an area of historically white, compact, working-class suburbs and some associated industrial development – and the ‘new South’, an area of middle- and upper-middle-class suburban development that emerged from the late 1960s. Almost every journey to and from the southern suburbs traverses the scarred landscapes associated with mining land, while some of the suburbs are literally wrapped around old mines: West Turffontein, for example, completely surrounds a slime dam while Ormonde is one of the suburbs developed on the old Crown Mines site. Most of the mines closed in the 1970s and gradually (and fitfully) the derelict mining land has been rehabilitated. Today slime dams and mine dumps, and land sterilised by undermining, still interrupt CSCC.indb 270 2014/10/07 5:19 PM This content downloaded from �����������105.243.30.171 on Tue, 06 Jun 2023 09:30:02 +00:00����������� All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms haRRiSOn anD ZaCK • the WROng SiDe OF the Mining BeLt ? 271 suburbia, but there is an assortment of other land uses including residential development, industry, warehousing and wholesale outlets, and recreational and cultural facilities. The ‘old South’ is a historically white working-class area that has housed skilled and semi- skilled workers and been a gateway for working-class immigrants from southern Europe. The core of this area constitutes the suburbs of Rosettenville, Kenilworth, Turffontein, La Rochelle and Regents Park. While each is distinctive, these older suburbs comprise small semi-detached and bungalow-style houses with intermittent row housing and medium-rise walk-ups. They are flanked to the east by the slightly higher-valued residential areas of Linmeyer and The Hill as well as the sub-economic housing estate of South Hills developed for ‘poor whites’, and suburbs such as Unigray and Tulisa Park built for white railway and factory workers. To the west lies the low-middle-class Robertsham, which forms the northern edge of a first belt of emerging middle-class southern suburbs that begin to traverse the hills of the Klipriviersberg, formerly the southern boundary to this part of Johannesburg. Mondeor, Ridgeway, Meredale and Kibler Park are characterised by detached housing set in gardens and a number of shopping malls. At their southern edges they overlook the residential developments that sweep across the hills of the ‘new South’. The ‘new South’ is an expanding area for the middle class and upper middle class, and is characterised by private homes set in large gardens, face-brick townhouse developments and also a number of shopping malls. The suburbs include Winchester Hills, Glenanda, figure 14.1: Johannesburg’s southern suburbs, 2009 (indicating suburbs referred to in this chapter) Data sources: AfriGIS (2011); GTI (2009). Cartography by Jennifer Paul CSCC.indb 271 2014/10/07 5:19 PM This content downloaded from �����������105.243.30.171 on Tue, 06 Jun 2023 09:30:02 +00:00����������� All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Changing SpaCe, Changing City272 Glenvista, Mulbarton and Bassonia. These suburbs were built against the Klipriviersberg range, and are among the most attractive residential neighbourhoods of Johannesburg. They have, since the 1990s, been supplemented with the affluent gated communities of Aspen Hills and Aspen Lakes – security villages of often ostentatious homes surrounded by swathes of open land, all monitored by guards and cameras. Although a 20-year splurge of residential development occurred from the late 1960s, the south still lags behind the north in terms of the scale of development. Identity-in-place: the makings of a white working class, 1886 to 1945 Working-class ‘respectability’ The development of the southern suburbs was closely tied to the formation and evolution of Johannesburg’s white working class. The southern suburbs offered a less desirable location than the northern parts of Johannesburg as they had a harsh micro climate with south-facing slopes and winds blowing the dust from the mine dumps into residential areas. Developers quickly marked out the area for the working class by subdividing the land into relatively small stands – generally around 500  m² compared with a norm of between 1 000 m² and 4 000 m² in the northern suburbs (Hart 1968). The area was initially designated for skilled artisans (electricians, plumbers, builders, carpenters, boilermakers and so forth) who serviced the mines and other emerging industries of Johannesburg. It was an area of ‘working-class respectability’, reflected in the sturdy workers’ cottages laid out in strict gridiron pattern. A key physical and institutional presence in the south was the Turffontein Racecourse. This introduced a strong gambling culture into the south which has persisted to this day, but it also brought Johannesburg’s elite – on occasion, at least – into the working-class suburbs. The Johannesburg Turf Club initiated much of the residential development in the ‘old South’, including the suburb of Turffontein as it developed or sold off portions of its land holdings (Collings 1987). In the early years there was a rush of township establishment in a broad crescent to the south of the mining belt.1 After about 1910, however, development tailed off as opportunities for residential development expanded in the north of the city. From 1910 to 1940 relatively few new residential areas were laid out and these catered for a slightly higher-income group.2 By 1931 only about 14.9 per cent of Johannesburg’s white population lived in the south, a figure that increased only gradually to around 16 per cent in the 1960s (Hart 1968). The tramline between the Johannesburg CBD and the southern suburbs sustained suburban expansion as it provided the critical link across the mining belt in an era when private car ownership was still relatively low in working-class suburbs. The electric tram was introduced to the south in 1906 and gradually extended until the early 1930s (Spit 1976). The southern suburbs were not the only spaces of the white working class in Johannesburg, but they did exhibit peculiar characteristics linked to their ethnic mix. The CSCC.indb 272 2014/10/07 5:19 PM This content downloaded from �����������105.243.30.171 on Tue, 06 Jun 2023 09:30:02 +00:00����������� All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms haRRiSOn anD ZaCK • the WROng SiDe OF the Mining BeLt ? 273 white working class at the time was segmented between an Afrikaner grouping that had arrived from rural areas of South Africa and included a significant proportion of ‘poor whites’; Yiddish-speaking Jews from the western parts of the Russian Empire who came to the goldfields with few resources but with the advantage of a long intellectual and educational tradition; and a relatively skilled English-speaking grouping from the mining regions of the United Kingdom, including Cornwall, Wales and north England. Afrikaners settled mainly in the west of Johannesburg and Jewish immigrants in a band extending north-east from Doornfontein and Hillbrow. English speakers settled in centrally located suburbs along the Witwatersrand Ridge, including Brixton, Jeppe and Malvern. The southern suburbs were more ethnically and linguistically mixed although they were initially English-dominated. In the 1930s, small groups of Jewish families were clustered around the Rosettenville-La Rochelle and Ophirton synagogues (Rubin 2005).3 The Afrikaner presence in the southern suburbs was also relatively small to begin with but it was to expand significantly: in 1938, 20.4 per cent of the municipal voters in the southern suburbs were Afrikaans speaking but this increased to 44.2 per cent by 1961 (Stals 1986). English-speaking immigrants brought a tradition of trade unionism that meshed with a history of Afrikaner struggle. In 1922 – when white workers marched under the banner ‘Workers of the World, Fight and Unite for a White South Africa’ – English and Afrikaner workers drilled together on the streets of Turffontein, La Rochelle, Regents Park and Booysens, and organised attacks on police stations and neighbouring mines (Krikler 2005). In 1924, the (mainly English-speaking) Labour Party, which was strong in the southern suburbs, collaborated with the (mainly Afrikaans-speaking) National Party to form the Pact Government, which introduced measures to protect white labour. The possibility existed of a broad front of white labour that would have been well represented in the ethnically diverse south. However, from the 1930s, instead of a continued process of white working-class formation, there was the ‘growth of a distinct Afrikaner working class consciousness and a sense of cultural distance from English-speaking workers’ (Visser 2005: 141). ‘Poor whites’ In the 1930s the number of Afrikaners on the Witwatersrand expanded rapidly as drought and other dire circumstances in rural areas forced thousands of Afrikaners to move to the cities in what historians have referred to as ‘the last Great Trek’ (Van Jaarsveld 1982). The newly arrived Afrikaners mobilised along ethnic lines and established their own churches, trade unions and social and cultural organisations. Many of these Afrikaners were destitute and fell within a category known as ‘poor whites’. Economically, poor whites were protected by the policies of job reservation introduced by the Pact Government but they competed with Africans for accommodation in inner-city slums and often resided in racially mixed precincts. Parnell (1988) argues that it was this racial mixing that most offended the municipal authority and which prompted it to intervene in the ‘poor-white problem’. Thus, during the 1930s the Johannesburg City Council tried to separate racial groups into CSCC.indb 273 2014/10/07 5:19 PM This content downloaded from �����������105.243.30.171 on Tue, 06 Jun 2023 09:30:02 +00:00����������� All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Changing SpaCe, Changing City274 different housing estates – moving Africans to Orlando, coloureds to Coronationville, and whites to sub-economic housing estates in areas such as Bertrams and Jan Hofmeyr near the inner city. In this way, what may have formed the seeds of an integrated society were forcibly splintered by the state. In the 1930s, planning commenced for around 2 000 sub-economic houses for whites, to be built on open land east of the southern suburbs. The proposed development provoked strong opposition from the established working class in the area but the municipality persevered and eventually around 530 houses were built (Parnell 1988). The housing estate was laid out using Garden City principles ‘in a half-baked way’ (Parnell 1993: 83) and when it was proclaimed in 1942 the estate was patronisingly called ‘Welfare Park’. In the 1960s the name of the estate was changed to South Hills, but the stigma remained. A Wikipedia entry, for example, reports that the colloquial name for South Hills is ‘Storks’, referring to the number of unplanned pregnancies in the suburb.4 In South Hills, as in the sub-economic suburbs near the inner city, whites became tenants of a state that was alarmed at the social pathologies of poor-white communities: ‘In these new suburbs, poor whites were offered a “proper environment” where they were taught how to be hard-working and respectable good whites’ (Teppo 2004: 221). From 1948, there was further development of mainly Afrikaner working-class housing towards the east of the southern suburbs, linked mainly to post-war industrial development. Post-war developments, 1945 to 1970 The post-war era was accompanied by sustained economic growth, which raised many working-class whites into the middle classes, and also by an influx of European immigrants, including from southern Europe. These processes were to significantly influence the spatial form and social composition of the southern suburbs. The ‘American Dream’ Mondeor and Robertsham, both proclaimed in 1948, were the largest of the middle- and new lower-middle-class suburbs built to meet the housing demand of servicemen returning from the war, and in the 1940s and 1950s, middle-class expansion was modest. By the 1960s, however, a sustained period of rapid economic growth in South Africa eventually translated into a middle-class lifestyle among white South Africans that was comparable to that of post-war USA. This was reflected in the mini housing boom in Mondeor, described vividly by an interviewee who grew up in the suburb: This late, miniature version of the ‘American Dream’ was expressed in a lifestyle where just about every family had two cars, wives worked in offices in downtown Johannesburg and could be seen waiting for the morning bus in their stiletto heels, tight skirts and beehive hairstyles. Swimming pools were constructed on many of these newer properties, and Penguin Pools, who seemed to have the monopoly on pool construction, were a byword amongst house-proud suburbanites.5 CSCC.indb 274 2014/10/07 5:19 PM This content downloaded from �����������105.243.30.171 on Tue, 06 Jun 2023 09:30:02 +00:00����������� All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms haRRiSOn anD ZaCK • the WROng SiDe OF the Mining BeLt ? 275 Immigrant gateway From the mid 1940s the southern suburbs emerged as a gateway for immigrant communities arriving from southern Europe (and neighbouring Mediterranean states). Smuts’s immigration programme of 1946 was an attempt to fill the skills gap in the post-war era. It brought Greek, Lebanese, Italian, Portuguese, Irish, Polish and other immigrants to the working-class suburbs of Johannesburg. The initial immigration scheme was short-lived, as Smuts was defeated in 1948 by Afrikaner nationalists who discouraged the immigration of dark-skinned, mainly Catholic southern Europeans, preferring Germans and Dutch. In the 1960s, however, when rapid economic growth led to a growing skills deficit, the National Party government relaxed its immigration policies, allowing for a further (and expanded) influx of immigrants from southern Europe (Glaser 2010; Peberdy 2009). Browett and Hart (1977) identify the southern suburbs as a major point of concentration for these immigrants, with Portuguese migrants clustering in La Rochelle, Regents Park, Rosettenville, Kenilworth and Turffontein. Glaser (2010) explains that the earliest wave of Portuguese arrivals came from the impoverished island of Madeira. This group had been trickling into South Africa from the end of the nineteenth century, and continued to do so until the 1970s. They found a home in unfashionable suburbs where houses were cheap and often shared by an extended family. The second wave involved Portuguese from the mainland who generally had higher levels of education and skill but who also found an entry into Johannesburg in the southern (and eastern) suburbs. The second wave reached its peak in 1966 when over 8 700 immigrants were recorded as arriving from mainland Portugal. The Portuguese occupied an ambivalent position within white South Africa. As Glaser put it, ‘they were white, yes, but on the margins: exotic, darker-skinned, Catholic, poorer than most whites, less educated, keeping to themselves, unpredictable in their loyalties’ (2010: 77). Greek and Lebanese communities also occupied an ambivalent position in South Africa’s white society, which was predominantly Protestant and of northern European origin.6 Some of the communities made special efforts to prove their identification with their host society. One interviewee noted that in their efforts to integrate into South Africa as enfranchised whites, Lebanese immigrants abandoned their language and did not speak it to their children.7 Youth culture The identity of the ‘old South’ was shaped in the context of its diversity of white working- class communities. The youth culture of the south was especially important in shaping this identity. The Ducktail gangs of working-class neighbourhoods in Johannesburg in the 1950s shared many of the characteristics of an international youth culture at the time (akin, for example, to the Teddy Boys in the United Kingdom). They were ‘rebellious, hedonistic, apolitical and displayed little respect for the law, education or work’ (Mooney 1998: 753). CSCC.indb 275 2014/10/07 5:19 PM This content downloaded from �����������105.243.30.171 on Tue, 06 Jun 2023 09:30:02 +00:00����������� All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Changing SpaCe, Changing City276 Ducktails were a partial consequence of the post-war immigration programme. As Mooney explained, ‘this influx and the social dislocation and insecurity that families experienced in moving to a new country, led to the youths forming themselves into ethnically based groups in search of security, familiarity and a sense of belonging’(2006: 182). The gangs were highly territorial and often ethnically exclusive, with Lebanese and Greek gangs gaining special notoriety. In the southern suburbs there were the Rosettenville Gang and the notoriously violent South Hills Gang, which would clash frequently with gangs from the eastern suburbs. Local gangs claimed territory over certain hotels.8 However, despite these divisions, Ducktail culture was hybridised and ‘Ducktail argot was an interesting synthesis of English, Afrikaans and “South African English”, loosely based on old Cockney rhyming slang (“Rub & Tub”) combined with the incorporation of a few Americanisms from the film industry’ (Mooney 2006: 120). The blending of the linguistic traits of different groups into a local patois was especially pronounced in the southern suburbs, where it was famously captured in 1961 by Jeremy Taylor’s hit single ‘Ag Pleez Daddy’ (also known as ‘The Ballad of the Southern Suburbs’). A southern identity The core of the ‘old South’ remained resolutely working class. While around 2  per cent of Johannesburg’s white population earned more than R10  000 per annum in 1970, the proportional figure for the suburbs of Rosettenville, La Rochelle, Kenilworth, Regents Park and South Hills was less than 0.1 per cent.9 Despite the continued working-class identity, there was a switch in political allegiance. From its earliest days the ‘old South’ had been doggedly supportive of the Labour Party, but in the 1950s the mood shifted. This was evidenced when the Labour Party MP for Rosettenville, Alex Hepple, offended his constituency with his radical politics and was rejected in 1958 in favour of a United Party MP. From then on, there was no obvious political home for the waning white working class. Our interviewees revealed considerable nostalgia for the 1960s as the heyday of white working-class culture. In that decade, before the arrival of television and the economic and political uncertainties of the 1970s, social life happened in the high streets, hotels, cinemas and sports clubs of the old suburbs. Our respondents reminisced about dancing and partying in the Portuguese Hall, the Italian Club and in local hotels; carousing at the drive-in cinemas; drinking in the Lebanese-run backyard shebeens; sharing late-night milkshakes and toasted sandwiches in the roadhouses (that remained open after hotels had closed their doors at midnight); and socialising at the public swimming pools. Sport was an important element of the local culture with boxing, soccer, rugby, tennis, horse racing and pigeon racing featuring prominently in stories we were told of the 1960s. The south was also remembered as a tough place with gang violence and ethnic rivalries.10 The southern suburbs identity that had coalesced by the 1960s was a deliberate counterpoint to perceived behaviours and identities in the north. Residents of the south saw the north as pretentious and effete in contrast to the gritty honesty and practicality CSCC.indb 276 2014/10/07 5:19 PM This content downloaded from �����������105.243.30.171 on Tue, 06 Jun 2023 09:30:02 +00:00����������� All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms haRRiSOn anD ZaCK • the WROng SiDe OF the Mining BeLt ? 277 of the south. This identity has persisted in the ‘old South’ although it has been diluted by recent immigration. In a 2004 study on white identity in Johannesburg, it was said of the proletarian south that ‘there was no norm of an intellectual culture here. There were elements of a hearty and mean local chauvinism’ (Stewart 2004: 134–135). Spatial transformations Development through the 1950s and early 1960s was incremantal. However, from the late 1960s powerful processes were to fundamentally transform the face of the south. In the post-war era, private car ownership expanded dramatically, including within working- class suburbs. The electric tramway’s key link to the south was closed in 1957, with all tramway operations terminated by 1961 (Spit 1976). The tramways were followed by electric trolley and then diesel buses, but public transportation was in sharp decline. By the 1960s white South Africa was a car-oriented society with levels of car ownership exceeded only in North America, and investment in public transportation was almost entirely abandoned. The period of sustained economic growth through the 1950s and 1960s largely benefited the politically powerful white population. It lifted a large proportion of the white working class into the middle class and created a pent-up demand for middle-class suburban expansion. This coincided with the freeway developments around Johannesburg and also with the release of land by mining companies for residential development. There were other changes. In 1961 Southdale, adjoining Robertsham, was established as Johannesburg’s first out-of-town shopping centre. It was a modest development but it heralded the beginning of a major shift in retail typology across the city. Furthermore, there was also a significant improvement in the number and quality of services in the southern suburbs, with the white working class proving highly successful in making demands on the state. There were, for example, new recreational facilities, the opening of the South Rand Hospital, and the development of a number of new (mainly Afrikaans-language) schools. While the southern suburbs were the spaces of the white working class (with some middle-class incursions in the post-war era), there was, importantly, also an island of the African elite. St Peters Secondary School, both a school and a seminary, was opened in 1907 in Rosettenville for African males (the same year that St Agnes School, where ‘native girls could be trained as useful servants’, was opened in Rosettenville [ Joubert 1998: 11]).11 The ‘new South’: suburban expansion in the orbital motorway, the 1970s and 1980s The next great rush of suburban growth was associated with the planning and construction of Johannesburg’s ‘orbital motorway’, which dramatically changed the relative advantage of locations in the south for new development. The construction of Johannesburg’s ring road began in the late 1960s and proceeded in phases until the N12, or southern bypass, was CSCC.indb 277 2014/10/07 5:19 PM This content downloaded from �����������105.243.30.171 on Tue, 06 Jun 2023 09:30:02 +00:00����������� All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Changing SpaCe, Changing City278 finally completed in 1986. It was the anticipation of the N12 that led to the emergence of the so-called ‘new South’. There were 25 township establishments in the 1970s. These were middle-class suburbs that profoundly changed the class composition of the south. By the end of the 1980s, it was no longer possible to characterise (white) Johannesburg in terms of the wealthy north and working-class south, as the south had expansive middle-class areas (the ‘new South’) as well as the traditional working-class suburbs (the ‘old South’). The expansion was facilitated by the Johannesburg City Council, which was incrementally and deliberately expanding its boundaries to incorporate peri-urban areas. The new suburbs had individual properties around four times larger than in the ‘old South’. With little regard for environmental considerations, developers built over the hills of the Klipriviersberg, taking advantage of the spectacular views offered along the ecologically sensitive ridges. During the 1970s, suburban development in the south actually outpaced that of the north of Johannesburg (Beavon 2004). This growth, however, slowed markedly from the mid 1980s, coincident with the stagnation of the South African economy and infrastructural constraints on expansion to the south. Such constraints included a lack of sewer outfall capacity and stronger environmental controls, such as the proclamation of the 680-hectare Klipriviersberg Nature Reserve in 1984. Strategies of the mining companies Alongside the development of freeways, the strategic decision of mining companies to release land for property development was a significant force in the expansion of the south. In the early 1960s, eight large gold mines operated in the Central Rand Goldfield immediately adjoining the southern suburbs, but all had closed by the late 1970s owing to the growing cost and difficulty of deep-level mining (Viljoen 2009). Much of the mining land was dangerously undermined and environmentally damaged but significant tracts of land held development opportunity. The biggest land owner by far was Rand Mines Limited with a huge tract of land across the mining belt, comprising at least 13 per cent of the land area of Johannesburg Municipality at the time (Prinsloo 1993). In 1968, Rand Mines Property (RMP) was established and listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. An architectural and planning office was set up at RMP under the directorship of well-known architect Ivor Prinsloo, and a Master Plan for the area was produced by a consortium led by Roelof Uytenbogaardt from the University of Cape Town. The plan proposed restructuring development by grouping land uses, organising east-west movement, and reclaiming derelict land for residential, industrial, business and recreation purposes in a systematic way (RMP 1969, 1971). Many of the proposals were advanced for their time, including the idea of an express bus route that prefigured the present-day Bus Rapid Transit system. The choice portion of RMP land was the old Crown Mines site. Multiple proposals for its use were outlined, with Ormonde New Town development as a central feature CSCC.indb 278 2014/10/07 5:19 PM This content downloaded from �����������105.243.30.171 on Tue, 06 Jun 2023 09:30:02 +00:00����������� All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms haRRiSOn anD ZaCK • the WROng SiDe OF the Mining BeLt ? 279 (Prinsloo 1993). The planning for Ormonde was cutting edge, grounded in ideals of urban ecology and drawing on an avant-garde modernism.12 The plan was, however, devised within the context of the Group Areas Act, and Ormonde was intended for around 40 000 middle- to upper-middle-income whites, separated from Soweto by a buffer of industry and warehousing (RMP 1969, 1971).13 Ormonde was proclaimed in 1973 but it never attracted the white middle class as expected. The development was interrupted by the 1976 Soweto uprising which created growing anxiety around white residential settlement near black townships.14 But Ormonde expanded incrementally over time and more rapidly when apartheid barriers began to break down and, in a departure from the original vision, lower-middle-class residential demand was catered for. Beyond Ormonde, the staccato development of the mining belt continued with RMP (later known as iProp) developing 1 065 hectares of land between 1968 and 1980 for uses including a fresh produce market, a flower market, the Gold Reef City casino, industrial townships and office developments. Among the largest developments were the government- sponsored Nasrec Expo Centre (1984) and Nasrec Soccer Stadium (1989) on the Crown Mines site on land purchased from the mining company. In 2010, the refurbished stadium was a centrepiece in the FIFA Soccer World Cup. A Portuguese influx The spatial development of the ‘old South’ during the 1970s and 1980s was gradual, but it was socially significant. There was a shift in character as the Portuguese community became increasingly dominant in some areas, especially around Rosettenville, Regents Park and La Rochelle. In the mid 1970s the Portuguese administrations in Angola and Mozambique collapsed, and large numbers of colonial Portuguese fled to South Africa where many found a home in the southern suburbs of Johannesburg. Eventually as many as 400  000 Portuguese were living in South Africa with perhaps as many as 70 000 in the southern suburbs. The Portuguese-medium newspaper O  Século de Joanesburgo, with its offices in Ormonde, claimed a circulation of 40 000 and a readership of over 200 000 (Glaser 2010). Glaser reveals that these newcomers established their own Mozambican and Angolan associations when they arrived in South Africa, but that they were drawn into the established Portuguese communities by the ties of language and church. Portuguese cultural life in the southern suburbs proliferated.15 The (colonial) Portuguese influx reinforced the conservative, family-oriented traditions of the ‘old South’. With many of the Portuguese being tradesmen, the increasingly shabby suburbs in the south were given a makeover, and Portuguese cultural markers like blue porcelain tiles, grapevines and religious statues became local features. Rosettenville and La Rochelle became known for their Portuguese eateries. The Portuguese-style Nando’s fast-food restaurant, established in Rosettenville in 1987, expanded into a global chain and is now represented in 34 countries. CSCC.indb 279 2014/10/07 5:19 PM This content downloaded from �����������105.243.30.171 on Tue, 06 Jun 2023 09:30:02 +00:00����������� All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Changing SpaCe, Changing City280 Democracy and space in the southern suburbs, the 1990s onwards Differentiated change There have been far-reaching socio-spatial transformations in the southern suburbs associated with the arrival and consolidation of democracy in South Africa, and that are indicated in the figures provided by Census 2011.16 An initial overview of the data revealed a high degree of differentiation within the southern suburbs and even within the broad categories ‘old South’ and ‘new South’. Post-apartheid spatial transformations have been far from uniform. The data suggest that the southern suburbs may now, broadly speaking, be divided into at least seven demographic zones, each with distinctive characteristics but with the inevitable blurring of boundaries between (see Figure 14.1): 1. The historic core of the ‘old South’ (Rosettenville, Turffontein, Kenilworth, Regents Park and La Rochelle); 2. The sector of the ‘old South’ historically characterised by public housing for ‘poor whites’ (e.g. South Hills, Unigray, Tulisa Park); 3. Suburbs in the ‘old South’ which were historically of higher income than the core (e.g. The Hill, Townsview, Oakdene); 4. Suburbs to the east of the ‘old South’ which were historically developed for the emergent white middle class during and immediately after World War Two (e.g. Robertsham, Mondeor, Ridgeway, Alan Manor, Southdale); 5. A zone of interface with Soweto, with a mix of older developments associated with the old and new South, and new post-1994 expansion (e.g. Ormonde, Meredale, Southgate, Naturena, Kibler Park); 6. The suburbs of the ‘new South’ developed from the 1970s for the white middle class (e.g. Winchester Hills, Glenanda, Glenvista, Mulbarton and Bassonia); 7. Expansion to the ‘new South’ through the development of gated nature estates (e.g. Aspen Hills). Within these zones there is a differential mix of demographic processes, including the in-migration of low-income Africans, both South African and foreign nationals; the in- migration of an emergent and established black middle class; the in-migration of middle- class Indians of South African origin, with a trickle also of new migrants from Asia; white flight from suburbs undergoing rapid demographic transition; and white movement into new enclaves. The southern suburbs have become a cauldron of the changing post-apartheid space and society. It is impossible to adequately represent the extent and complexity of this transformation, but we illustrate below what has been happening through a brief account of a ‘representative’ suburb within each zone. Tables 14.1 and 14.2 provide a comparative view of the suburbs, and a more detailed demographic analysis is referred to in the discussions of the suburbs that follow. CSCC.indb 280 2014/10/07 5:19 PM This content downloaded from �����������105.243.30.171 on Tue, 06 Jun 2023 09:30:02 +00:00����������� All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms haRRiSOn anD ZaCK • the WROng SiDe OF the Mining BeLt ? 281 Demographic indicators Rosettenville South Hills The Hill Robertsham Ormonde Glenvista Aspen Hills 1996 population 8 381 3 903 3 170 5 393 1 394 5 471 n/a 2011 population 17 318 8 716 4 092 6 727 9 820 10 176 1 556 % change in population, 1996–2011 +107 +123 +29 +16 +604 +86 n/a Population density, 2011 persons/km2 7 569 7 525 2 498 1 959 1 970 1 898 939 % white, 1996 64.8 75.5 75.6 60.9 54.0 77.6 n/a % white, 2011 12.0 33.3 55.3 23.1 2.3 60.3 42.0 % African, 1996 25.1 15.0 20.2 15.7 20.7 17.8 n/a % African, 2011 77.1 51.3 30.2 18.0 64.4 23.2 32.2 % Indian/Asian, 1996 2.6 1.9 1.3 16.7 16.0 2.9 n/a % Indian/Asian, 2011 1.8 2.7 4.8 49.8 20.8 10.5 6.5 % foreign national, 2011 31.2 13.5 19.8 8.5 10.8 12.7 n/a table 14.1: Comparative demographic indicators for selected suburbs, Johannesburg, 1996 and 2011 Source: StatsSA (1998; 2012) Economic indicators Rosettenville South Hills The Hill Robertsham Ormonde Glenvista Aspen Hills % of households owning homes 19.8 37.8 57.8 64.9 71.6 71.5 80.5 % very poor or indigent households (R307 200 p.a. ) 6.4 8.3 23.9 27.0 37.3 47.4 58.0 table 14.2: Comparative indicators of class structure for selected suburbs Johannesburg, 2011 Source: StatsSA (1998; 2012) Rapid and contested transitions at the core of the ‘old South’ (Rosettenville) Rosettenville and its immediately adjoining suburbs were, as noted, the home of a white working class that was predominantly English but with a growing Afrikaner and Portuguese presence in later years. From the 1990s (and especially after 2000) this area has experienced dramatic demographic and social transitions. Large numbers of Africans from South Africa and other African countries have moved in, occupying stand-alone houses, backyard rooms and apartments. According to the 1996 Census report, there were 2 100 Africans CSCC.indb 281 2014/10/07 5:19 PM This content downloaded from �����������105.243.30.171 on Tue, 06 Jun 2023 09:30:02 +00:00����������� All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Changing SpaCe, Changing City282 in Rosettenville, representing 25 per cent of the suburb’s population. By 2011, there were 13 449 Africans, or 78 per cent of the population. As Africans moved in, the white population left, with the white proportion of the total declining sharply from 65 per cent to 12 per cent, and numbers dropping from 5  437 to 2  079 over the same period of time. Racial change was linked to a shift from owner- occupied dominance to a predominantly rental market. By 2011, fewer than 20 per cent of the population owned their homes. The increase in foreign nationals resident in the area has also been dramatic. The 2011 Census reveals that 31 per cent (or 50 per cent of Africans) were born outside South Africa. The actual figures may, however, be considerably higher as many transnational migrants live ‘under the radar’ and don’t announce their presence to Census officials. Census figures by country of origin per suburb are not available, but the figures do indicate that the foreign migrants come predominantly from the SADC17 countries, although there is a significant minority from the ‘rest of Africa’. Indications are that Rosettenville and surrounds have a particularly strong Mozambican presence. La Rochelle, a previously white Portuguese enclave, remains one of Johannesburg’s few suburbs where a language classified as ‘other’ dominated. Here, Portuguese-speaking African Mozambicans have moved in, often renting from white Portuguese home owners.18 A ward councillor in the area told us that ‘the Mozambicans are in La Rochelle, the Congolese in Roseacre, the Nigerians in Rosettenville, South African blacks in Turffontein and the Zimbabweans all over’.19 This may oversimplify a more variegated pattern, but it does suggest a degree of local ethnic clustering. A 2006 survey by the Forced Migration Programme at the University of the Witwatersrand confirmed the clustering of Mozambicans in the ‘old South’, not only in La Rochelle but across an area known generally to immigrants as ‘Rosettenville’, but which includes suburbs such as Turffontein and Kenilworth (Landau 2010).20 The ethnic patterning emerging in the area is also happening at a micro scale. Ostanel (2011) wrote of how Mozambican migrants occupy ethnically defined spaces such as eating houses, bars and internet cafes. One of our interviewees reinforced this observation of ethnic clustering and solidarity, telling us that: Here we live in a segregated way; we live in groups. When you go to a certain club or a certain restaurant, you will find only Angolans and Mozambicans. In another club you will find Nigerians. In yet another club, 90 per cent of those who go there are Ghanaian. We all have our own particular spots and we know our spot. Everyone knows where to go and where not to go.21 A respondent from Cote d’Ivoire says, ‘We go to church together, we cut our hair together, we go shopping. We eat in African restaurants; we meet in internet cafes.’22 The proliferation of hair salons relates to the social function of this activity: the salons cater mainly to customers who have their hair attended to at least twice a week. Here immigrants share news from ‘home’ and from the local neighbourhood, and discuss tactics necessary to CSCC.indb 282 2014/10/07 5:19 PM This content downloaded from �����������105.243.30.171 on Tue, 06 Jun 2023 09:30:02 +00:00����������� All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms haRRiSOn anD ZaCK • the WROng SiDe OF the Mining BeLt ? 283 survive in a sometimes hostile environment. Internet cafes perform a similar function: they allow for transnational financial transfers and are places to job hunt and to find out about accommodation possibilities. But respondents also indicated that ethnic clustering is a safety strategy. For instance, ‘Immigrants prefer to frequent bars rather than shebeens, because it is threatening to drink in South African-dominated shebeens, less threatening to drink in more public places.’23 Two narratives of contemporary processes of change compete in this part of the ‘old South’. The first is of physical decay and rising crime, and the second is of increasing social vibrancy and diversity. Local ward councillors and some long-standing residents point to the migrant influx as a tipping point, and express despair at properties being taken over by criminal syndicates, the emergence of prostitution and drug dealing, and a surge in illegal land uses. One white interviewee bemoaned the invasion of foreigners and the overcrowding, saying that ‘the old South is now the new Hillbrow’.24 A local estate agent advised us that the influx of migrants into the ‘old South’ has been especially dramatic since 2005.25 A degree of physical deterioration has clearly occurred in the ‘old South’ since the early 2000s, as the newcomers are a largely transient, tenant grouping compared with the stable owner-occupier communities of the past. Landlords frequently take advantage of migrants, crowding them into dwellings, extracting unreasonably high rents and failing to maintain properties (Landau 2009). The competing narrative of a new social (and even economic) vibrancy has to do with new forms of entrepreneurialism and new activities evident in the ‘old South’. A businessman who manages retail space pointed to the high levels of entrepreneurialism among new African migrants, arguing that there is still a thriving market for retail in the ‘old South’ – ‘it’s just that there are different customers now’.26 He explained that the demand is now for smaller and shared shop spaces. The new vibrancy is also indicated in the proliferation of informal economic activities such as shebeens, internet cafes, spaza shops, eating houses and hairdressing salons. Our survey of visible informal activity in the core of the ‘old South’ is mapped in Figure 14.2. The proliferation of churches is a particular feature of the immigrant presence with Landau referring to religion as one of the key strategies ‘for negotiating inclusion and belonging while transcending ethnic, national and transnational paradigms’ (2009: 197).27 Many of the new churches have their origins in Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and are linked to evangelical and Pentecostal movements across Africa, but Brazil’s Universal Church of the Kingdom of God also has a strong presence, offering daily Portuguese-language services for Mozambican and Angolan immigrants. The role of Rosettenville and adjoining suburbs as an immigrant gateway is similar to that of inner-city Johannesburg, and in some respects this area is a southerly extension of the inner city, leapfrogging the mining belt. However, population pressures and densities are still many times lower than that of the inner city, and also less than in suburbs such as Yeoville, which began the demographic transition about a decade earlier than Rosettenville. Immigrants we interviewed indicated that they are attracted to the ‘old South’ because it is safer and quieter than inner-city localities.28 CSCC.indb 283 2014/10/07 5:19 PM This content downloaded from �����������105.243.30.171 on Tue, 06 Jun 2023 09:30:02 +00:00����������� All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Changing SpaCe, Changing City284 ‘Poor whites’ in a new world (South Hills) While the white working class in Rosett enville disassembled, the ‘poor whites’ in South Hills remained. In 1996, there were 2 947 whites in South Hills and by 2011 there were still 2 908, a mere 1 per cent decline. However, the proportion of whites dropped from 75.5 per cent to 33.3 per cent as the population overall more than doubled – driven by the growth of an African and coloured population. We may speculate that, unlike the white communities of Rosett enville, the whites of South Hills lacked the resources to move on. Th e case of South Hills is rare in Johannesburg as in almost all instances post-apartheid demographic transition in historically white working-class suburbs has led to a near complete replacement of white residents by black residents. What emerged in South Hills figure 14.2: Location of informal activities identifi ed in a survey of Rosettenville, La Rochelle, Kenilworth and Turff ontein, 2012 Cartography by Geoff rey Bickford Spaza/tuckshop Automotive/mechanic/panel beater Creche/nursery school/day care Church/religious venue Shebeen Hair/beauty salon Other CSCC.indb 284 2014/10/07 5:19 PM This content downloaded from �����������105.243.30.171 on Tue, 06 Jun 2023 09:30:02 +00:00����������� All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms HARRISON AND ZACK • THE WRONG SIDE OF THE MINING BELT ? 285 is an unusually integrated suburb with 51.3 per cent Africans, 33.3 per cent whites, 12.2 per cent coloureds and a smattering of other groups. The class and income profiles of Rosettenville and South Hills are now very similar – both are areas with a mix of indigent and low-income households, with virtually no middle- class residence. There are, however, some differences: in South Hills, Afrikaans remains the dominant language spoken by the white and coloured communities; home ownership is more prevalent, reflecting government efforts to transfer rental stock to ownership; and there are fewer foreign nationals. Ironically, it is in South Hills, which has long been associated with right-wing politics in the marginalised white community, that there are at least glimpses of an emergent society of racial crossover. The integration process has been fractious and complex but persistent, as explained by Vandeyar and Jansen (2008) in their story of how the previously all-white Afrikaans-language Hoërskool JG Strijdom in South Hills underwent a transition to social and demographic diversity, even changing its name to Diversity High School in 2005. Relative stability along the ridge (The Hill) While Rosettenville and some neighbouring suburbs may be attracting attention in the media for crime, grime and decay, there are suburbs in the ‘old South’ where change is slow. These are suburbs which are working class but which have, historically, had a slightly more elevated income profile than places like Rosettenville or Turffontein. They are a little further away from the grit of the mining belt and are strung out along the ridge with expansive views to the south and northwards to the city skyline. In The Hill, for example, whites remain in a majority, despite an increase in the African and coloured populations. Overall population increase and densification has been slow – less than 30 per cent over 15 years – and the majority of households are still home owners. Councillors and property agents report stable property markets.29 Muslim space in the west (Robertsham) A mainly Muslim Indian population has concentrated in Robertsham and Ridgeway where there are now six mosques, and, to some extent, also in Mondeor and other neighbouring suburbs. This area now forms part of a broad arc of Indian residence in the city, from Lenasia in the south-west of Johannesburg to Fordsburg and Mayfair on the western side of the inner city. Already in 1996, 16.7 per cent of Robertsham’s population was Indian, indicating processes similar to those in Mayfair where Indians gradually infiltrated despite the Group Areas Act, often using whites as nominees. In 2011, 50 per cent of Robertsham’s population was classified as Indian/Asian, representing an absolute increase from 902 to 3 353 Indians. At the same time, the proportion of whites declined from 61 per cent to 23 per cent with an absolute decline from 3 277 to 1 551. There was only a small increase in the African population. While the demographics of Robertsham have shifted, the suburb has retained its lower middle-class/stable working-class profile. The expansion of the Indian population has CSCC.indb 285 2014/10/07 5:19 PM This content downloaded from �����������105.243.30.171 on Tue, 06 Jun 2023 09:30:02 +00:00����������� All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Changing SpaCe, Changing City286 stimulated the property market, with the participants of a focus group we held with former residents of the ‘old South’ crediting Indian households for a wave of gentrification in and around Robertsham, as homes have been extended and upgraded. The tendency of the (mainly Muslim) Indian population to concentrate their residences in specific areas is linked to the importance of being near religious facilities (the process of expanding Muslim space in Johannesburg is explained in Chapter 23). And while Indian residential space has extended into the western parts of the ‘old South’, this community has retained strong links with the historically Indian township of Lenasia, with many children from households in the southern suburbs still attending schools in Lenasia.30 The African middle class and the interface with Soweto (Ormonde) The expansion of the African middle class has been one of the key drivers of spatial change in post-apartheid Johannesburg (Crankshaw 2008). The emergent and established African middle class has moved into previously white suburbs, although some segments of the middle class have remained in historically African townships, and especially in Soweto.31 In making locational choices, the African middle class is responding to the opportunity to move into high-amenity residential suburbs previously reserved for whites, but also to the desire to remain physically connected to social networks and cultural experiences in the townships. The southern suburbs closest to Soweto provide the opportunity to do both. The interface zone in the southern suburbs is separated from Soweto by the mining belt and freeways but is growing towards Soweto through infill and new expansion. In 1996, Ormonde, for example, was a small, failed, residential suburb with a population of 1 394. It was already reasonably mixed racially but had a white majority. Between 1996 and 2011 Ormonde’s population expanded by over 600 per cent to 9 820, with all the new growth from African, Indian and coloured households. The white proportion dropped from 55 per cent to a negligible 2 per cent, with Africans increasing from 21 per cent to 64 per cent, and Indians from 16 per cent to 21 per cent. The new residential developments were private, and catered to the emergent black middle class. In 2011, 72 per cent of Ormonde’s households owned their own house. Population increase has been equally significant in the other suburbs along the interface, although there are some differences between the suburbs. Meredale, for example, is attracting higher numbers of coloured households because of its relative proximity to the coloured township of Eldorado Park. And not all the spillover from Soweto is middle class. An extension to Naturena has a distinctly working-class Soweto character, with an energetic street life and informal activities including spaza shops, street traders and doctors’ consulting rooms on residential properties. The interface may either be regarded as part of a gradual extension of Soweto into the southern suburbs or as a new socio-spatial formation which has hybridised Soweto with the southern suburbs. This spatial configuration has begun to erode the deeply entrenched perceptual divide between Soweto and the southern suburbs. An illustration of this redefinition of spatial identity can be found in the Southern Johannesburg Business and CSCC.indb 286 2014/10/07 5:19 PM This content downloaded from �����������105.243.30.171 on Tue, 06 Jun 2023 09:30:02 +00:00����������� All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms HARRISON AND ZACK • THE WRONG SIDE OF THE MINING BELT ? 287 Tourism Association’s concept of a Business, Tourism and Recreation Loop linking the southern suburbs and Soweto. Politically, this area of interface is the only part of the southern suburbs which is not a stronghold of the opposition Democratic Alliance, a party mainly supported by white, coloured and Indian voters. The African National Congress controls the two wards in the southern suburbs closest to Soweto. White dominance in the ‘new South’ (Glenvista) The ‘new South’ remains majority white. Not only has the white population retained its dominance but it has grown in absolute terms. In the case of Glenvista, the number of whites increased from 4 246 in 1996 to 6 137 in 2011. There is a link between the ‘old South’ (of white working-class days) and the ‘new South’, as many of the families who made good in the ‘old South’ moved into the ‘new South’, taking with them ethnically oriented associations and establishments. Examples include the well-known Calisto’s Portuguese Restaurant which was relocated from Turffontein to Gillview, and also the Lebanese Maronite Church which established in the suburb of Liefde-en-Vrede in 2001, recongregating the Lebanese community which had dispersed across the city.32 The suburbs in the ‘new South’ still have the highest proportion of Europe- born residents in any part of Johannesburg, although migrants from Europe are overall now a tiny proportion of total transnational immigrants. Although the ‘new South’ may be forging a social character that is at least partly different from other middle-class areas in Johannesburg, it is also mimicking the north in its patterns of development. For example, the retail offerings and spatial forms of the shopping malls are very similar to those in the north, as are the gated qualities and aesthetic sensibilities of the new generation of residential estates with their fake Tuscan and Bali-style architecture. A retreat into eco-estates (Aspen Hills Nature Estate) Some of the newest expansion in the ‘new South’ – within Johannesburg and immediately across the border in Ekurhuleni and Midvaal – has taken the form of ‘eco-estates’ with mansion- style living in estates with quiet roads and footpaths, nature reserves hosting antelope and other wild animals, and no private boundary walls. The Aspen Hills Nature Estate, 8 km from the Johannesburg CBD in the ‘new South’, is marketed as country-style living: Imagine awakening every morning to the sweet sound of birdsong, breathing in the fresh country air and being enveloped with a sense of peace and security that nothing can spoil … Be part of the select few who escape the imprisoned lifestyle of suburban living.33 Extreme measures are taken to secure the safety of residents in this estate, including more than a hundred cameras that provide thermal imaging and follow visitors to their destinations within the estate.34 A prominent resident of the southern suburbs, owner of the Calisto’s restaurant, has moved to an eco-estate where, he says, his children can roam the streets freely as he did in the ‘old South’ of his youth.35 This notion of the ‘old South’ as a safe place was echoed by an CSCC.indb 287 2014/10/07 5:19 PM This content downloaded from �����������105.243.30.171 on Tue, 06 Jun 2023 09:30:02 +00:00����������� All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Changing SpaCe, Changing City288 estate agent who noted that the form created by semi-detached housing, compact properties and small apartments was a precursor to the perceived safety created by ‘cluster living’.36 As may be expected, the Aspen Hills Nature Estate has the highest proportion of middle- class residents and home owners of all selected suburbs. However, there is not an absolute majority of white residents and there is also a large proportion of ‘indigent or very poor’ households. The reason for this is that the affluent residents of Aspen Hills are served by a significant number of African domestic and other workers. Business nodes The ‘new South’ mimics the northern suburbs in terms of its polycentric pattern of decentralised commercial development. There is a network of neighbourhood shopping nodes in the south, but also two mega regional shopping malls that rival centres in the north in terms of size. The first is the Southgate Shopping Mall, established in 1990 between Mondeor and Soweto at a major freeway junction, with 69 750 m² of commercial space.37 Initially, Southgate was intended to serve a mainly white middle-class market that had expanded in the region since the 1960s but it soon reoriented towards the spending power of the rising black middle class, and became a key retail node for residents in Soweto. The next major development was The Glen, launched in 1998 in Oakdene near the Camaro Junction on the N12. Its main market is the middle- and upper-middle-class suburbs of the ‘new South’. Despite these nodes and a number of linear strips of business activity, the southern suburbs still barely feature in terms of formal business development citywide. In the period 2006–2010 there were only 196 rezonings in the southern suburbs, which was around 4 per cent of the total for Johannesburg as a whole, and not one of the 21 office nodes in Johannesburg analysed annually by the South African Property Owners Association is in the southern suburbs.38 There is, however, a significant emergent business node in Ormonde which includes a business park with the headquarters of De Beers Corporation, a large casino and the Apartheid Museum. Conclusion In this chapter we sought to remedy the ‘forgottenness’ of the south but also to use the southern suburbs to illustrate the ongoing evolution of space in Johannesburg, connected as it is with social and political transformations. An important work on Johannesburg, titled City of Extremes (Murray 2011), invokes an image of Johannesburg as a continuation and even an exaggeration of apartheid divisions. It is a popular academic argument about the city. Our assessment of the south suggests that the realities within the city’s neighbourhoods are more complex. There is a substantial class divide in the south (between the ‘old South’ and the ‘new South’), but within each of these new categories there is complexity and blurring. Suburbs are racially and ethnically diverse; identities are being revised and new forms of mixing are occurring in spaces such as churches, where cultural and ethnic divisions are overridden by social and religious cohesion. CSCC.indb 288 2014/10/07 5:19 PM This content downloaded from �����������105.243.30.171 on Tue, 06 Jun 2023 09:30:02 +00:00����������� All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms HARRISON AND ZACK • THE WRONG SIDE OF THE MINING BELT ? 289 In the intricate mix of spatial stability and spatial turbulence in the southern suburbs, the outlines of new urban futures are present in their utopian and dystopian forms. The ‘old South’ may be pointing us towards a future of decay and new forms of socio-spatial segregation or to a new ‘Afropolitanism’ in which diversity and new entrepreneurial and social energies restore urbanity to the city. The ‘new South’ may be pointing to the retreat of the middle class into fortress-like enclaves, on individual properties and in collective estates, or to new forms of interracial solidarity in response to common ‘middle-class concerns’. The old identities of the southern suburbs, established during a period of predominantly white working-class residence, have been significantly eroded, although they linger in some circles. While older residents may still have a fierce loyalty to the ‘old South’, the new arrivals have transnational identities and live transiently between places. There may, however, be the beginnings of a revised identity for the south which has to do with social diversity. Significantly, despite the large immigrant presence, the ‘old South’ did not experience xenophobic attacks during the violence of May 2008, with a local ward councillor suggesting that this is because there is more experience of living with diversity in the ‘old South’ than elsewhere.39 This Afropolitanism is, however, fractious at best, given the high levels of social segregation between communities that live in close proximity, and the ethnic and racial prejudice which prevails. Our task is to ‘envisage alternative futures whose very propagation might help them to be realised’ (Giddens 1990: 154). Acknowledgements This chapter has been written with the research assistance of a number of people. Melinda Silverman contributed desktop research, interview material and valuable insights. Ori Ben Zeev and Isabella Kentridge undertook archival research, with Isabella also conducting several of the interviews. Geoffrey Bickford assisted with mapping while Peter Ahmad of the City of Johannesburg provided valuable data. John Harrison, a previous resident of the southern suburbs, assisted with editing and provided insight into the history of the area.40 This work is based upon research supported by the South African Research Chairs Initiative of the Department of Science and Technology and the National Research Foundation. Notes 1 Including Ophirton (1886), Booysens (1887), Rosettenville (1889), Turffontein (1889), La Rochelle (1895), Regents Park (1904) and Kenilworth (1907). 2 The Hill (1919), Townsview (1922) and Haddon (1927). 3 Only two of Johannesburg’s 40 synagogues were in the southern suburbs. 4 See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Hills,_Gauteng. 5 Email from Richard Holden, 8 December 2010. 6 Initially, the Lebanese were regarded as non-white (Asiatic) but an Appeal Court ruling in 1913 reversed this classification. 7 Interview with Father Maurice, Our Lady of Lebanon Maronite Church, Mulbarton, interviewed by Isabella Kentridge, 14 February 2011. CSCC.indb 289 2014/10/07 5:19 PM This content downloaded from �����������105.243.30.171 on Tue, 06 Jun 2023 09:30:02 +00:00����������� All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Changing SpaCe, Changing City290 8 Former Residents Focus Group (a group of eight former residents of the ‘old South’ who recall the 1960s and 1970s), interviewed by Tanya Zack and Isabella Kentridge, March 2011, Johannesburg. 9 Population Census Reports for Johannesburg, 1970, 1996, 2001, 2011. 10 Former Residents Focus Group, interviewed March 2011, Johannesburg. 11 The school closed in 1956 owing to pressure from the apartheid state and reopened as the whites-only St Martin’s Boys’ School. 12 The planner for Ormonde was Roelof Uytenbogaardt who had studied under the University of Pennsylvania’s Louis Kahn. 13 Interview with Roger Boden, a planner who worked for Rand Mine Properties, interviewed by Geoffrey Bickford, 15 August 2011, Johannesburg. 14 The modest development at the time was, however, notable for including the earliest example of cluster housing in Johannesburg. 15 Portuguese sports clubs proliferated, with roller hockey being especially popular; particular bars, restaurants and events halls also attracted a largely Portuguese crowd, while the annual Lusito Festival in the southern suburbs grew into a significant event on the Johannesburg calendar. The children of Portuguese immigrants attended Portuguese classes in the afternoons at Rosettenville Central Primary School. (Interview with Isabel Dos Santos, resident of La Rochelle, interviewed by Isabella Kentridge and Tanya Zack, 15 February 2011, Johannesburg). 16 In our analysis we supplemented these data with quantitative information provided through an assessment of township establishment, rezoning, and building-plan applications, as well as qualitative information provided by ward councillors, local estate agents, local residents and the local media. 17 Southern African Development Community. 18 A detailed study of La Rochelle, showing the relationship between Mozambicans and white Portuguese, is being conducted by Khangelani Moyo, who is working as a researcher with one of the authors of this chapter, and will be published shortly. A focus group we conducted also confirmed this relationship, with one respondent explaining that Portuguese-speaking Africans are attracted to the area because they can access work without having to speak English, as required elsewhere in the city (Anonymous 1, Migrants Focus Group 2: six migrants from Mozambique and Angola, interviewed by Tanya Zack, April 2011, Johannesburg). 19 Interview with Councillor Turk, Johannesburg, interviewed by Philip Harrison, Melinda Silverman and Tanya Zack, November 2010. 20 The survey involved a sample of 847 respondents across seven neighbourhoods in central Johannesburg. Of the 202 Mozambicans in the sample, 53.5 per cent lived in ‘Rosettenville’. 21 Anonymous 2, participant in Migrants Focus Group 1: four migrants from Cote d’Ivoire and DRC, interviewed by Melinda Silverman and Tanya Zack, April 2011, Johannesburg. 22 Anonymous 3, participant in Migrants Focus Group 2, April 2011, Johannesburg. 23 Anonymous 3, April 2011. 24 Interview with Jorge Calisto, long-standing resident and restaurateur in the South, interviewed by Isabella Kentridge and Tanya Zack, 21 February 2011, Johannesburg. 25 Interview with Louis Birkenstock, estate agent, Johannesburg, interviewed by Isabella Kentridge and Tanya Zack, 2 March 2011. 26 Interview with Jorge Calisto, 21 February 2011. 27 This was confirmed by religious leaders we interviewed who explained the role of their CSCC.indb 290 2014/10/07 5:19 PM This content downloaded from �����������105.243.30.171 on Tue, 06 Jun 2023 09:30:02 +00:00����������� All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms HARRISON AND ZACK • THE WRONG SIDE OF THE MINING BELT ? 291 churches in providing newly arrived migrants with assistance in finding accommodation and jobs, and in providing feeding schemes and support to single parents (interviews with pastors of Evergreen Chapel and the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, February 2011). 28 Migrants Focus Group 1, April 2011, Johannesburg. 29 Interview with Deseree Hauser, Lencar Properties, interviewed by Isabella Kentridge, 21 February 2011, Johannesburg; interview with Louis Birkenstock, 2 March 2011; interview with Councillor Turk, interviewed by Philip Harrison, Melinda Silverman and Tanya Zack, November 2010, Johannesburg. 30 Interview with Deseree Hauser, 21 February 2011, Johannesburg. 31 The Unilever Institute of Strategic Marketing reports that the proportion of black middle- class families living in the suburbs increased from 23 per cent in 1993 to 47 per cent in 2007. 32 Interview with Father Maurice, 14 February 2011, Mulbarton. 33 See http://www.aspennature.co.za/. 34 Interview with anonymous estate agent, Aspen Hills, interviewed by Philip Harrison and Tanya Zack, May 2011, Johannesburg. 35 Interview with Jorge Calisto, 21 February 2011, Johannesburg. 36 Interview with Deseree Hauser, 21 February 2011, Johannesburg. 37 These figures compare with Cresta Shopping Centre in the northern suburbs at 94 000 m² and Maponya Mall in Soweto at 58 500 m². 38 The most significant node for office development in the south is Theta, adjacent to Ormonde, which has De Beers Corporation as its blue chip tenant. 39 Interview with Councillor Dennis Jane, interviewed by Isabella Kentridge and Tanya Zack, 15 February 2011, Johannesburg. 40 Interview with John Harrison, former resident of Rosettenville, interviewed by Philip Harrison, February 2012, Johannesburg. 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