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Abstract
In 2000 the city of Johannesburg adopted the vision of becoming a World Class African City (WCAC). Since then Johannesburg has been energetically promoted in accordance with this vision. The tagline ‘world-class African city’ is now used in the branding of the city. It has become a major signifier on its logo and a notable catchphrase in its radio adverts of its brand. However, the nested opposition of the ‘world-class’ and ‘African’ discourse has not been explicitly defined in the vision beyond their simplistic connection. Many people have found the vision puzzling and some have questioned its claims. This paper explores the conundrum that lies in the nested opposition of the ‘world-class’ and ‘African’ discursive currents. It identifies the ‘global’ and ‘local’ discursive forces (in the country) which were formative in the creation of the vision. It looks at how the intersection of global and African discursive fronts has become leverage for generating hybrid cultural/cosmopolitan identities. The thrust of the paper is that the urban practices and landscapes of post-apartheid Johannesburg are enacted and re-enacted together with the inspiration, signification and/or representation of the city vision.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my colleague Professor Alison Todes and reviewers of this paper who have commented during the process of writing it. The usual disclaimer applies.
Notes
1. Mbembe, “Aesthetics of Superfluity,” 404.
2. Seedat and Gotz, “Johannesburg.”
3. Dugard et al., “A Rights-based Examination of Residents’ Engagement,” 931.
4. Parnell and Robinson, “Development and Urban Policy”; Parnell, “Politics of Transformation”; and Lipietz, “Building a Vision.”
5. See Seedat and Gotz, “Johannesburg.”
6. City of Johannesburg, “Joburg GDS 2040 Strategy.”
7. Rogerson, “Towards the World Class African City,” 19.
8. Smith, “Johannesburg Rebuked.”
9. Kamau, “Johannesburg a World-class African City?”
10. Narsee, “World Class African City?”
11. Smith, “Johannesburg Rebuked.”
12. Narsee, “World Class African City?”
13. “Joburg actually is a World Class African City.”
14. Gurney, “A Visionary Statement.”
15. Markusen, “Fuzzy Concepts, Scanty Evidence.”
16. Doel and Hubbard, “Taking World Cities Literally,” 353.
17. Tarimo, “Kenya, the Common Good.”
18. Beall et al., Uniting a Divided City; Parnell, “The Politics of Transformation”; Parnell and Robinson, “Development and Urban Policy”; and Lipietz, “Building a Vision.”
19. See Parnell and Robinson, “Development and Urban Policy”; and Lipietz, “Building a Vision.”
20. Parnell and Robinson, “(Re)theorizing Cities from the Global South,” 599.
21. Balkin, Deconstruction.
22. Thornhill, “The Transformed Local Government System,” 492.
23. Friedman, “Getting Better than ‘World Class’,” 757.
24. Crankshaw and White, “Racial Desegregation.”
25. Sunday Life, September 29, 1996.
26. Citizen, January 6, 1998.
27. Sunday Times, September 29, 1997; City Press, April 27, 1997; and City Press, March 30, 1997.
28. Mail and Guardian, July 4–10, 1997.
29. Shapiro, “On the Normalisation.”
30. Peet, “Ideology, Discourse, and the Geography of Hegemony,” 57.
31. Isaacs, “Normalisation.”
32. Friedman, “Getting Better than ‘World Class’,” 759.
33. Friedman, “Getting Better than ‘World Class’,” 761.
34. Bremner, “Reinventing the Johannesburg Inner City,” 189.
35. Roysten, “The Golden Heartbeat of Africa,” 5.
36. Kamwangamalu, “Ubuntu in South Africa.”
37. Rogerson, “Image Enhancement,” 147.
38. Knox and Taylor, World Cities in a World System.
39. Turok, “The Distinctive City,” 13.
40. Anholt, “Competitive Identity.”
41. See Mbeki, “An Address.”
42. Inner City Ivukile, Johannesburg Inner Urban Renewal Strategy (emphasis added).
43. Battersby, “Seeking African Solutions.”
44. Louw, “Africanisation.”
45. Mabin and Smit, “Reconstructing South Africa’s Cities?”
46. See Landman, Gated Communities; and Rigby and Diab, “The Implementation.”
47. City of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, ix.
48. Wasserman and de Beer, “Afro-optimism/Afro-pessimism,” 378.
49. Harrison et al., Confronting Fragmentation; and Lipietz, “Building a Vision.”
50. Beall et al., Uniting a Divided City.
51. Lipietz, “Building a Vision.”
52. City of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, 147.
53. Lipietz, “Building a Vision,” 144.
54. Ibid.
55. Segbers et al., The Making of Global City Regions, 157.
56. Peyroux, “Building a Vision for the Post-apatheid City.”
57. Parnell and Robinson, “Development and Urban Policy,” 342.
58. De Bruyn, “Policy , Fear and Systemic Violence.”
59. Lowitt, A Vision Statement of the City, 6.
60. Ibid.
61. Parnell and Robinson, “Development and Urban Policy,” 346.
62. City of Johannesburg, Joburg 2030.
63. Rogerson and Rogerson, “Johannesburg 2030,” 12.
64. Nel, “Regional and Local Economic Development.”
65. City of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, 147.
66. Makhubo, “Jozi’s Jumble of Buildings.”
67. Lef, “Common Places and Argumentation,” 450.
68. Lipietz, “Building a Vision,” 144.
69. Giddens, Sociology.
70. Kraidy, “The Global, the Local, and the Hybrid.”
71. Robertson, “Comments on the ‘Global Triad’,” 4.
72. Flowerdew, “The Discursive Construction,” 583.
73. Gilmore, “Introduction.”
74. Smith, “Johannesburg Rebuked.”
75. http://www.brandunion.com/work/saa-bringing-world-africa-and-africa-world, accessed, July 10, 2015.
76. Flowerdew, “The Discursive Construction,” 594.
77. Clifton and Maughan, Twenty-five Visions, vii.
78. This point is adapted from Flowerdew, “The Discursive Construction,” 595.
79. Mbembe, On the Postcolony.
80. Bhabha, “Culture’s In-between,” 58.
81. Brenner et al., “Variegated Neoliberalisation,” 188.
82. Farber, “Africanising Hybridity?,” 129.
83. Nuttall, “Stylising the Self,” 431.
84. Nuttall, “Stylising the Self,” 432.
85. Notwithstanding that not everyone is acknowledging or consciously subscribing to this label.
86. Abebe, “Afropolitanism.”
87. Gikandi, “On Afropolitanism,” 9.
88. Mlangeni, “Implications of Urban Branding.”
89. The Afropolitan Network, Afropolitans.typepad.com, http://afropolitans.typepad.com/; the Afropolitan Experience, http://afropolitanexperience.tumblr.com; Afropolitan Legacy Theatre, http://thepolyglots.bandcamp.com/; Afropolitan Shop, http://www.theafropolitanshop.com/; and Afropolitan Magazine, http://www.afropolitan.co.za/.
90. Moodie, “South Africa.”
91. http://www.gcro.ac.za/gcr/review/2013/gcro/content/afropolitan-city-region, accessed 25 May 2015.
92. Makokha, “Introduction,” 15.
93. Murray, Commemorating and Forgetting, 217.
94. Walsh, “We Won’t Move.”
95. Ibid., 408.
96. Ibid.
97. Ibid.
98. Tleane, “Shifting Sands.”
99. Ibid., 9.
100. Ibid.
101. Chang, “Place, Memory and Identity,” 250.
102. Baudrillard, The System of Objects, 74.
103. Peleggi, “Consuming Colonial Nostalgia,” 261.
104. Urry, The Tourist Gaze.
105. Crang, “Envisioning Urban Histories,” 441.
106. Smith, “New Globalism, New Urbanism,” 443.
107. Murray, Taming the Disorderly City, 36.
108. Tomlinson et al., Emerging Johannesburg.
109. Murray, Commemorating and Forgetting.
110. Bayat and Biekart, “Cities of Extremes,” 815.
111. Landau, “Transplants and Transients,” 131.
112. Peet, “Ideology, Discourse, and the Geography of Hegemony,” 56.
113. Barrell, “Back to the Future,” 8.