Further progress in the desegregation of South African towns and cities, 1996–2001

Abstract

Between 1996 and 2001 South African towns and cities have continued the slow process of residential desegregation which was first noted in the previous inter-census period. The changes have been group-specific and place-specific, and the experiences of different groups and regions have differed substantially. The key African–White index of dissimilarity remains exceptionally high throughout the country, although it has now shown some evidence of decline. The Free State stands out as being significantly more segregated than the rest of the country. KwaZulu-Natal continues to be the most desegregated province and significant changes are evident in this respect for most inter-group indices. Nevertheless, the vast majority of the urban population continues to live in highly segregated suburbs.

The financial assistance of the National Research Foundation towards this research is acknowledged. The opinions expressed in this article and the conclusions arrived at are those of the author and are not necessarily to be attributed to the National Research Foundation.

Notes

¹The Mann–Whitney U-test for significance was adopted for comparisons between the index values in different provinces and for different urban forms.

²Spearman's rank correlation coefficient was calculated for paired urban attributes, and its significance assessed using a z score.