Looking beyond the urban poor in South Africa: the new terra incognita for urban geography?

Abstract

The past two decades have seen the development of a rich body of scholarship focusing on South African urban settlements. An extensive narrative has emerged on the changing spatialities of the broader urban system, but the representation of South African urban areas remains surprisingly incomplete. The overwhelming majority of research deals with aspects of urban poverty and aims at informing policy and implementation responses that can provide an alternative urban future – with seemingly limited success.The contention in this paper does not challenge the notion that elevated levels of urbanising poverty represent a future development trajectory of the so-called “real African cities” to which scholars like Pieterse refer. However, such an observation requires considerable refinement in the South African urban context. The growing number of urban residents is not necessarily poor. In fact, the number of relatively wealthy, in Africa generally and South Africa in particular, is rapidly expanding. It is the contention of this paper that, while there might be a moral imperative to investigate poor urban lives, there is similarly an empirical and theoretical obligation to investigate beyond the urban poor. The paper argues that the current imbalance in urban scholarship, focusing too heavily on the urban poor, allows the relatively wealthy to reproduce urban spaces as they please, with little scrutiny from scholars and policy makers. It suggests that, as long as we do not take the realities of these “other” urban dwellers seriously, there is little hope of addressing the fragmentation of the urban form and exclusion of the poor so typical of South African cities. Although existing scholarship aims to integrate currently fragmented cities, ignoring those who are not poor could lead urban scholars to implicitly reinforce South Africa's dualistic cities.

Au cours des deux dernières décennies on a assisté au développement d'un riche ensemble de travaux d'experts se concentrant sur les établissements urbains sud-africains. Un canevas narratif important a fait son apparition sur les dimensions spatiales en évolution du système urbain dans son ensemble, mais la représentation des zones urbaines sud-africaines reste étonnamment incomplète. Le plus gros des recherches effectués traitent des aspects de la pauvreté urbaine et cherchent à éclairer des réponses de politiques et de mise en œuvre qui peuvent fournir un avenir urbain alternatif – avec un succès apparemment limité. Cet article ne met pas en question l'idée selon laquelle des niveaux élevés de pauvreté urbanisante représentent une trajectoire future du développement des soi-disant «véritables villes africaines» auxquelles se réfèrent des experts comme Pieterse. Cependant, une observation de ce type nécessite d'être considérablement affinée dans le contexte urbain sud-africain. Le nombre croissant de résidents urbains ne se compose pas forcément de pauvres. De fait, le nombre des personnes relativement riches, en Afrique en général et en Afrique du Sud en particulier, connaît une augmentation rapide. Cet article soutient que, s'il est nécessaire sur le plan moral d'étudier les vies des pauvres urbains, il y a de même une obligation empirique et théorique d'étendre l'étude au-delà des pauvres urbains. Cet article soutient que le déséquilibre actuel dans les travaux d'experts sur les thèmes urbains, qui se concentre trop sur les pauvres urbains, permet aux personnes relativement riches de reproduire les espaces urbains comme elles l'entendent, sans faire l'objet d'un examen attentif de la part des experts et des décideurs. Il suggère que, tant que nous ne prendrons pas au sérieux les réalités de ces «autres» habitants urbains, il n'y aura guère d'espoir de remédier à la fragmentation de la forme urbaine et à l'exclusion des pauvres qui sont si fréquentes dans les villes sud-africaines. Bien que les travaux d'experts existants cherchent à intégrer les villes actuellement fragmentées, le fait d'ignorer ceux qui ne sont pas pauvres pourrait mener les experts urbains à renforcer implicitement le phénomène des villes dualistes sud-africaines.

Keywords:

• South Africa
• urban poor
• urban geography
• post-apartheid

Notes

^1. It has to be stressed that this investigation does not suggest a binary between poor and wealthy, as there is a continuum from the poor to the wealthy that which presents multiple relationships, spatial impacts, practices, etc. between urban dwellers. In addition, it is not intended to racialize the poor/wealthy continuum. Although the poor in South Africa are still overwhelmingly black and located on the social, economic and spatial margins, they are racially mixed, as indeed are wealthy and not-so-poor.

^2. No occasional papers/reports, unpublished theses or consultancy work are included.

^3. It has, however, to be noted, however, that post-apartheid there has been a significant increase in these “cohorts” at the postgraduate level and it is likely that this imbalance will be addressed in the future.

^4. One should, however, not sweep aside the significant contributions made to South African urban scholarship made by non-South African scholars such as those based in France or the UK.

^5. The South African government provides a significant funding incentive ( ±  R120,000) for academics who publish articles in official “accredited” journals to encourage research activity and publication.

^6. The journal was founded at the University of the Witwatersrand during the late apartheid era as a critical forum in which to analyse the current and future challenges of urban South Africa. Although the remit of the journal has expanded in geographical focus it remains highly focused on urban South Africa.