The power of mining: the fall of gold and rise of Johannesburg

Abstract

The City of Johannesburg has developed through the entire life-cycle of the mining industry. In its early years, its development was tied to the varying, but generally upward, fortunes of the mining industry. During this time, gold mining in Johannesburg, and along the Witwatersrand, propelled the growth of South Africa's national economy into a phase of self-sustained development, and created an integrated labour market across southern Africa. It also played a key role in shaping the racial oligarchy that dominated South Africa until the fall of apartheid in the 1990s. However, gold was eventually to decline, first in the areas around Johannesburg, and then elsewhere. The growth of Johannesburg, however, continued and the urban economy became increasingly diversified and flexible. This growth seemed divorced from mining but was, in fact, deeply rooted in the history of mining. The mining industry played an intimate role in the development of the manufacturing sector and also in the emergence of financial services; which is currently the leading economic sector in Johannesburg. These economic changes are represented in continuous evolution of the spatial form of the city. Currently the physical legacy of mining is understood mainly in terms of its deleterious environmental consequences, including acid mine drainage, with the long and profound impact of mining on the patterning of urban growth largely forgotten.

Keywords:

• Johannesburg
• mining
• gold
• labour
• urbanisation
• economy

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the support of the South African Research Chairs Initiative (SARChI) of South Africa's National Research Foundation (NRF) and the valuable assistance of Jennifer Paul in producing the maps and of Yan Yang in preparing the tables.

Notes

1. Beavon (1997, 153) first wrote that ‘gold … ignited the development of Johannesburg’.

2. Figures provided in Viljoen (2009).

3. Consolidated Gold Fields of South Africa, Rand Mines, General Mining, Union Corporation, and Johannesburg Consolidated Investments (JCI) collaborated through the powerful Witwatersrand Chamber of Mines.

4. See the National Population Census reports of 1911 and 1946 available in the national government and legal deposit libraries in South Africa.

5. In response to resistance from black freehold landowners and because the municipality could not provide alternative accommodation for all the Africans that it would need to house, the adjoining areas of Sophiatown, Newclare and Martindale were exempted from the declaration (Beavon 2004).

6. From west to east the mines were: Durban Roodepoort Deep, Rand Leases Mines, Consolidated Main Reef, Crown Mines, Robinson Deep, City Deep, Simmer and Jack.

7. The cause of this decline in performance has been extensively debated, with observers pointing to racial policies which prevented the growth of a black middle class and so restricted the size of the domestic markets, declining productivity and protectionism which prevented a competitive export market from developing (Bell 1995; Kaplan 2010).

8. Comparability of statistics is a problem. Figures for GGP were only provided between 1968 and 1991. Since 1996, private firms (Quantec and Global Insight) provide modelled estimated of economic output for municipalities for South Africa but these boundaries do not coincide with the previous statistical boundaries.

9. Based on figures provided by Quantec.

10. Segregated townships were also built for the Indian (Lenasia) and coloured (Eldorado Park and Ennerdale) groups.