Townships in South African cities – Literature review and research perspectives

In 2011 South African townships marked 20 years after the scrapping of apartheid legislation. While the spatial impress of apartheid planning will be with South African cities for many decades to come, have townships undergone a dramatic transformation? In this literature overview paper we identify...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Habitat international 2013-07, Vol.39, p.256-260
Main Authors: Jürgens, Ulrich, Donaldson, Ronnie, Rule, Stephen, Bähr, Jürgen
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Apartheid
Gentrification
Post-apartheid
South Africa
Townships
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:In 2011 South African townships marked 20 years after the scrapping of apartheid legislation. While the spatial impress of apartheid planning will be with South African cities for many decades to come, have townships undergone a dramatic transformation? In this literature overview paper we identify key themes of research that focussed on townships mostly since the 1990s. We conclude the paper by briefly examining urban protests, one of the social pathologies of township life, to show how tensions within the townships have ramifications for democracy, civic peace and the focus on urban challenges of the past. ► We review academic literature on South African townships twenty years after the scrapping of apartheid legislation. ► Key themes of research are discussed in three periods: until the mid-1970s; late apartheid period; and since the early 1990s. ► We briefly examine urban protests, to show how tensions within the townships have ramifications for urban challenges of the past.
ISSN:0197-3975
1873-5428
DOI:10.1016/j.habitatint.2012.10.011