New divides are emerging among the residents of Gauteng: insiders correspond to areas of affluence, outsiders to areas of disadvantage
Richard Tomlinson
Cities in Gauteng, once notorious for the disadvantages created by apartheid planning, are seeing the creation of still greater disadvantage as the province becomes one of insiders and outsiders.
In places like Soweto and Orange Farm, south of the Johannesburg CBD, and Soshanguve and Winterveld, north of the Tshwane (Pretoria) CBD, outsider status is being driven by government policy, HIV/Aids and attempts to survive in the informal sector.
In the area between the CBDs, especially along the M1/N1, insider status is driven by government policy and by private, mostly corporate, interests.
In the two CBDs, where corporate and informal interests most overlap, identities are contested.
The implications are devastating in the northern and southern reaches of Gauteng, due to the combination of high unemployment and the breakdown of social support systems. For example, from Sandton heading south, formal sector unemployment stands at less than 5%; more than 20% in the CBD; above 40% in Soweto; and above 50% in some informal settlements south of Soweto.
The unemployed and many working in the informal sector depend on the extended family for support. But many families are stressed due to the need to divert resources to care for relatives infected with HIV and dying from Aids. Support from family members will often be sparse. Many families will cease to exist. Support systems are rapidly decaying.
How the process works
The context is the restructuring of the economy. Investment has shifted out of agriculture, mining and manufacturing. This is where most blacks and coloureds have found jobs, but these sectors have experienced a massive decline in employment. Investment has shifted into low-skill, low-wage services (for example McDonalds), where some new jobs are being created, mainly for blacks; and high-skill, high-wage business and financial services, where some new jobs are being created, mainly for whites.
The jobs gained are located between the Johannesburg and Tsh-wane CBDs. We have seen the concentration of business and financial services, retail and high value-added manufacturing within this corridor. This trend has been accentuated by the growth, employment and redistribution (Gear) strategy, whose focus on export competitiveness boosts these economic activities.
The Gauteng government’s attempt to create a “smart province” requires skilled labour, to the disadvantage of the outsiders. And its R7-billion Gautrain running between the two CBDs, with stops at Rosebank, Sandton, Marlboro and Midrand and a spur between Sandton and the Johannesburg International airport, steers growth to insiders.
The upshot is that with Sandton becoming the country’s financial centre and with growth dispersing along the M1, the Johannesburg and Tsh-wane CBDs are no longer central and have lost their CBD status.
The jobs lost have led to a massive increase in unemployment, especially heading north from Tshwane and south from Johannesburg “CBDs”. They have been replaced at much lower income levels by insecure informal jobs, with little hope that the unemployed will ever find formal employment. The poor lack access to jobs not only because of their distance from possible employers, but also because of a lack of skills and information about potential jobs. In all these respects, the persons so affected are outsiders.
This status is being driven by both HIV/Aids and Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) grant funding (which is a more significant issue than Gear among outsiders). The role of HIV/Aids follows from the fact that HIV infection is about three times higher in the unskilled population than in the professional population. The result is that HIV/Aids infections are highest in the townships and informal settlements.
In the case of RDP grant funding, the housing subsidy is intended to reverse the effects of apartheid, reduce poverty and promote integration. Most often, though, they make things worse by locating low-income housing projects still further away from jobs than the existing townships.
To be fair, in Gauteng measures have been introduced to locate new housing projects close to economic opportunities not merely to deliver houses but also to build cities. Alexandra provides an example of a major government housing project intended to serve the needs of the poor and to build an integrated Johannesburg. But here lies a considerable irony.
The more successful government is in creating desirable living conditions in areas that are close to jobs, the more likely it is that low-income households will be driven out. This is because when government succeeds, the market replaces government programmes.
The process involves “downward raiding”, where inadequately housed but better-off groups acquire the sites of poor households. The outcome will be that the poor, either during the upgrading of Alexandra or due to market forces, will be pushed out. This process began with the relocation to Diepsloot of households living along the Jukskei, and will be accentuated by the Gautrain, which will make the suburb all the more attractive to better-off households.
Turning to the former CBDs, in the case of Johannesburg, the area hosts major corporations such as Anglo American and some of the banks, thousands of informal enterprises and a black relatively well-off residential population as well as many migrants; and serves as an “economic refuge” for those living in the south. Government policy in the CBDs reflects these divides, with projects including rehabilitating Newtown for culture and tourism and assisting informal garment enterprises to improve their skills and expand their markets.
The struggles that eventuate are seen in the multiple attempts by all players to assert control: for example, informal traders use violence to drive migrant traders off the streets and property owners use improvement districts to steer informal traders to streets distant from their properties. CBDs are areas of contestation because there are so many overlapping interests operating with different logics.
Gauteng is dividing into the area between the Johannesburg and Tshwane “CBDs”, and the southern and northern reaches of the province, where most people live. Insiders correspond to areas of affluence for some, outsiders to areas of disadvantage for many. The levels of contestation evident in the CBDs, the areas of overlap, suggest an uneasy future.
Richard Tomlinson is a visiting professor at the Graduate School of Public and Development Management at the University of the Witwatersrand