![]() Last summer as a UW student I studied abroad in Cape Town, South Africa and was struck by the inequality I witnessed between most black and white South Africans. It is broadly recognized that apartheid was the ultimate form of structural violence that forced hundreds of thousands of black South Africans into informal housing on land that they had no legal claim to. While the policies of deeply institutionalized racism were overturned 25 years ago, the economic and social impacts of apartheid are still very much present in South African society, and have contributed to ever-widening gaps between black and white South Africans in multiple ways. On April 27, 1994, Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress (ANC) won the first multiracial democratic election in South Africa’s history, bringing an official end to 46 years of apartheid. “Ten percent of all South Africans - the majority white - owns more than 90 percent of national wealth… Some 80 percent of the population - overwhelmingly black - owns nothing at all.” - New York Times ![]() Right: Between rows of government-funded housing in Langa. Rather, class divisions will be just as effective as apartheid in guaranteeing residential segregation.Published on JLeft: View from inside a home in Langa, the largest township in Cape Town. To judge from Latin American experience, the dismantling of formal apartheid is unlikely to reduce levels of social segregation in Johannesburg. Semi-permanent residence means that residential movement within the city is increasingly similar to that typical in many Latin American cities. Many Sowetans’ lives do not fit the model of the `circular’ African migrant many have lived in Johannesburg for a long time. ![]() The paper observes that South African migrants are becoming more like Latin Americans in demonstrating a growing attachment to the city. Some of these similarities were apparent even before the demise of apartheid, a policy that was never consistent and changed many times. The paper shows that there are problems in drawing comparisons about migration and residential movement in Latin America and South Africa, but that there are growing signs of similarity. Given similar levels of economic development and inequality, it seems strange that more effort has not been made by South Africans to learn from the earlier experience of urbanisation in countries such as Brazil, Chile and Colombia. ![]()
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