Floods, storms, and disasters… How apartheid ensured Gauteng’s poor continue to suffer

With the recent raging storms and disastrous floods across various parts of the Gauteng province, including Johannesburg, a city planning expert has provided some historical context on why the same areas and groups of people were always the hardest hit.

The recent rainfalls within the province led to the loss of three residents, including an eight-year-old girl who had drowned. Among areas most hard-hit were informal settlements like one of Johannesburg’s oldest townships, Kliptown, leaving its residents destitute and picking up the pieces of their lives again.

Founder of the SKY non-profit organisation that has assisted children within the Kliptown community for over thirty years grunted that it was something the community was now used to: flooding and losing everything. He said “we now plan for it”, referring to how he collected clothes and valuables to give out when rain waters flushed everything away.

Within the Kliptown community, as residents spent the following days spreading their belongings along the muddy pathways to dry and relying on donations to fill their stomachs, an elderly lady can be seen weeping as she vents her frustration in her native language about living in mud and wanting to be relocated to a block of flats where her belongings will be safe. The woman, Juliet Dlamini, said she had been living there since 1977.

While a Kliptown community leader and activist George Mohlala shared similar sentiments of being abandoned by the South African government, Professor Philip Harrison from Witwatersrand University, and South African Research Chair in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, offered a more detailed explanation on why residents in informal settlements seem to always bear the brunt of natural disasters.

Harrison said the broad patterning of the city of Johannesburg was largely in place by around 1910.

In a move to secure a part of the city away from dust and the noise that came from mining activity, the wealthier (white) population secured their residences on high lying grounds found on the north of the mining belt and continued to expand their areas northwards. He said the working-class white population settled along the mining belt, slightly to the south while the black population initially consisted of “mixed slums” located more “peripherally” on the mining belt.

The Slums Act of 1934, the Native (Urban Areas) Act of 1923, and the Transvaal Town Planning Ordinance of 1931 were used together to destroy the so-called slumyards near the inner city, creating new segregated housing estates such as Orlando for the black working class and Bertrams and Vrededorp for the poorer whites. In the 1940s, because of the war the provision of new housing was very limited and there was the development of informal settlements and the emergence of the Squatter Movement led by James Mpanza.”

Kliptown resident Monica Dlamini in front of her home in Soweto, 10 January 2020 , following the floods that hit Gauteng at the weekend and claimed the lives of three people. Picture: Nigel Sibanda

“Although segregation and relocations long preceded apartheid, it was indeed the arrival of apartheid rule which led to the most radical attempts at creating a segregated city. Although Soweto had earlier origins, it was in the 1950s that mass segregated housing was produced, and also that other large regional-scale townships were planned and created e.g. Tembisa, Katlehong.”

Harrison said it was “from the 1950s there was also large-scale (American-type) suburban low-density, private motor car-oriented sprawl in the white areas, encouraged by the development of the freeway system from the 1970s.

In the 1960s the then-government decided to put a stop to providing state housing for the black population in urban townships with the intention of shifting and confining them in homelands.

Despite this, the black population continued to sprawl into the cities, which led to a housing shortage and demand, forcing a renewed development of informal settlements and shack backyards.

After seeing the roll over effect of putting a stop to housing provisions for the black population, the government decided to provide some housing again “but only on the edge of the metropolitan area”. This led to the birth of “late apartheid” townships including Orange Farm and Diepsloot.

Harrison added that “at the same time the apartheid system was breaking down and mixed race residential areas were emerging, such as Hillbrow, Fordsburg, and Mayfair.

“Apartheid came to its formal end in the 1990s of course, but there are still powerful market-based pressures towards class-based segregation. The 1990s and 2000s have seen major changes in the city including: the shift of business from the inner city to new nodes in the mainly wealthy northern part of the city (e.g. Rosebank, Sandton, Fourways) and the inner city becoming a residential hub for a large population needing an entry into the city; the demographic shift from black to white in the previous working class suburbs (Yeoville an example), the rise of various forms of gated estates into which the middle class is retreating, the rapid increase in backyard accommodation in the townships, RDP housing (often in quite poorly located places) etc. etc. The city as a whole has massively increased in its size and complexity.”

“Under apartheid, planning played a major role in producing the segregated city, and planning regulations have also served to protect the privileges of the middle class suburbs. In the post-apartheid era there have been proactive attempts by city government to use planning to create a more inclusive city (e.g. by bringing poorer people into the core of the city through densifying along transport corridors e.g. the Corridors of Freedom. These initiative have had some effect but their impact is far less than hoped for (e.g. developers still prefer the less risky areas in the north of the city, and there is resistance from middle class communities to having poorer people nearby).”

He said the city’s population continued to grow at an moderately fast rate by international standards, by 3% annually, also impacting on the demand for infrastructure and housing. While Johannesburg as an inland city did not face many climate issues, it did face issues of local flooding.

He said “with the increasingly intensity of storms there are indications that patterns of flooding are changing, and the extent of flood plains is shifting. There is some formal housing that is located in areas which are now vulnerable to flooding (e.g. on floodplains and wetlands), or which is vulnerable to flooding because of inadequate storm water drainage systems. These issues do need to be addressed retrospectively.

Daily life in Kliptown, Soweto. Picture: Tracy Lee Stark

“Also informal settlements have emerged on floodplains (a clear example is Seswetla settlement on the Jukskei River on the edge of Alexandra, or Kliptown, south of Soweto). Given the huge sensitivities around relocation, carefully negotiated solutions are required in these cases. Previously vulnerable residents were relocated to places as far as Diepsloot and this was reminiscent of apartheid era removals, and was very disruptive to people’s lives. It is important to find locally sensitive, non-disruptive solutions (e.g. negotiating moves to new housing close to existing resident so social relationships, schooling, travel to work etc. is not disruptive.”
Harrison argued that in the future it was important that formal and informal settlements are not built on vulnerable land.

“Indeed, planning regulations have been strengthened, with Johannesburg’s new land use management scheme insisting that “No development shall be permitted within the area which is subject to flooding by a 1:100 year flood or within the riparian zone and a buffer area of thirty (30) metres from the edge of the riparian zone or river bank where this is clearly identifiable, whichever is the greater.

This is really important as the previous scheme referred to a 1:50 year floodline (which in practice may now be considerably less than 1: 50 years). We do need to make sure that these new provisions are actually implemented, and there is a continuing need for studies that monitor the change in local flood patterns.”
He said he thought Johannesburg generally had good city plans to respond to environmental issues like migration and climate change, and the city’s need to have more inclusive development. He said it was important to communicate it with residents although there was the push back from middle classed communities.

He points out that some middle-class communities in the north of Johannesburg have reacted negatively (even aggressively) to attempts to attempts to introduce more inclusionary planning, and urged engagement with these communities, so they can understand the critical need to shape a rapidly changing city in a more inclusionary way.

“If we don’t do this, in the longer term, Johannesburg will become a dysfunctional urban space, and everyone will lose out.”

Some areas are simply prone to flooding, and avoiding them is imperative.

How can Jo’burg change the spatial status quo?:

Agreeing with Harrison’s explanation, Rick Raven from Raven Town Planners said “Urbanisation in Johannesburg is extremely fast setting an impossible task for authorities to meet demand, especially since a significant part of urbanisation does not result in either economic or employment growth. It is impossible for a developing nation to meet these types of demands and this will result in increasing growth of “slumlording” and continuous development of housing in unsafe and unsuitable areas.”

He offered a few ways on how the situation could get better:

1.  The development of major employment nodes and industrial areas near and within existing major population centres.

2. The development of affordable housing near and around existing major employment centres.

3. The creation of separate Municipalities for much smaller parts of Johannesburg to create an administration that is much closer to the needs and demands of the local population and has a much better ability to respond quicker to the needs for services by the local community.

4. Municipalities should not be involved (and in reality cannot be involved) in the delivery of housing, they should solely concentrate on the delivery of services to promote growth and development of the City in areas targeted for development.

5. Budgets, plans and expenditure should focus on areas where the City promotes growth and development.

6. Growth and development strategies should focus on correcting the historic patterns of development, created by apartheid.

7. A Metropolitan Authority should only be retained for the collection of revenue and the equal distribution of funds amongst the population.

jenniffero@citizen.co.za

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