How Urban Design Keeps South Africa Segregated

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How Urban Design Keeps South Africa Segregated


Decades have passed since Apartheid came to an end, but South Africa remains divided. One reason is the legacy of its urban planning, which forced many Black South Africans to the periphery of cities.

00:00 South Africa’s unequal society
01:53 Apartheid’s origins as an economic model
03:20 The racist design of South African…

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48 Comments

  1. Nonsense. The shack housing became a problem after the ANC took office and land was grabbed to built a shack. If you look at Brazil and other central American countries it looks the same. If a piece of land is unlawfully occupied, no proper planning, no services what you see will be the result. Why did government not deliver on it's promise of building houses? The "managed" this problem with "expropiration without compensation" promises. The State is the largest land owner….why do they not make it available. Why dont you guys make a documentary of white squatter camps and tell us how this came about?

  2. Y'all can say all y'all like but on a real note it only been 30 years since the majority gained it freedom. They have came a long way, look how many black people own cars and houses. I'm talking about young people who are now able to live a peaceful life without being beaten in their bedrooms by police and soldiers for no reason. The only backdown is the weakened currency.

  3. There is no quick fix solution to reverse apartheid’s spatial planning and fix the economic mess it uas created.

    The solution is clear:
    BUILD NEW CITIES ON RURAL LAND.

    Any efforts to build around existing cities which were designed by apartheid architects only reinforces the horrific circumstances many black South Africans now live in on a day to day basis. The cities we now live in did not fall from the sky. They were planned, funded and built by a determined apartheid regime. Our democratic government needs to plan, fund and build differently in order to tell a different story. Failure to do so will result in a humanitarian/economic crisis in years to come as over populated apartheid designed cities become unlivable.

    By developing rural land into proper cities with thriving economies, people will be drawn to those new cities and the opportunities they present, and informal settlements will stop growing so rapidly provided our porous borders become tightly closed for a while, preventing a bigger immigration crisis than what we currently have.

  4. South Africa’s current problems are some of the common problems of developing countries in the global south. Getting rid of apartheid is still a major achievement for the country and a story of success

  5. South African development is held back by access to land. Owner who are not willing to sell and yet they not using the land. Only if government takes ownership of the land will South Africa develop rapidly until then they will fight everyone in government and there will little or no progress to building a better future for poor Africans in the townships.

  6. Why didnt those people go build in all the vacant land in south africa?… They just want to live like that, be close to everything that was already built instead of building their own communities… Thats not poverty thats laziness

  7. 7th largest economy in the world in the 90’s and now they don’t have electricity or running water. Abolishment of apartheid has been ruinous for every South African

  8. no, the law keeps them unequal: they aren't allowed to own their businesses without taking in a black owner if you're white/ non-black.
    Or do business without being able to fire black employees.
    They just curtailed private investorship, private ownership. Too many small bakeries and family businesses are going down because of the black-amployee-quotas.

  9. It is now segregated by socioeconomic status and not by race anymore. The black middle class is larger than the entire white population, and the black upper class is bigger than the white middle or upper class. You will find that most of those nice suburbs bordering on townships are predominately black, because of white flight. There are a few white squatter camps, but of course the townships are predominantly black.

    The policies that were designed for the 'previously-disadvantaged' are not benefiting the currently-disadvantaged, but only the rich black elite. That is why not much has changed. If the policies were aimed at anyone (irrespective of race) with a poor socioeconomic status, you would start to see a change, but the ANC has no interest in creating competition for themselves.

  10. A lot of things to take from this video, YES A LOT, not only gaslighting the anc party, making an indirect statement that the freedom was for nothing, the corruption is a disease and must be punished, but the ideals of Mandela and the people are still strong, South Africa needs a second revolution, not from a man but from the people

  11. The comments are telling… no insight, perspective or actually intro/retrospective evaluation of the situation. One thing for sure is that SA'ns need to stop pretending to be some sort of "rainbow" nation.

  12. For everyone with more than 10 IQ points the way townships are structured are actually how most black cultures set up camps and structured their tribes. It predates colonialism and therefore apartheid.

  13. blaming racist city planning? you serious? these ANC idiots ran their country and people into the ground and here bloomberg is talking about racist city urban planning…..what BS.

  14. This apartheid legacy nonsense propaganda needs to stop.

    ANC had 30 years to address this issue and fix it instead they did nothing, lied, stole, allowed people to die, allowed crime to run riot, killed businesses and employment, over regulated everything to make it harder for people to work and do business, allowed infrastructure to collapse instead of maintaining upgrading and expanding it, corruption was their mandate because they saw state resources and wealth in their eyes as inheritance from the apartheid regime. They didn't develop and plan spacing area for townships and rural areas as much as they needed to address the spacial inequalities created by the Apartheid regime. They allowed load shedding to be a thing and continued with load shedding
    Didn't even address the land issue
    Trashed and destroyed everything.

    When talking about apartheid and inequality it's very important to look at context and details instead of judging by final result alone.

  15. 30 years later under ANC rule, 30 years of reverse apartheid through BEE (Black Economic Empowerment), every connected ANC official is a millionaire… maybe the ANC just need more time, maybe after 200 years there will be a slight improvement, or more connected millionaires lol

  16. The wealth transfer from white people to government through taxes during the past 30 years has been enormous. The ANC absolutely failed to use that money to uplift the poor black through better education, health services and housing. Instead they stole the money and enriched their pals through corrupt tenders.