Gated Communities in South Africa—Experiences from Johannesburg

Abstract

In the course of a broad liberalisation and globalisation of South African society, the transformation of the apartheid city to the postapartheid city has contributed to an increase in crime as well as a feeling of insecurity among the people. Urban blight has changed a lot of the inner cities into ‘no-go areas’ for blacks and whites. For personal protection, since the end of the 1980s (the phase of the abolition of apartheid laws) living areas have been created in the suburbs whose uniqueness and exclusiveness are defined by the amount of safety measures. These are called gated or walled communities, or security villages, and their population structure combines social and racial segregation. The authors made a complete survey of two housing areas in northern Johannesburg in 1999. The traditional wish of South African families for a big estate and a home of their own has been replaced by the wish to live in town houses, cluster housing, and sectional title flats with shared use of swimming pools or tennis courts.

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