Normalization and the South African City

Abstract

A common view among students of South Africa, policymakers, and academics alike is that since the ending of apartheid South Africa has been somehow “normalized.” This normalization is seen as a tendency towards the production of urban forms common in North America and Western Europe as well as a means of situating South Africa's major cities within the context of an increasingly global system. The first aim of this paper is, then, to address the extent to which the South African city has been normalized. In this regard, the Sandton phenomenon to the north of Johannesburg is emblematic of the Western notion of “edge city” and Johannesburg itself as a world city. The specificity of the South African case, however, suggests caution in this interpretation. Here, the second aim of the paper is to examine the value of the normalization framework's contribution to the analysis of urban and/or social forms. Focusing on the Johannesburg metropolitan area, and considering that Sandton is not just an edge city but a new central business district (CBD), suggests that something rather different might be materializing in the South African city. Likewise, in the same metropolitan areas there appears to be an emergent and distinct racialization of the spatial division of labor. Drawing on the evidence presented by the Johannesburg metropolitan area, this paper attempts to examine the normalization thesis and provide an alternative approach based on the distinctions to be made for the case of South Africa.

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