Residential Desegregation in Two South African Cities: A Comparative Study of Bloemfontein and Pietersburg

Abstract

S um m ary. The abolition of the Grou p A reas Act in 1991 has, in the space of ® ve years, con trib uted to m ajor changes in the form er aparth eid cities of South Africa. However, the socio-p olitical tran sform ation that has tak en place has been exp erien ced differen tlyÐ as can b e seen , for exam ple, in Bloem fontein an d Pietersb urg, the cap itals of the F ree S tate and the N orth ern Provin ce resp ectively . H istoric factors, location s an d the new-fou nd statu s of the two cities have in¯uen ced the d esegregat ion process that has occu rred . The spatial lay-ou t of Bloem fontein , a city with its ow n black tow nship, differs sharp ly from that of P ietersb urg, a city w ith out a tow nship durin g the aparth eid era. This p aper assesses desegrega tion in these two p rovin cial cap itals in post-aparth eid South Africa and in vestigat es resid ential desegrega tion p attern s, grass-ro ots political changes (the outcom es of the local election s held in Novem ber 1994), and prop erty valu es as a further indication of the differen ces th at exist betw een these two cities.

Residential Desegregation Dynamics in the South African City of Bloemfontein

“…Donaldson and Kotze (2006: 569, 570) also argue that desegregation studies in South Africa mainly endorse five viewpoints. According to the first of these, not much desegregation has occurred (Kotze and Donaldson 1998;Christopher 2001a;Horn and Ngcobo 2003). The authors point out that in the most recent national account of desegregation, Christopher (2005) shows that changes have been placespecific, with the Free State Province being the most segregated, for example, while KwaZulu-Natal continues to be the most desegregated and group-specific, with the black-white index of dissimilarity having remained high, although there has been some evidence of decline.…”

“…In the most recent review of South African desegregation studies, Donaldson and Kotze (2006: 569, 570) highlight empirical studies on residential desegregation after the repealing of all apartheid laws. These studies have mainly focused on secondary and metropolitan cities such as Pietermaritzburg (Wood 2000), Pietersburg (Donaldson and Van der Merwe 1999a, b;Kotze and Donaldson 1998) and Cape Town (Lemanski 2005;Oldfield 2004), with one a comparative study of two provincial capitals (Kotze and Donaldson 1998), while scant attention has been paid to smaller towns such as Margate (Lemon and Clifford 2005). Donaldson and Kotze (2006: 569, 570) also argue that desegregation studies in South Africa mainly endorse five viewpoints.…”

“…This investigation draws upon the latter set of debates and chronicles current desegregation levels in Bloemfontein. In particular, the paper revisits an investigation by Kotze and Donaldson (1998) in Bloemfontein, a city that was among the first to introduce residential segregation legislation as early as 1893. Kotze and Donaldson's investigation used the 1995 Property Data Roll of the Mangaung Local Municipality in which the city of Bloemfontein is located.…”

Residential desegregation and the property market in Pietersburg 1992–1997

“…The relationship between voting behaviour in the desegregated areas and voting outcomes have been investigated by Kotze and Donaldson (1998). A summary of their findings is given here to contextualise the different process involved in the property market and desegregation.…”

Ethnic and Class Clustering through the Ages: A Transdisciplinary Approach to Urban Neighbourhood Social Patterns

“…In southern Africa, colonial administrations and local political élites co-created tribal ethnic and racial categories, which were codified (Vail, 1989) and designated specific lands for settlement (Marks, 1989). South Africa's apartheid policy led to neighbourhoods and townships segregated by race (Christopher, 2001) that continue to cluster after the legal repeal of apartheid in 1991 (Kotze and Donaldson, 1998).…”