Mathia Griffith
THE RIGHT TO THE CITY:
Reflecting on visiting Johannesburg and Cape Town seeing these two very different cities allowed us to have insight into the different ways in which an economy oppresses groups as we studied inclusion and exclusion. In each city remnants of the country's apartheid past can be seen in everyday interactions and in observing social dynamics among people of varying social locations. Overall through being in these two cities exploring how the economy shaped the city also displays how the economy shaped racial dynamics from apartheid to present, allowing us to analyze inclusion and exclusion in terms of the right to the city during this dialogue.
While studying in Johannesburg we learned about its economic history. Johannesburg was known for having a lot of gold and still is, which is why the province it is in is called Gauteng, making a direct reference to the amount of gold in the area. The mining that was done in Johannesburg was by Black miners. While on an excursion to see mines we also learned that there are also illegal minors that continue to do that work which are still black miners. The mining done by black labor was able to boost Johannesburg's economy and by seeing the present day mining we can see that the legacies of the past hold true in the present, however in Johannesburg there is still more of a mix of social and racial dynamics than in Cape Town. Upon entering Cape Town it was clear that it was not as integrated as Johannesburg comparatively and we learned that originally during apartheid it was structured to keep non whites out. This did not work as white people in Cape Town needed Black labor in order to do the service jobs and work they did not wish to do, as a result many Black people had to commute to the area and this still hold true today where many of the black service workers of the white areas do not live where they work. Due to the fact that in Johannesburg Black labor was needed outside of the city that could be the reason why currently the city could become more integrated whereas in Cape Town there was and is still a specific need for Black and Brown labor to serve the white area within the city.
Johannesburg’s economic past made it so that while many Black laborers are still tied to the mines they are able to enter the city at different levels of professional work as well as white people also holding different positions. Cape Town specifically depends on Black labor and for this reason it seems to be harder for non whites to have a right to the city when all that is valued is their labor in serving white people. Black labor made these cities what they are during apartheid and continue to make them what they are today. Contrasting the two visited this is why many Black Africans we spoke to see Cape Town as very exclusionary, because racial and social dynamics have stayed very much the same while the demographics of the city have not. In this way the level to which black and brown people are included in a space is directly linked to white people's need for them in the space.
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