The Effects of Displacement into Townships

The Effects of Displacement into Townships

Jenna Canavan

After being in Johannesburg for three days we had seen two separate parts of the city, Melville and Maboneng. Both of these divisions of the city appeared to be particularly well-off, with the expensive real estate and up-scale restaurants. They both also had a vibrant main street well equipped with shops, cafés, and bars alike. I was easily blinded by what I thought Johannesburg was going to be like, not knowing what to expect upon first arrival. But then my opinion was very quickly turned on it’s head. The following day we were to travel out to Soweto, the largest township in Johannesburg, home to about 1.3 million citizens of South Africa. We had already discussed the culture and climate around the township, and I had what I thought was a pretty good grasp around the way in which I thought I would perceive the area.
I was proved very wrong.
I realized in hurry that I had not known a thing. We had first pulled into the “Beverly Hills” of Soweto, observing where it was that those who were very financially successful but had no desire to move away from their hometown lived. The houses were very beautiful and intricately designed, showing off the wealth that was house here. But after leaving this small section, we made out way into the heart of the township. Adjacent to the Beverly Hills were a small section of matchbox houses (a term coined during apartheid to represent the size of the houses). These were 1 room homes, in a fairly desolate location, with no running water and no sanitary facilities. There was trash scattered over every open surface and goats roaming free. The houses were all dilapidated and seemed to be physically crumbling. This certainly was not what our first few minutes in Soweto looked like.
This was the exact moment I realized that my initial thoughts and assumptions were no longer what they seemed. Johannesburg, although becoming a world class city in a short amount of time, had problems beyond my comprehension. The concept of an apartheid government in which the basis of everything is off of the color of your skin was built into the actual urban planning and architecture of the city. Townships, huge black and colored communities remote from the city, were created in order to move those who weren’t white out of the city in order to separate the different races. Even after the defeat of a segregationist government, the families forced to move to Soweto were still suffering from the displacement of the generations before them.
The township was still existing in a state of oppression. Soweto offered very little resources compared to the inner city, creating a community of citizens who cannot leave by choice due to lack of financial security and ability to leave the home in which they owned. Moving is truly expensive and it is certainly not something everyone can afford. So, there are very minimal opportunities for people to leave. It also creates an inconvenience for those who work in the inner city but cannot afford to move there because Soweto lies decently outside of the inner city, although still a part of it. Transportation has become a major business what was commuter buses and minibus taxis alike. It takes a half an hour via a personal car without any traffic, so you can imagine how long it would take on a minibus with several other passengers during prime rush hour traffic.
The other, most pressing and obvious issue across the township as a whole, was the housing. In some parts of Housing by far is the biggest predicament pressing South Africa as a whole right now is housing. Families of four are residing in one room homes with no running water, heat, and no sanitary facilities. The conditions for raising a family are unfathomable. There are currently RDP houses being built, but it will be a lengthy amount of time until a reasonable amount of homes are built in order to sustain the greater number of families.
Visiting the informal settlement of Kliptown was in fact the most clear example of the oppression that the people of South Africa are facing. These are those who need not only the housing, but also the resources. Kilptown as a community built out of handmade housing structures, which are not only not sustainable for keeping houses well insulated, but they are also a hazard to those living in the community. Houses burn down very easily and causes massive, long-term harm to those caught in cooking and heating accidents.

Overall I was shocked to realize what problems the country of South Africa faces, but is overlooked easily from other countries due to their economic success. What is behind the scenes is causing massive housing shortages in the majority of the population, as well as inadequate access for the non-white population in order to supply them economically. The population in need are those who are being ignored, while the white population still holds most of the economic equity. It was the biggest revelation to understand the parallels between the apartheid government system and the current democratic government.