RETHINKING URBAN SOUTH-AFRICA

Our reflection on past treatment of urban segregation begins with the assertion that the implicit acceptance of 'race' as a legitimate and p rimary category of inquiry has impoverished the understanding of resid ential segregation in the South African city. The first section of the paper illustrates the prevalence of racially defined empirical urban studies and tries to explain why this categorisation remains unchallen ged. In the second section of the paper we demonstrate that where effo rts are made to explain the emergence of a racialised urban structure, inappropriate or inadequate points of reference are involved. Particu lar attention is given to the use of the race/class debate, feminist p erspectives on urban policy, the literature on white supremacy and the city, and in the work on 'race'. The final section of the paper sugge sts an alternative approach to exploring urban segregation. Specifical ly, we pose the questions: what were urban administrators in the early part of the twentieth century to do and why did they do things the wa y that they did? This provides a platform for our discussion of the em ergence of local government in the 1910s and 1920s which we use to emp hasise concerns with urban growth, urban design and urban management. This is followed by a more detailed examination of the influences of m odernist planners in the shaping of the 'racially' segregated city.