Abstract
Martin J. Murray began conducting sociological fieldwork in South Africa during the 1970s. His books on the popular struggle against apartheid and on the transition to democracy are essential reading for students of contemporary South Africa. He therefore brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to the study of urban restructuring in post–apartheid Johannesburg.
In Taming the Disorderly City, Murray sets out to explain the fragmentation of Johannesburg into a constellation of fortified enclaves for the elite and zones of abandonment for the poor. the book provides a revealing analysis of the marginalization and struggles of the urban poor under the rule of real estate capitalism and “postliberal” modes of urban governance.
Murray's analysis of urban restructuring concentrates on the interaction of three principal actors: city officials, real estate capitalists, and the urban poor. City officials attempting to redress the iniquities of apartheid confront an impossible dilemma. on one hand, the elimination of apartheid–era pass laws and residential restrictions unleashed a wave of African urbanization that has generated a severe housing crisis. Government efforts to construct social housing simply cannot keep pace with the rising demand. on the other hand, the adoption of a “postliberal” framework of urban governance constrains the ability of city officials to actively redistribute scarce resources. Intended to create a favorable business environment that will attract profit–oriented investment, the postliberal framework requires the municipality to ensure a stable regime of property rights, to privatize the provision of basic services, and to decentralize governance by promoting self–managed business and residential districts.
Drawing on the work of David Harvey, Neil Smith, and David Scobey, Murray's analysis of real estate capitalism highlights the unevenness of investment in the built environment. as Africans moved into downtown Johannesburg, real estate capital withdrew from the inner city to invest in new business districts and residential enclaves in the northern suburbs. Inner city landowners allowed their buildings to decay, creating a “slumlord economy” that continues to squeeze profits out of desperate tenants. Now, after years of declining property value, developers are returning to the inner city to build condos and loft apartments for the elite. for the poor, the revitalization of downtown Johannesburg means the resumption of forced removals.
The third set of actors in Murray's analysis is the urban poor. Without stable employment, decent housing, or access to basic services, the lives of the “disposable” poor in Johannesburg are marked by vulnerability, insecurity, and exclusion. Murray thoroughly catalogues the dangerous and unhealthy living conditions that confront those who live in shacks, warehouses, abandoned buildings, and on the streets. Rather than limiting his analysis to victimization, however, Murray invokes Henri Lefebvre's concept of the “right to the city” to highlight the survival strategies of the urban poor and their ability to transform urban space. These individual and collective strategies undermine the dreams of city officials and property owners for an orderly and profitable revitalization of the inner city.
Murray's overall argument is that the imperatives of postliberal urban governance, the uneven dynamics of real estate capitalism, and the struggles of the urban poor have combined to produce an “untamed city of fragments.” He proposes the concept of “fractured urbanism” to describe a city where the elite live, work, and play in fortified enclaves, while the poor are abandoned to a life of perpetual movement between sites of extreme destitution. Murray concludes by arguing that efforts to gentrify and secure downtown Johannesburg are generating mass evictions, criminalizing the lives of the poor, and threatening to turn Johannesburg into what Smith calls a “revanchist” city.
Murray brings together interviews, ethnographic observations, and newspaper archives to substantiate his argument. He is at his very best when he writes from street level, drawing inspiration from Michel de Certeau's method of “walking the city.” Documenting in detail the living conditions and life strategies of the urban poor, Murray attempts to convey the experiential dimensions of land invasions and forced removals, the organization of an informal settlement, the interior of a shack, the scope of informal housing in the city center, and the dangers of exposure to cold weather, shack fires, violence, and evictions. At the same time, Murray engages in a constant and sophisticated dialogue with an extensive field of urban researchers and spatial theorists: Lefebvre, Harvey, Smith, Scobey, de Certeau, Sharon Zukin, Mike Davis, Erik Swyngedouw, Nikolas Rose, Walter Benjamin, James Holston, Jennifer Robinson, AbdouMaliq Simone, and many others.
Alongside his discussions of fractured urbanism and postliberal urban governance, Murray's most significant contribution is his analysis of the relationship between citizenship and the right to the city. Despite the end of apartheid, Murray suggests, citizenship remains hollow for people who are unable to access all of the benefits and resources that the city has to offer. However, by asserting their right to the city through the formal and informal tactics that Holston calls “insurgent urbanism,” poor South Africans are claiming a fuller, more substantive citizenship. This opens up the potential for employing Lefebvre's concept to interrogate recent literature on citizenship and sovereignty, such as the work of Giorgio Agamben.
On the downside, it is sometimes unclear whether Murray is building on or simply repeating an earlier argument. It would have helped if the introduction had more clearly outlined the organization of the book and the relationship between the chapters. a more substantive discomfort stems from Murray's minimal attention to the continuing significance of race in post–apartheid South Africa. While the last 15 years have witnessed important changes in the racial composition of the elite, race remains a fundamental—and often overlooked—aspect of social relations in the new South Africa. Although Murray notes that most of the urban poor are Black, his analytical emphasis on class dynamics plays down the importance of race. However, the anxieties of the elite and the construction of fortress suburbs are informed by racialized discourses about crime. the postliberal mantra of personal responsibility is thoroughly inflected with race. and the revanchist tendencies in downtown Johannesburg have more to do with race than Murray suggests. More nuanced attention to these racial dynamics would add depth to Murray's analysis, without fundamentally challenging his overall arguments.
Despite this drawback, the book offers important contributions to many fields. Those interested in contemporary urban governance, advanced marginality, uneven development, gentrification, the right to the city, the life strategies of the urban poor, and urban restructuring in the global South will find Taming the Disorderly City a stimulating and deeply engaging book.