Township (South Africa)

As Township is known in demographic contexts during the apartheid policy in South Africa and South African South West Africa managed numerous furnished housing estates for the black, colored or Indian population. They have partially the dimensions of medium and large cities. Well-known examples are Soweto (South Western Townships ), a district of Johannesburg in Gauteng Province, Mdantsane, near the industrial port city of East London or the district Cato Manor in Durban.

Origin and purpose

All South African cities have urban structures of Townshipbildung. They were part of the so-called "ideal apartheid city ", in which all races by so-called "buffer zones" were separated in the form of physical barriers, traffic facilities, industrial facilities or undeveloped tracts of land. During the "White City " was characterized by a socio-economic district formation, such townships were originally created along ethnic lines.

The first official legal basis for the selective construction of townships for the native population as a means of racial segregation policy in South Africa is a law of 1945., The Natives Urban Areas Consolidation Act (Act No. 25/1945 ) called on the local authorities, separate residential areas for the " non-white " to create population. From its nature, these settlements should always be only temporary accommodation for primarily black population, as you saw in the homelands after apartheid doctrine their homeland. In this sense, the Bantu Administration argued in a 1967 directive for the local authorities: to create not a " bigger, better, more attractive and luxurious condition"; it must be remembered that an urban Bantu residential area is no homeland, but part of a white area ". If these conditions have the effect to accustom the Bantu not only to a strange taste, but impose him a luxury that his country can not offer, and so alienated him from what is his own, ... ". In the 1960s, the problems in the townships were so enormously increased that the South African government tried to rein in the Homelands with their Bantustan policy the flow of migrant workers.

Description

The ever-growing population in the townships is still one of the biggest problems today. The population living in large housing estates and squatter areas, simple slums with little infrastructure. So the township of Langa 12 km southeast of Cape Town was built in 1927 for 850 people, 1989, however, it consisted of 16,500 inhabitants. According to estimates, there were in the 2000s about 80,000. Approximately 74,000 black families live in Cape Town Squatters or hostels. In early 1997, missing more than 134,000 residential units.

The population of a township population is statistically elusive. They are mostly on the outskirts. The individual dwellings, so-called " shacks " (English for barrack, shack ) are mostly built completely disordered. Vagrants residents come and go. For the same reason, it is generally difficult to make a statement about the quality of living.

It is often thought the concept Township massive structures made of corrugated iron shacks, cardboard boxes and an extremely high population density. There are over suspected a high crime, high poverty, hunger, disease, and high level of violence whites. This description applies to some of these large settlements and other, the situation has greatly improved. Even within a single township, there can be differentiated conditions.

A special set called " hostels " ( German as: hostel) is that as the simplest collective accommodation for single men and women served who worked in the "white" area. They form functional structures within the meaning of the policy of separate development ( separate development). These hostels were a respectable size. For example, lived 1977/1978 according to official figures in the ten hostels in Soweto about 38,000 people. Estimates, however, speak of about 60,000 people. In Alexandra township was torn down the small houses of the black residents and built great hostels in the form of huge concrete blocks, including ten building complexes for men and five for women.

After the end of apartheid, the conditions changed, although slowly, but there are gradual improvements. So too close together -built houses were, for example, occasionally moved to build a more efficient road and therefore can supply power. Often today finds the local supply through informal "mom and pop shops ", so-called spaza shops instead.

Business in Dukatole

Street scene in Dukatole

Building a house in self-help in Dukatole