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E-book
Author Murray, Martin J

Title Taming the disorderly city : the spatial landscape of Johannesburg after apartheid / Martin J. Murray
Published Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 2008

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Description 1 online resource (xvi, 261 pages) : illustrations
Series Cornell paperbacks
Contents Social justice and the rights to the city -- Ruin and regeneration intertwined -- The fixed and flexible city -- Disposable people at the peri-urban fringe -- The spatial dynamics of real estate capitalism -- The struggle for survival in the inner city -- Revitalization and displacement in the inner city -- The banality of indifferent urbanism
Summary In postapartheid Johannesburg, tensions of race and class manifest themselves starkly in struggles over "rights to the city." Real-estate developers and the very poor fight for control of space as the municipal administration steps aside, almost powerless to shape the direction of change. Having ceded control of development to the private sector, the Johannesburg city government has all but abandoned residential planning to the unpredictability of market forces. This failure to plan for the civic good--and the resulting confusion--is a perfect example of the entrepreneurial approaches to urban governance that are sweeping much of the Global South as well as the cities of the North. Martin J. Murray brings together a wide range of urban theory and local knowledge to draw a nuanced portrait of contemporary Johannesburg. In Taming the Disorderly City, he provides a focused intellectual and political critique of the often-ambivalent urban dynamics that have emerged after the end of apartheid. Exploring the behaviors of the rich and poor, each empowered in their own way, as they rebuild a new Johannesburg, we see the entrepreneurial city: high-rises, shopping districts, and gated communities surrounded by and intermingled with poverty. In graceful prose, Murray offers a compelling portrait of the everyday lives of the urban poor as seen through the lens of real-estate capitalism and revitalization efforts
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 237-256) and index
Notes In English
Print version record
Subject Sociology, Urban -- South Africa -- Johannesburg
Urban renewal -- South Africa -- Johannesburg
City planning -- South Africa -- Johannesburg
SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Human Geography.
City planning
Geography
Politics and government
Social conditions
Sociology, Urban
Urban renewal
Stadtentwicklung
Stadtplanung
SUBJECT Johannesburg (South Africa) -- Social conditions
Johannesburg (South Africa) -- Geography
Johannesburg (South Africa) -- Politics and government
Subject South Africa -- Johannesburg
Johannesburg
Form Electronic book
LC no. 2008001452
ISBN 9781501717000
1501717006
1501716999
9781501716997