Understanding the Contemporary Character of Braamfontein
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UNDERSTANDING THE CONTEMPORARY CHARACTERTown OF BRAAMFONTEIN, JOHANNESBURGCape Towards a rofenewed understanding of urban renewal in cities in the South Abstract Work on urban renewal internationally focuses on a vast range of topics, including gentrification, increased criminalization of poverty, rent-seeking behaviour, and neoliberal urbanism. These arguments tend to centre the interests and actions of certain actors, prioritize certain forces (such as economic ones), and thus tend to predict a particular set of outcomes. In adopting a southern urbanist Universityepistemology, and Jennifer Robinson’s reimagined comparativism through a reconceptualized ‘case’, this research shows how predominant assumptions regarding the drivers and outcomes (both social and physical) of urban renewal do not necessarily apply in the case of Braamfontein, an instance of urban renewal in Johannesburg, a post-apartheid city in the south. The findings examined here include policy narratives and empirical referents to culture-led strategies of urban renewal and ways in which they speak less to market-orientated objectives, and more to socio-political ones; how the findings in Braamfontein speak to literature on gentrification, studentification, and youthification, showing that urban renewal and gentrification are not the same processes, and that studentification does not necessarily lead to youthification or gentrification; how attempts to suppress informal trade have led to the proliferation of iterant strategies on the part of hawkers, and have in turn led to enhanced relationships between informal traders and the formal economy; and, finally, how the presence of communities self-identifying as foreign or gay are shown to be driven by forces other than those that the literature typically predicts. Key words: southern urbanism; urban renewal; neoliberalism; Braamfontein; creative class; gentrification; studentification; protest; informal economy; gay-friendliness Ivanna Katz KTZIVA002 The copyright of this thesis vests inTown the author. No quotation from it or information derived from it is to be published without full acknowledgement of the source. The thesis is to be used for private study or non- commercial research purposes Capeonly. of Published by the University of Cape Town (UCT) in terms of the non-exclusive license granted to UCT by the author. University Table of Contents Acknowledgements .............................................................................................................................. 3 Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 5 Structure of Thesis .......................................................................................................................... 10 Chapter 1: Planetary Urbanisation, the Comparative Gesture, and Neoliberal Urbanism Through Southern Urbanism ............................................................................................................................. 11 Planetary Urbanisation ................................................................................................................... 15 The Comparative Gesture ............................................................................................................... 18 Neoliberalism .................................................................................................................................. 22 Urban Renewal ............................................................................................................................... 25 Creative-led Strategies of Renewal ............................................................................................. 28 Gentrification .............................................................................................................................. 29 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................... 32 Chapter 2: Research Methods ............................................................................................................ 33 Chapter 3: Braamfontein – Shifting Context and Institutional Drivers ................................................ 37 The Motors of History ..................................................................................................................... 38 Institutional Drivers ........................................................................................................................ 40 The Johannesburg Development Agency .................................................................................... 40 Braamfontein Management District: Urban Genesis, BRAAM, and private collaborators .......... 43 South Point ................................................................................................................................. 47 The Department of Arts, Culture, and Heritage: The Cultural Arc and the Wits Art Museum .... 49 Play Braamfontein....................................................................................................................... 50 University of the Witwatersrand ................................................................................................. 52 Recent Changes .............................................................................................................................. 57 Chapter 4: Findings – The Place and People ....................................................................................... 60 The Suburb ...................................................................................................................................... 60 The Zones ........................................................................................................................................ 62 Zone 1: Institutions’ Freeway ...................................................................................................... 62 Zone 2: Bustle Boulevard ............................................................................................................ 63 Zone 3: The Neighbourhood ....................................................................................................... 66 Zone 4: Global South Central ...................................................................................................... 71 Zone 5: Smoker’s Alley ................................................................................................................ 76 Between and Among the Zones ...................................................................................................... 80 Commerce-scapes: The impact of pricing, nature, and scale ...................................................... 80 Boundary Crossers ...................................................................................................................... 83 Chapter 5: Braamfontein – A Renewed Look at Renewal ................................................................... 86 1 Narratives of Renewal and Decay: A Zonal Overview ..................................................................... 87 Attracting the Creative Class ........................................................................................................... 89 The Cross-National Mobility of Creative-Led Strategies of Urban Renewal ................................ 91 Characteristics of Creative-Led Strategies of Urban Renewal as Gentrification: Aesthetics and Exclusion ..................................................................................................................................... 92 Creative-Led Strategies of Urban Renewal in Braamfontein and the Possibility of Socio-Political Improvements ............................................................................................................................. 94 Gentrification and Studentification................................................................................................. 96 Urban Renewal and Protest ............................................................................................................ 99 Informal Work in Urban Renewal: Symbiosis and Itinerant Strategies ......................................... 101 Inclusion and Diversity in Urban Renewal ..................................................................................... 103 Global South Central ................................................................................................................. 104 Gay-Friendliness........................................................................................................................ 106 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 109 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................ 111 References ........................................................................................................................................ 116 2 Acknowledgements I am extremely grateful to the circle of scholars, family and friends that have supported me over this period of researching and writing. I would like to thank my supervisor, Anna Selmeczi, for her seminal contribution to this project. Her thoughtful and deep engagement with every piece of work I submitted, her push for concise and