Beyond the Post-Apartheid City: De/Segregation and Suburbanization in Windhoek, Namibia

Abstract

Fallowing the demise of apartheid in Namibia and South Africa in 1990 and 1994 respectively, urban practitioners as well as academics writing on the subject have aimed to address the well-documented geography of apartheid. Post-apartheid urban development strategies, as most urban practitioners and scholars agree, need to contribute to overcoming the social divisions and spatial marginalization produced and naturalized by apartheid urban planning policies. How these legacies should be overcome is, however, a matter of contention. Using the example of Namibia's capital city, Windhoek, this paper illuminates the extent to which post-apartheid urban planning policy strategies have redressed the socio-spatial marginalization of the black and colored majority. Specifically, this paper examines the ways Windhoek residents, the city's urban practitioners, and academics writing on the subject approach the exclusionary spatial legacies of apartheid. Given the continuing fragmentation of the city form and the reproduction of its concomitant structural inequalities, future municipal strategies could aim to reverse these trends by targeting "integration."

Modernism on the margins: A genealogy of Namibia’s (post-)apartheid spaces

“…Nearly all of the urban design and architectural research on Namibia has concentrated on the capital (primate) city of Windhoek, especially when undertaken in an historical context, as its urban environment experienced the greatest impact from large-scale segregation and exclusionary social engineering (Mitlin and Muller, 2004;Morange et al, 2012;Müller-Friedman, 2006;Obert, 2015;Pendleton, 1994;Simon, 1991;Seckelmann, 1998). Only an extremely limited number of studies focus on small Namibian towns (Müller- Friedman, 2007Friedman, , 2009Philippi, 1993;Seckelmann, 2000).…”

The Uncanny Capital: Mapping the Historical Spatial Evolution of Windhoek

“…With independence, the former townships Katutura and Khomasdal were reclassified as suburbs and administered under the same frameworks as the former White suburbs (Müeller-Friedman, 2006). The fundamental failure to address the urban morphological asymmetries in proximity, density, flexibility, public space provision, and amenities that mark the difference between the former townships and suburbs is clear in Fig.…”

Urban Green Spaces in a Post-Apartheid City: Challenges and Opportunities for Nature-based Solutions

“…Nonetheless, higher than average photosynthetic activity was evident along riverbeds, around the Goreangab dam, and in irrigated public parks or soccer fields (Fig. Friedman, 2006). The Okuryangava informal settlement, on the other hand, unregulated by municipal planning processes, is subject predominantly to informal rental or procurement arrangements between residents.…”

“…Business activities were concentrated in the centre of the city, "townships" for non-white communities were often built at the city's periphery, and neighbourhoods for predominantly black, coloured, white, or other communities were built using different standards (McConnachie & Shackleton, 2010). Natural areas without built infrastructure, highways, railways, and industrial areas were built with the explicit intention to physically separate areas (Müeller-Friedman, 2006).…”