Waterfall City (Johannesburg): Privatized Urbanism in Extremis

Abstract

Located halfway between Johannesburg and Pretoria, the mixed-use mega development called Waterfall City is a master-planned, holistically designed, urban enclave built entirely from scratch on 2200 ha of vacant land. This expansive city-building project at Waterfall City combines a hypermodernist stress on 'smart' growth, cuttingedge technologies, and state-of-the-art infrastructure with the New Urbanist focus on mixed-use facilities, a human-scale built environment, and pedestrian-friendly precincts. By performing all the conventional functions expected of a municipal administration, the real estate developers at Waterfall City have effectively replaced public authority with private management and control. With its private governance structures and 'go-it-alone' mentality, Waterfall City is an exemplary expression of a privately managed municipality that falls within the broad tradition o f company towns, treaty concessions, free ports, and independent city-states. Apart from its sheer size and scale and administrative autonomy, the outstanding feature o f Waterfall City is its unique blend o f stern religious conformity (grounded in a traditional interpretation o f Islamic principles) combined with a forward-looking commitment to private enterprise and consumerist consumption.

Failed Fantasies in a South African Context: the Case of Modderfontein, Johannesburg

“…Large-scale or edge city developments are a global phenomenon, and are of significant consequence for understanding issues of inequality in cities because they challenge existing governance-often operating outside planning in an extra-territorial manner or in a way where planning is privatised (Shatkin 2011;Murray 2015;Schindler and Kishore 2015;Swyngedouw et al 2002). Moreover, in some places, such as India, they receive disproportionate amounts of investment (Shaw 2012), since they are part of 'world class city dreams' (Schindler and Kishore 2015), warranting further analysis of their consequences.…”

“…In strong contrast with the aims of Zendai and their rhetoric, the City wanted the developer to build a more inclusive site which reflects the realities of the housing market in Johannesburg. Consequently, the City demanded the developer include 5000 affordable homes in their plans and ensure the development complemented existing public transport, so individuals would be able to access work in other parts of the City (Cain 2014;Murray 2015). These stipulations would help the project fit in with the SDF's 'inclusionary housing' regulations, and the City were even willing to financially support this to ensure the project was developed in line with their equality goals, as a transport engineer explained: …so the City was obviously going to contribute financially to some of this as well.…”

“…However, this is not to say that the City is always strong or capable of challenging developers. Examples from elsewhere in Johannesburg highlight that this is not always the case (see Murray 2015;Herbert and Murray 2015), and furthermore we do not seek to show the City is anti-development. Rather, the Modderfontein case is suggestive of the potential capacities of an African state when the developer is unable to navigate the necessary political relationships.…”

Urbanismo utópico, realidades distópicas: una etnografía (im)posible en Yachay, “ciudad del conocimiento”

“…Nos ilustran igualmente de las contradicciones con las que desempeñan su labor cuando reconocen a los presidentes de las comunidades que "si no estuvieran a sueldo del gobierno, estarían de su lado" y que "deben estar unidos porque el proyecto que va a venir les va a aplastar" Este artículo ha añadido al debate sobre las "smart cities" o "cities from scratch" (Carvalho 2015;Datta 2015; Luque-Ayala y Marvin 2015; Shwayri 2013), un vector no siempre destacado: y es que las utopías planificadas requieren de un control de la información y, por tanto, de las investigaciones independientes que se lleven a cabo. Se trata de ciudades "sin historia" (Murray 2015) o, mejor dicho, ciudades donde se ha hecho un borrado sistemático de todo aquello que podría poner en peligro (o en contradicción) "el milagro del renacer urbano de la utopía espacial" (Navas Perrone 2016: 2). La lucha contra cualquier manifestación de conflicto que pueda perturbar la legibilidad absoluta del espacio es la tarea que asumen los técnicos de Yachay EP y las personas encargadas de la construcción de Yachay para someter todas las preexistencias a un modelo de "ciudad ideal".…”

“…Un determinismo espacial que lleva implícito una simplificación del funcionamiento de la ciudad y un afán de controlar todo lo que en ella sucede. En las utopías espaciales se minimizan -si no se eliminan totalmente -los problemas que típicamente se asocian a la ciudad existente (conflictos, inseguridad, contaminación, desigualdad…) y se pretende una vida armoniosa, ordenada e igualitaria (Murray 2015); se obvian las características innatas de la vida urbana (imprevisibilidad, complejidad, conflictividad…) y se invoca a un orden social -y a veces moral -a través de la lógica, el orden, la eficiencia, la racionalidad y la funcionalidad espacial.…”