COLLECTIVE CONSUMPTION AND URBAN SEGREGATION IN SOUTH AFRICA: THE CASE OF TWO COLORED SUBURBS IN THE JOHANNESBURG REGION

In South Africa, the provision of collective consumption and urban racial segregation have always been closely connected. This article examines changes in apartheid urban policy with specific reference to two predominantly working-class colored suburbs on the periphery of Johannesburg: Eldorado Park, begun in the mid-1960s during a period of relative growth and stability, is largely an expression of socialized housing produced by an interventionist state and construction of this suburb, despite its racially exclusive character, appears to fit all too well within the theory which sees collective consumption in terms of the reproduction of labor power. However the apartheid regime, confronted by a deepening economic and political crisis, later withdrew from the provision of collective consumption, and appears to be abandoning its racist urban policies and ideology. Thus construction of Ennerdale, beginning in the mid-1970s occurred within a context of privatization and austerity. Analysis of the apparent “deracialized” and market-oriented provision of urban goods and services in Ennerdale reveals, at a local level, contradictions of South African crisis policies.