Exploring the impact of gated communities on social and spatial justice and its relation to restorative justice and peacebuilding in South Africa
| Jurisdiction | South Africa |
| Published date | 15 August 2019 |
| Author | Karina Landman |
| Date | 15 August 2019 |
| Pages | 134-155 |
Exploring the impact of gated communities
on social and spatial justice and its
relation to restorative justice and peace-
building in South Africa
KARINA LANDMAN*
Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, Pretoria
I INTRODUCTION
One of the urban development forms that has received increasing public
interest since the late 1990s is privately organised and secured housing
developments. The spread of these neighbourhoods (often called ‘gated
communities’) in many countries in the world has been represented
frequently as the privatisation of public space and has been associated
with growing local security problems and the importation of commodi-
fied neighbourhood values and technology, especially from the USA.
1
Webster distinguishes between several forms of private governance,
including private residential communities (cooperatives, homeowners’
associations and condominiums), retail communities (leisure complexes)
and industrial communities (industrial parks).
2
These private or micro-
governments encompass a wide range of functions. For example, they
supply civic goods
3
and represent those individuals who voted for a
management body to manage and control affairs.
4
They thus start to
embody a new form of collective local power that facilitates new
mechanisms of local control. These mechanisms raise several questions
regarding urban governance and security and the role of the state and
non-state institutions at different levels.
South African cities are also changing dramatically. In response to
many challenges, including high levels of crime and violence, and
growing levels of fear of crime and a range of insecurities, there has been
a huge growth of physical boundaries ranging from fences and walls,
burglar bars and shutters on building facades, to boomed barricades on
* B Arch (UOFS) MCPUD (UCT) PhD (Newcastle University,UK); Senior Researcher,
CSIR (Built Environment), Pretoria.
1
G Glasze et al ‘Introduction’ in G Glasze et al (eds) Private Cities: Global and Local
Perspectives (2005) 1.
2
C Webster‘Gated communities of tomorrow’ (2001) 72(2) Town Planning Review 153.
3
These goods can include services such as protection, cleanliness and environmental
improvements.
4
E McKenzie Privatopia: Homeowner Associations and the Rise of Residential Private
Government (1994); Webster(n 2).
134
2007 Acta Juridica 134
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public roads. Consequently, the urban landscape has become a tapestry of
fortified and often privatised enclaves of various forms and sizes,
juxtaposed to a growing number of low-income housing developments
and informal settlements. As a result, according to many urbanists, the old
spatial patterns are reinforced by new patterns of segregation in the
post-apartheid city, such as different types of gated communities.
5
As
such, Tomlinson,
6
commenting on the sharp distinctions and inequalities
between the wealthy and poor areas in Johannesburg, warns of the divide
between ‘the walled residential communities and secure office parks and
malls in the north [which] will stand in sharp contrast to the desperation
of the south’. Social justice remains a major challenge in South Africa’s
increasingly fragmented cities, especially for those subscribing to egalitar-
ian ethics (liberal or social), which underpin much of the opposition to
apartheid.
7
The emergence of gated communities raises several questions within
the context of the new democracy. Firstly, do these fortified places
enable, facilitate or negate the establishment of social and spatial justice
through the manifestation of a specific form and function? Secondly,
what are the impact and implications of fortification and privatisation in
South African cities? Thirdly, what is the relationship between social and
spatial justice and their meaning for peace-building and restorative
justice, or in other words the role that the built environment and its
design and management plays to enable processes towards greater peace
and justice?
A recent United Nations publication reiterated that ‘there is a need for
a culture of planning that promotes inclusive and peaceful cities’.
8
This
paper focuses on the need for a range of approaches to enable greater
peace in cities and investigates the role that the built environment can
play to facilitate greater conditions for peace and justice. Firstly, it traces
the main drivers threatening the facilitation of peace efforts in cities,
namely a culture of fear and insecurity. This is followed by a discussion of
5
L Bremner ‘Crime and the emerging landscape of post-apartheid Johannesburg’ in H
Judin and I Vladislavic (eds) Blanc architecture, apartheid and after (1999);A Lipman and H Harris
‘Fortress Johannesburg’ (1999) 26 Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design 727; A
Czégledy ‘Villas of the Highveld: A Cultural perspective on Johannesburg and its Northern
Suburbs’ in R Tomlinson et al (eds) Emerging Johannesburg: Perspectives on the Post Apartheid City
(2003) 21; P Harrison ‘Fragmentation and Globalisation as the New Meta-Narrative’ in P
Harrison et al (eds) Confronting Urban Fragmentation: Housing and Urban Development in a
Democratising Society (2003) 13.
6
R Tomlinson ‘HIV/Aids and Urban Disintegration in Johannesburg’, in PHarrison et al
(eds) Confronting Urban Fragmentation: Housing and Urban Development in a Democratising Society
(2003) 86.
7
D Smith ‘Urban Fragmentation, Inequality and Social Justice: Ethical Perspectives’, in P
Harrison et al (eds) (n 6) 31.
8
UN Habitat The State of the World’s Cities 2004/2005: Globalization and Urban Culture
(2004) 2.
135 RESTORATIVE JUSTICE:POLITICS,POLICIES AND PROSPECTS
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