It’s crucial to rethink urban decline and reimagine cities in SA’s current transformation phase

The cratered roads of Grahamstown that look like they’ve been shelled; the boomed security complexes of Jozi’s northern suburbs; the ClearVu walls sprouting up all over the Western Cape, threatening to transform patches of the province into a mosaic of mini Gazas; the squalid parks, bridges, train tracks of Durban’s southwestern fringes that make you feel as if you’re passing through a zombie apocalypse when crossing the buffer. That reads like an extract from a dystopian novel, but it is reality. These are some of the sociopolitical woes we face in our fragmented urban landscape.

Relatedly but possibly more frustrating are the public service delivery crises. The load shedding beast has thankfully been tamed (though rolling power outages still plague forgotten rural areas that often go for days without electricity), but in its place has re-emerged one more ferocious (than any other and relative to its 2010s incarnation): the water shortage – let’s call it Decade Zero. Menace out, menace in – there’s never a power vacuum for long in the savannah. The now-regular deployment of watercan convoys reminiscent of those triggering apartheid police vans lets one know we’re at war.

The problems are many; formal and social media keep our justifiable frustration well watered. Yet amid the hand-wringing over metropolitan decay, a crucial question goes unasked: are we acknowledging the simultaneous blossoming of South Africa’s townships and rural areas?

The country remains the world’s most unequal society, with a Gini coefficient hovering near 0.63 (see also Statistics South Africa’s most recent Poverty and Inequality Statistics brief. This isn’t an accident, natural selection or divine intervention – it’s historical design. What might explain the dilapidation we are witnessing? I’m not a social scientist, but here is my theory.

Two powerful trends intersect. First, South Africa’s black middle class has grown significantly since 1994, enabling previously dispossessed citizens to invest in the communities that gave rise to and raised them. Second, when the government accords substantively equal treatment across all areas, some dials must turn down while others turn up. On this second point, recall that redistribution is not a partisan policy but a constitutional imperative. And genuine transformation cannot occur without consequence. When resources legitimately shift towards redressing systemic inequality, formerly privileged areas will inevitably fray at the edges.

This pattern echoes globally. Europe’s geopolitical and economic dominance wanes as emerging economies rise. Across Western democracies, walls – literal and metaphorical – rise to keep perceived invaders out (with the likes of Jim Ratcliffe bemoaning the colonisation of Britain by immigrants) and narratives of white victimisation run rampant (one reason for the US’ aggression against basically the whole world), all symptoms of declining hegemonies desperate to preserve unearned privilege. These global trends are replicated at domestic level in South Africa: the settler-colonialist and nouveau riche entitlement that insists that certain people deserve perpetual superiority, that transformation constitutes theft rather than justice.

Corruption, misappropriation and ineptitude undeniably ravage our cities – audit failures affect more than 60% of municipalities. But they’re not the whole story. Systems built on theft and exploitation eventually crumble; every empire has its day.

The path forward requires critical discourse about the historical contingency underlying current trends, coupled with innovative solutions for maintaining and rejuvenating our metros. We need fresh thinking – not racist nostalgia for an unjust past, nor jingoistic blame-shifting, nor walls to restore old hierarchies, but honest reckoning with transformation’s complexities. Inhabitants of these urban areas must also put up or shut up and contribute actively (beyond through taxation) to the upkeep of communal spaces.

South Africa’s urban future needn’t be synonymous with erosion. It demands reimagining cities that work for everyone, investment strategies balancing development across all communities, and citizens willing to participate actively in shaping their environments. The metropolis is transforming, not merely declining. How we navigate this shift – resisting otherisation, dismantling entitlement, embracing constitutional imperatives – will define the nation’s next chapter. DM

A native of Umbumbulu near Durban, Sabelo Ndlovu is a post-graduate LLB candidate at the University of Cape Town. He earned his BA degree from Amherst College (US), where he studied law, biology and French. He has worked as a legal assistant, educator and consultant, and developed a particular interest in the law’s intersections with science, business and international relations.