2 – Urban Growth Unlike other global cities, Johannesburg31 neither originated as an agricultural hub nor as a trading centre, it was founded in the middle of nowhere as a result of discovering the world’s largest gold reserves (Foster, 2009). The making of Johannesburg’s spatial configuration is an unanticipated outcome of an ever-changing socio-economic process superimposed on the East-West ridge landscape greatly tied to its geology (Murray, 2010). In 1886, the city of Johannesburg was founded on a triangular piece of unused land called ‘uitvelgrond’, wedged between Braamfontein, Turffontein and Doornfontein (Murray, 2010). The original town was laid out in a tight grid iron pattern of blocks consisting of small plots of lands and a compact street network as the city grew linearly in the east-west direction. From the start, the city planners, municipal authorities, wealthy miners, and property developers worked in unison to create a city as a reflection on western modernity. The shapeless jumble of historic inner city’s built fabric largely moulded by 3 different building eras; the first building boom was financed by the great financial success of the gold industry from 1900s till the First World War. The city builders used the technological advancements to experiment Victorian architecture with new steel skeletal structures, the construction of tall buildings without vertical constraints. The second phase was the outcome of a re-structured global economy after the collapse of the gold standard, and the final phase encompassed imposing imperial visions of modern city planners in the 1960s and 1970s as an offshoot of European modernism. The standardization of space into geometric patterns with little or no regard to terrain is causing imminent problems for urbanism that lie underneath the altered surface. On the contrary, city builders, planners, and municipal authorities echoed Le Corbusier’s futuristic vision in creating the modernist cityscape of Johannesburg. The push/pull factors of globalization and capitalism have contracted and expanded the city’s centre. This is often seen when many buildings and blocks are completely erased in a single stroke. Thus, transforming the cityscape. In his book ‘A City Divided’, the urban planner refers to the physical landscape features of Johannesburg as “original birthmarks” of the city that distinctively stand out in the background (Mandy, 1984). On one hand, the city seeks to redeem itself from the dusty mining town image and reconfigure it into a pan-African capital in the globalised network. Whereas on the other, the city is a virtual ghost town at night with rampant crime and fear of safety. These contradictory nuances have worked to create a dual character of the inner city.
3 The name /johannes+burg/ evolved from the names of two colonial English explorer’s Johannes Rissik and Johannes Joubert, who obtained the mining rights from British Crown till eternity. The other colloquial names of Johannesburg are Jozi and Jo’burg.
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Adaptation And Mitigation Strategies For Climate Crisis In Cities
