The Making of Global City Regions

Johannesburg (South) Africa’s Aspirant Global City

Alan Mabin

A sketch of City Government and Politics

• 1997 Constitution much greater degree of equality between 3 spheres of government

approach reflected in the White Paper on Local Government in 1998 new approach
cemented by.
• “While the city certainly enjoys substantial formal autonomy, its position is greatly
effected by national and regional power. In the first place the party in power in JHB is
also in power nationally, and has a distinct agenda for the reshaping of South African
Society. Political decision making in the city is subordinate to that agenda.” (52).
• City experienced financial crisis during the late nineties ( Beall, Crankshaw, and Parnell
2002). KEY Jo’burg capital budget has been severely limited and the city has been
dependent on other scales of government for major new projects. Ie/ Blue IQ
provincial level.
• Thus city finds itself tied to a wider agenda, whether or not that is the desire of
Politians and its senior officials.
• Main financial base of local government is twofold: property taxes historically charged
on land values alone, called ‘rates’ and charges for services: particularly electricity
delivered to the city.
• First semi-democratic elections held in 1995.
• Single metropolitan elected in 2000 (54).
• Financial crisis meant that provincial gov’t and party out involved in a new form of
management for the city. Which
1. Brought local councils under the heel of the metropolitan central offices
2.Permitted a corporatist (key term) approach to the city’s
institutions.  exhibited by iGoli2002- rapidly corporatized most major
aspects of the city’s public business thus former depts.. of city gov’t
First
became registered companies with a single shareholder ( city of JHB) and
major execs.. not responsible to the city council but to the appointed board of
directos. (55) moves welcomed by business.
change • Second radical change in strategy= KEY When the ANC came to power
in 1994, its program was redistribution assumed that city was wealthy enough to
accomplish improvements through redistributing expenditure from the former
white areas= unworkable ANC remained committed rhetorically to the
constituency that elected it in BUT ground was prepared for a shift from the
emphasis on redistribution to a new growth focus as the means to acquire the
resources to ameliorate condition of lie in the city. This shift was symbolized by the
frequent use of the phrase “world-class city” to describe what the city manager and
 others apparently wanted JHB to become. KEY! Can map shift from RDP to
GEAR. Reflected at the level of municipality. (55)
• Strategic plan with goal of contributing to economic growth= igoli2010..later
Joburg2030. 55.

Third radical change= new approach to city governance.  the creation of the iGoli2010
partnership.  involved social movements, business leaders, and politicians.  local gov’t
elections in 2000 intervened, the election= new councillors particularly in the financial
portfolios created opportunity for key individuals to develop a new strategic vision for the
city.  produced and promoted by key individuals.

Joburg 2030 strategy tactic of spreading a new set of ideas in essentially a top-down manner
but economic growth at its center strategy clearly illuminates the shift from redistributive to
growth as the basic philosophy of those in power. 56.

Political situation in JHB vital in examining the question of whether recent changes in the city
are related to globalization. JHB undergoing change-economic, social, and geographic.

City Politics

• JHB city council has 200 seats.  half of which are elected on a ward basis and other
half on party list. In 2004 60% held by the ANC
• Opposition=DA
• DA+ANC both emphasize stability and security (57)
• ANC broad church prominent among its members is the new elite concerned with
safety, security, for themselves+ investments But ANC also liberation party and the
privatization of public space must be a anathema to many of its supportersmanaging
this tension is a challenge symbolic of many more. (58)
• Readily argued that a key constituency in urban politics in the city= the black middle
class.  recent evidence in JHB suggests this is true policies adopted by the city are
essentially similar to those pursued by Reagan, Thatcher, Chirac + Guiliani.  implicitly
favour the middle class.
• Clock of BEE highly significant in achieving the interests of the a powerful political
(but not economically dominant) black elite. (58).
• Combination to debate= Benit + Gervais-Lambony (2004) suggest that globalization is
“instrumentalized” by those in power as a means of rationalizing the types of urban
interventions that are emerging.  called politics of double vitrine development= public
pronouncements of city authorities promote investment in newer, globally connected
spaces of finance and business as the public “shop window”. While mounting poverty
and exclusion characteristics of large sections of townships and some inner-city areas is
hidden away to considerable extent in the “back room of the shop”.  suggesting that
rather than the processes of globalization being directly responsible for changes in the
economy, geography, and governance of the city. The RHETORIC of globalization
allows those in power to explain/justify particular approaches to development, which
 actually entrench at the least spatial forms of inequality. Governance becomes a process
of promoting development in the shop window and managing poverty in the back of the
shop. 59.
• For those who accept that “world cities are fundamentally different from other kinds of
cities [and that] their essential roles are to provide ‘homes’ for national and international
corporate and financial management” (Bernstein and McCarthy 2002,70). The role of
urban governance in such contexts is clear. Yet governance is also about contest and
about resolving contradictions. Indeed, governance concerns relationships and not simply
management (59).