The Inhospitable City: Historical Racial Segregation in Johannesburg c. 1890–1970

The historical causes and practices of racial-spatial segregation represent significant research issues for South African human geographers. This paper aims to elucidate the development of urban racial segregation, which occurred in Johannesburg, South Africa’s commercial heart and its largest city. Arguably, the roots of urban racial segregation have an extended history that pre-dates the implementation of apartheid planning in the post-1948 period. This article contributes a perspective from historical geography and incorporates the mapping out of the shifting spatial zones for African settlement in Johannesburg. It demonstrates that segregation has been evolving over an extended period of time in South Africa’s largest city. For its African residents Johannesburg has been an inhospitable urban environment as its marginalized populations have been progressively excised from spaces close to the commercial heart of the city. The spatial outcome of the decades-long clearances of spaces of African settlement has been the establishment and expansion of the townships of Soweto as the most visible manifestation of racial urban segregation, which was achieved finally in the period of high apartheid.