Social history of one of South Africa's oldest townships. It covers the period from its founding in 1912, when it was perceived as a peri-urban outpost, through to its growth as a centre of black working class life in the heart of Johannesburg, to the post-apartheid era. 400pp, SOUTH AFRICA. WITWATERSRAND UNIVERSITY PRESS.

A collection of essays looking at possibilities of urban development in Cape Town and their potential to counter societal imbalances. Refs, notes, figs, 188pp, GERMANY. LIT VERLAG, 3825866998

An analytical perspective on the problems of fragmentation in South Africa as new forms of segregation emerge in the context of globalisation and neo-liberal policy, looking in particular at housing and urban development. Index, refs, xvii, 300pp, SOUTH AFRICA. UNIVERSITY OF CAPE TOWN PRESS, 1919713735

Ninth of the research reports from the GRUPHEL, part of the regional programme on Gender Research on Urbanisation, Planning, Housing and Everyday Life. The report focuses on the realities of severely overcrowded accommodation in family dwellings; the ways in which young women and men adapt of insufficient access to independent housing; strategies to access affordable housing; the gendered and generation specific nature of social networks that facilitate access to housing; the ways in which young women and men respond to housing and household context by redefining their households and expectations of and aspirations for the forma-tion of their own families; and the ways in which overcrowded housing contexts shape relationships between young women and men, and their positioning within households, the neighbour-hood, and the city more generally. 84pp, LESOTHO. INSTITUTE OF SOUTHERN AFRICAN STUDIES.

Documents and assesses the formulation, evolution and implementation of urban policy in South African during the first ten years of democracy. The contributors describe the creation of democratic local governments from the time of the 1976 Soweto uprising and the intense township struggles of the 1980s, the construction of 'developmental' planning and financial frameworks, and the delivery of housing and services by the new democratic order. 344pp, SOUTH AFRICA. HUMAN SCIENCES RESEARCH COUNCIL.

This ground breaking new work draws together a cross-section of South African scholars to provide a lively and comprehensive review of the under-researched area of heritage practice following the introduction of the National Heritage Resources Act. In a unique multi-disciplinary approach, contributions are featured from a broad spectrum of fields, including the built environment and public culture and education. Showcasing work from tour operators and museum curators alongside that of university-based scholars, this book is a comprehensive and singularly authoritative volume that charts the development of new and emergent public cultures in post-apartheid South Africa through the making and unmaking of its urban spaces. 328pp, UK. ROUTLEDGE.

The contributors to this volume, both academics and practitioners, provide an interdisciplinary perspec-tive on the probable consequences of the World Cup for the economy of South Africa and its cities, on infrastructure development, and on the projection of African culture and identity. Attention is given to a range of topics including the management, costs and benefits associated with the 2010 World Cup, the uncertain economic and employment benefits, venue selection, and investment in infrastructure, tourism and fan parks. 328pp, SOUTH AFRICA. HUMAN SCIENCES RESEARCH COUNCIL.

Following on the huge success of "DOWN SOUTH: Homes and Interiors in South Africa," writer Paul Duncan and photographer Fritz von der Schulenburg have teamed up to produce a second book exploring a diverse and fascinating selection of South African homes all around the country, from high-flyer city homes on the Highveld to enviable Plettenberg Bay beach houses and Cape Dutch homesteads in Cape Town and the Winelands. Inspiration and an ideal gift for anyone interested in 21st-century South African design and lifestyles. Colour photographs throughout, 182pp, SOUTH AFRICA, JONATHAN BALL.

South African cities have strong traditions of forceful planning from above with considerable capacity to finance change. They witness de-industrialisation and decentring as do so many Western cities, but they are also the site of massive squatter settlements and populations that fall outside the functioning of the 'formal' economy. This book highlights the role of networks and the co-operation for survival by Durban's newer citizens as they make space for themselves. Index, notes, refs, maps, x, 345pp, SOUTH AFRICA. UNIVERSITY OF NATAL PRESS, 1869140133

A study of Johannesburg as a microcosm of urban South African life. The essays look into the socio-political issues which feed into the poverty and local politics of the city. Index, notes, refs, maps, tables, xv, 305pp, UK. ROUTLEDGE.

A critical study of South Africa's housing programme asking whether the housing backlog can be meet without sacrificing a sustainable housing future and real fiscal constraints. Other issues addressed include urban restructuring, alternative tenure forms, housing finance and low income housing. Refs, notes, xxxix, 486pp, SOUTH AFRICA. HEINEMANN SOUTH AFRICA, 0796207860

Cities are not only made of buildings and roads, they are also constructed through popular imagination and spaces of representation. This book explores the apartheid legacies of the city and demonstrates that cultural life flourished through people's resilience in spite of adversity. Authors move beyond apartheid descriptions to analyse the reflexive ways in which people are coming to terms with that history through memory work, performance and memorialisation. Other chapters provide contemporary views of local interactions such as moments of urban violence or people negotiating the challenges of a globalised world. Whatever the context, this book traces social and cultural interactions over time and across city spaces that speak directly to the senses, memories and imagining of Cape Town. Index, b/w photos, 240pp, SOUTH AFRICA. HUMAN SCIENCES RESEARCH COUNCIL.

pioneering effort to insert South Africa's largest city into urban theory on its own terms. Johannesburg is Africa's premier metropolis. Yet theories of urbanization have tended to cast it as an emblem of irresolvable crisis, the spatial embodiment of unequal economic relations and segregationist policies, a city that responds to but does not contribute to modernity on the global scale. Complicating and contesting such characterizations, the contributors to this collection reassess classic theories of metropolitan modernity as they explore the experience of 'citiness' and urban life in post-apartheid South Africa. They portray Johannesburg as a polycentric and international city with a hybrid history that continually permeates the present.Turning its back on rigid rationalities of planning and racial separation, Johannesburg has become a place of intermingling and improvisation, a city that is fast developing its own brand of cosmopolitan culture. This volume's essays include an investigation of representation and self-stylization in the city, an ethnographic examination of friction zones and practices of social reproduction in inner-city Johannesburg, a discussion of the economic and literary relationship between Johannesburg and Maputo, Mozambique's capital. Index, bib, b/w illus, 398pp, USA. DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS.

Brings together available material from 1886 to 2003 to reveal the unfolding geography of the city from its days as a mining camp through to its present position as premier metropolis of the African continent. Explores urban geography in the central area of the city, the character of the white suburbs at different periods of time and the nature and variety of predominantly black occupied slums, and areas of Johannesburg where non white people were forced to reside in extreme poverty. Index, bib, maps, diagrams, b/w photos, 392pp, SOUTH AFRICA. UNISA PRESS.

A portrait of a complex city in flux using the words of ordinary people, politicians, architects and urban planners to highlight its diversity and unity. Text in English, French and German. 157pp, SOUTH AFRICA. STE PUBLISHERS, 1919855289

A first of its kind, Johannesburg Portraits tells the story of Johannesburg through the lives of its most prominent residents - from the Randlords to the current inhabitants - both living and dead. Through personality sketches that merge into politics, social history, urban geography, economics and the arts, the author tracks the city's growth and development, reflecting the stimulating, often turbulent atmosphere along the way. Bib, b/w illustrations, 131pp, SOUTH AFRICA. JACANA EDUCATION, 1919931333

Follow on to JOHANNESBURG STYLE: Architecture and Society, 1880s-1960s (David Philip, 1994), this closely examines the built environment of southern Africa's economic hub, during the time when the racist ideology reigned, and in its aftermath from 1994. The book is a comprehensive study that neatly combines facts and figures with highly informed commentary and an abundance of carefully selected photographs and illustrations. 490pp, SOUTH AFRICA. STE PUBLISHERS.

Explores the origin and history of the second largest township complex in Gauteng. Uses dozens of personal life stories to plot the changing patterns of township life among youth, women, migrants and community leaders. Includes foreword from Nelson Mandela. Maps, b/w illus, bib, vii, 149pp, . MASKEW MILLER LONGMAN.

Fully updated, corrected and re-set, this second edition documents those buildings that have disappeared since 1971 and the prospects for those that remain. It also gives short accounts of the people - Boers and British South Africans - who designed the city, as well as some who visited and wrote about it. With lavish black-and-white photographs and illustrations by Hannes Meiring. Index, gloss, 258pp, SOUTH AFRICA. PROTEA BOOK HOUSE.

Comprehensive study of the physical history of the older towns of the former 'Cape Colony'. It contains over seven hundred illustrations, including hundreds of previously unpublished pioneer photographs and early watercolours. Many detailed aerial photographs, few of them ever seen in print, some dating back to the 1930s, allow the reader to step back in time and view the original towns before modern developments brought about irrevocable changes in the town-scape. SOUTH AFRICA. JONATHAN BALL.

Public Culture is a journal reporting and reflecting on globalisation and the cultural transformations associated with cities, media and consumption. Issue 3, volume 16 is entitled JOHANNESBURG: The Elusive Metropolis and contributors include John Matshikiza, Nsizwa Dlamini, Grace Khunou, Mark Gevisser, Lindsay Bremner and Rodney Place. Topics addressed include the Constitution Hill Project, the Kliptown Project and modern Soweto. B/w illus, xi, 200pp, USA. DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 082236610X

Argues that in post-apartheid Johannesburg, tensions of race and class manifest themselves starkly in struggles over rights to the city. Real-estate developers and the very poor fight for control of space as the municipal administration steps aside, almost powerless to shape the direction of change. Having ceded control of development to the private sector, the Johannesburg city government has all but abandoned residential planning to the unpredictability of market forces. This failure to plan for the civic good (and the resulting confusion) is a perfect example of the entrepreneurial approaches to urban governance that are sweeping much of the Global South as well as the cities of the North. Index, bib, 261pp, USA. CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS.

This study provides a window into the lives of ordinary South Africans more than ten years after the end of apartheid, with the promises of the democracy movement remaining largely unfulfilled. Catherine Besteman explores the emotional and personal aspects of the transition to black majority rule by homing in on intimate questions of love, family, and community and capturing the complex, sometimes contradictory voices of a wide variety of Capetonians. Her evaluation of the physical and psychic costs to individuals involved in working for social change is grounded in the experiences of the participants and illuminates two overarching dimensions of life in Cape Town: the aggregate forces determined to maintain the apartheid-era status quo, and the grassroots efforts to effect social change. Index, notes, 298pp, USA. CALIFORNIA U P.

Contains 52 articles grouped into 16 sections, written by 54 contributors from 12 countries. Investigates how the city is experienced by very different and unequally divided groups of people living there, highlighting the vast material inequalities between various groups in Durban, and also investigates the cultures and identities they construct in their everyday lives. Topics covered include: street children and street traders and the problems they experience and the cultures they produce, unequal service provision in housing and transport, deteriorating residential spaces in the city centre; the living conditions and policing of shack dwellers; moral panics and race; student identities in the newly merged University and in mixed schools; mixed-race couples; entertainment, sport, beaches, nightlife and the cultural meanings attached to all of these; crime and paranoia about crime; Indian culture, Indian cinema and Indian heterogeneity; black African identities and culture in Durban; and, the vulnerabilities and agency of women sex workers. 501pp, SOUTH AFRICA. MADIBA PUBLISHERS.

Based on empirical data and analysis, this interdisciplinary work looks at social changes and urban governance in Johannesburg since 1994. Index, notes, refs, maps, tables, xv, 237pp, UK. EARTHSCAN, 1853839167

A comparative analysis of informal settlement intervention in South Africa and Brazil, exploring both countries' informal settlements from a socio political and international perspective. Index, refs, maps, b/w illus, xiii, 274pp, USA. AFRICA WORLD PRESS, 1592212115

An examination of the economic, social and political forces which have shaped the lives of white workers in Johannesburg between 1890 and 1922. BNS, 196pp, UK. ASHGATE PUBLISHERS, 0754609154