The Blinded City recounts the history of inner-city Johannesburg from 2010 to 2019, primarily from the perspectives of the unlawful occupiers of spaces known as hijacked buildings, bad buildings or dark buildings. Tens of thousands of residents, both South African and foreign national, live in these buildings in dire conditions. This book tells the story of these sites and the court cases around them, which strike at the centre of who has the right to occupy the city. In February 2010, while Johannesburg prepared for the FIFA World Cup, the South Gauteng High Court ordered the eviction of the unlawful occupiers of an abandoned carpet factory on Saratoga Avenue and that the city's Metropolitan Municipality provide temporary emergency accommodation for the evicted. The case, which became known as Blue Moonlight and went to the Constitutional Court, catalysed a decade of struggles over housing and eviction in Johannesburg.
CONTRIBUTORS: Matthew Wilhelm-Solomon
EAN: 9781770107946
COUNTRY: South Africa
PAGES:
WEIGHT: 500 g
HEIGHT: 0 cm
PUBLISHED BY: Pan Macmillan South Africa
DATE PUBLISHED:
CITY:
GENRE: ARCHITECTURE / History / General, HISTORY / Africa / South / General, HISTORY / Africa / South / Republic of South Africa, HISTORY / Social History
WIDTH: 0 cm
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Book Themes:
Republic of South Africa, c 2010 to c 2019, History of architecture, African history, Social and cultural history
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