Private Archipelagos

Gauteng

Gauteng is home to more than a quarter of the country’s population with approximately 15 million people. It is the financial hub of Africa as it contains the administrative capital, Pretoria, and other large areas such as Johannesburg and Sandton. However this financial center is shifting northwards through private developments. Since the discovery of gold, private development have been growing, starting from company towns for the mine workers to industrial hubs created along the main circulation networks to the establishment of private cities, that is to say, gated communities located within an even larger enclosed territory. The trend towards privatization has been growing since 1994, both due to the growth of industry and the search for secure environments, leading to an increasingly segregated City. Three case studies -Company towns, industrial Parks and Planned cities- have been analyzed to understand how they have impacted and are co-dependent of their surroundings. The research has revealed conditions in which the formal and informal come together at the intersection between public and private.