SOCIO-SPATIAL DIALECTICS WITHIN LANGA , THE FIRST BLACK TOWNSHIP IN CAPE TOWN , 1923-1960 123

In South Africa, before 1994, spatial segregation of people based on racial classification was a firmly established mechanism that was used for maintaining white racial supremacy. With the coming to power of the National Party government in 1948, this spatial separation was intended to be structured at all scales: nationally through the establishment of Bantustan states for those who were classified as black; within cities separate residential areas were designed for different racial categories; and within public buildings whites and non-whites (sic) were required to use separate entrances and amenities. With the introduction of a pass control system in 1952, it also meant that access to urban areas for indigenous African people was strictly controlled and that their presence within the city was isolated to segregated living quarters. These residential enclaves, which were typically located on the outskirts of the city, have commonly become known as township locations. In Cape Town, Langa became the first such township to be established in 1927, and for the city authorities at that time, this spatial model represented an ideal mechanism of control for implementing and maintaining the dominant social values that prevailed at the start of the 20th century. However, the history of the anti-Apartheid resistance reveals another dimension of this socio-spatial arrangement. Not only was the apartheid city the space for advancing and re-producing a particular socio-economic order, but the city, particularly the township, was also a place of opposition and social re-imagination. Places of intended control had also featured as places of intense resistance. In other words, this history tells us that the township, as well as the larger city, should not simply be thought of as some kind of abstract determinist spatial instrument. It should not be seen as an a priori entity, but should be appreciated ‘as a unity containing different aspects’ (Merrifield 1993:519) and as a place, ‘a terrain where basic social practices – consumption, enjoyment, tradition, self-identification, solidarity, social support and social reproduction, etc. – are lived out’ (Merrifield 1993:522). In this sense the township can be appreciated as a mediating terrain – a spatial threshold, and it is in this light that the early development of the Langa township will be reflected upon. In doing so, the initial conceptualisation of the township as a functional institutional mechanism (of control) will be considered by making use of Donald Foley’s (1964) analytical framework which he developed in order to study the spatial structure of metropolitan regions, and secondly by taking a closer reading of it as a place (of being) where social practices were lived out during its early years. In both cases, the spatial dimension of the township will be foregrounded as a way of bringing into dialogue a socio-spatial dialect. In this regard the spatial features of the Langa township will be discursively considered by drawing on the theoretical and representational techniques offered by space syntax for analysing urban environments (Hillier and Hanson 1984, Hillier 1996).