Taming the Disorderly City: The Spatial Landscape of Johannesburg after Apartheid
"This is the kind of book one gets excited about reading from the first page onward. A chief reason for that is the propulsive energy and enthusiasm of Murray's engaging writing. Murray argues for seeing Johannesburg after apartheid as a city that remains divided against itself. He has three interwoven claims for post-apartheid Johannesburg: that the regeneration process and the road to ruin are two sides of the same coin; that it is very difficult to alter the urban landscape when it is physically so wedded to political-economic segregation and inequality; and that reliance on market mechanisms exacerbates the divisions of the city. Murrays four lines of argument around these claims might be described as emphasizing economic geography, socio-cultural aesthetics and discourse, urban governance, and the professional practice of urban planning. After a brief introduction, he lays out his case through eight theoretically engaged and empirically rich chapters. The content relies on a broad understanding of relevant literatures and on field research. Murray mixes data sources well, from interviews, detailed site visits to informal settlements, conversations with activists and residents, and news accounts. . . . This is a very strong book, ideally suited for use in urban geography and Africa geography courses. "—Garth Andrew Myers, Journal of Cultural Geography"Taming the Disorderly City is compelling, lively, and very engaging. It is both an impassioned portrait of Johannesburg and a tough intellectual and political critique of often confusing and ambivalent urban dynamics. Martin J. Murray's book will help a whole generation of urbanists get to grips with this emergent urbanism and its profound political and personal challenges."—Jennifer Robinson, The Open University"Taming the Disorderly City is as much about Johannesburg as it is about the political sociology of contemporary cities, particularly those in the Global South. Martin J. Murray shows that there is a particular twist to Johannesburg's case: the city acquired a fragmented and disorderly landscape not as a matter of natural urban growth but because it entered the postapartheid era in the age of neoliberal globalization. This is a superb book. Murray's writing is clear and accessible and I know of no other work in urban sociology that is equally attentive to both the specific and the general."—Gyan Prakash, Dayton-Stockton Professor of History and Director of the Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies, Princeton University