Johannesburg's poor find little for their comfort
Johannesburg's Brickfields inner-city housing development is a showpiece for a country that prides itself on enlightened social policies. Located at the foot of the city's Nelson Mandela Bridge, it comprises three clusters of tidy three- and four-storey walk-ups and nine-storey tower blocks, constructed around inviting courtyards.
Brickfields was built with the help of a state subsidy and 30 per cent of flats are set aside for poorer tenants who pay rents 20 per cent below the market rate. Its residents are both blue- and white-collar workers and mostly - but not exclusively - black, making it a model of post-apartheid integration.
South Africa was praised in a recent United Nations report for its "consistent political commitment" to slum upgrading and provision for the urban poor. Since the end of apartheid in 1994, African National Congress-led governments have built about 2m subsidised houses nationwide. The country's strong tax base means it has a welfare budget that poorer African neighbours can only envy. Brickfields gives credibility to Johannesburg's ambition to become Africa's world-class city.
A short walk east from the new development, however, Johannesburg's Hillbrow district presents a decidedly uglier aspect. This neighbourhood of faded high-rises, known for its chic bohemian ambience barely a decade ago, is now a sinkhole of overcrowding, violent crime and decay. Tenants - many of them poor immigrants from other African countries - live in Dickensian squalor. Some buildings have been without power, water or sewage for years. "Hijacking" of properties by criminal gangs is common, as is piling 10 or more tenants into a single flat.
The contrasts on display in South Africa's largest city owe something to the country's unique and tumultuous recent history, which up-ended apartheid's repressive controls on movement. However, Johannesburg's problems are not unusual in middle-income developing countries. The city, with a population of about 3m at the hub of the country's richest province, is a magnet for rural and foreign migrants. Between 1996 and 2001 its population grew by 4.1 per cent a year, more than twice the national rate.
Local officials have struggled to keep up with the influx. In order to meet the ANC's pledge to eliminate shacks and other sub-standard housing by 2014, Johannesburg would need to build about 48,000 units a year. It has averaged only an annual 14,000 a year recently, according to Uhuru Nene, the city's director of housing.
While some poor Jo'burgers brave dire conditions in Hillbrow to be near their jobs, many more have been pushed to shacks or subsidised houses on the distant periphery. The result has been an increasingly unmanageable sprawl and, even, a reinforcement of the racially segregated urban geography of apartheid. Rising land and construction costs are pushing low-income housing - and the poor blacks who live there - to the city's fringes. State subsidies have not kept pace with the property boom.
"Government has not been able to come to terms with the level of funding required," says Taffy Adler, chief executive of Johannesburg Housing Co, the non-profit community development group behind Brickfields. The public transport system, mostly ramshackle trains and minibus taxis, is also strained. Poor people pay disproportionately to get from distant homes to jobs: 46 per cent of households in the city spend more than 10 per cent of disposable income on public transport.
Unmotivated or unskilled local planners may be partly to blame. Few South Africans would describe Amos Masondo, Johannesburg's second-term mayor, as a visionary. In keeping with ANC practice he was reappointed after this year's local election and did not have to campaign directly against a competitor.
In spite of leftist rhetoric promising "a better life for all", the ANC has taken a largely laisser faire attitude toward urban development. While subsidised low-income housing is desperately needed in the inner city, private developers have been given virtually free rein to convert former office blocks into luxury flats. Middle-class housing developments are sprawling north of the city with little evident planning. Apart from Newtown, Brickfields' neighbourhood, city officials have shown little interest in drawing up blueprints to improve depressed areas. "The city doesn't have an urban design framework and it desperately needs one," says Neil Fraser, who runs Urban Inc, a planning and development consultancy.
Prompted partly by the responsibilities of hosting the World Cup in four years' time, local officials are beginning to respond. The Gautrain, a European-style rapid rail link now under construction, will ease the city's transport problems. Mbhazima Shilowa, premier of Johannesburg's home province of Gauteng, is due this month to launch a "global city region" scheme linking it with neighbouring municipal areas including Tshwane (Pretoria) and Ekurhuleni (the East Rand). The project aims to boost the region's ability to compete with the world's other "supercities" and draw in investment.
Even life in benighted Hillbrow is improving, albeit from a low base. The quarter's formerly scruffy Europa Hotel has been transformed into decent low-income flats. In the surest sign that the neighbourhood's fortunes may be turning, private-sector property developers are beginning to move in. As run-down as
they are, Hillbrow's high-rise apartments boast panoramic views and an attribute again in demand in Johannesburg: a central location.
约翰内斯堡：贫富“隔离”依旧
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于以开明的社会政策而自豪的南非，约翰内斯堡市中心的布里克菲尔兹(Brickfields)住宅开发项目正是这个国家的展示窗口。坐落在约翰内斯堡纳尔逊?曼德拉大桥(Nelson Mandela Bridge)桥头附近的这个项目，分为三个整洁的建筑群，由3、4层的无电梯公寓和9层的塔楼组成，中间是风景宜人的庭院。
布里克菲尔德的建设得到了国家补贴，这里30%的公寓留给贫穷租户，他们支付的租金比市场价格低20%。这里的居民既有蓝领工人，也有白领工人，多数――但不完全――都是黑人，使得这里成为南非废除种族隔离制度之后种族融合的范例。
联合国在最近发布的报告中，称赞南非在改善贫民窟居住条件和为城市贫困人口提供便利方面，保持了“政治承诺的连贯性”。自1994年废除种族隔离制度以来，非洲人国民大会(ANC，简称：非国大)领导的南非政府已在全国范围内兴建了约200万套政府补贴住宅。强大的税基确保了南非的福利预算，较贫困的非洲邻国只能望而生羡。
然而，在布里克菲尔德以东不远处的希尔布拉(Hillbrow)地区，则展示着约翰内斯堡绝对更为丑陋的一面。就在10年前，这个高楼林立的地区还以时尚的波希米亚风格而著称，如今，这里已沦落为一个藏污纳垢之所，到处拥挤不堪，充斥着暴力犯罪和腐朽的气息，租户们生活在狄更斯笔下肮脏破败的场景之中，他们当中许多是来自其它非洲国家的贫困移民。一些住宅楼多年来都没有电，没有水，或者没有下水道。犯罪团伙抢劫财物的现象比比皆是，10多位租户挤在一间公寓里的情形也是屡见不鲜。
在南非这座最大的城市里，截然不同的两种景象同时上演，这在一定程度上要归因于该国近代独特而动荡的历史。这段历史颠覆了种族隔离制度对迁移的压制。然而，约翰内斯堡的问题在中等收入的发展中国家并不鲜见。这个城市拥有约300万人口，位于南非最富裕省份的中心，它像一块磁石，吸引着农村人口和外国移民。1996年至2001年间，该市人口每年增长4.1%，比全国的速度高出一倍有余。
地方官员的工作难以跟上人口涌入的速度。非国大承诺要在2014年前拆除所有棚屋和其它没有达标的住宅。为了兑现这一承诺，约翰内斯堡每年需要建设4.8万套新住宅。该市住宅建设负责人乌鲁?内内(Uhuru Nene)表示，近年来每年新建住宅平均仅有1.4万套。
虽然有一些贫困的约翰内斯堡人为了离工作地点较近，鼓起勇气选择住在希尔布拉糟糕的环境中，但更多的人则被推向远郊的棚屋或政府补贴住宅。其结果是，城市的无序扩张越来越难以管理，而且，令人忧虑的是，它加重了城市中因地理位置导致的种族隔离现象。土地和建筑成本的上升将低收入住宅――和居住在那里的贫穷黑人――推向了城市的边缘。国家补贴赶不上房地产繁荣的速度。
约翰内斯堡住宅公司(Johannesburg Housing Co)首席执行官塔菲?阿德勒(Taffy Adler)表示：“政府一直无法筹措到所需的资金。”该公司是开发布里克菲尔德项目的非赢利性社区开发集团。主要由快要散架的火车和小公共汽车组成公交系统同样吃紧。穷人从遥远的家中到达工作单位需要支付的费用高得离谱：该市46%家庭的公交支出占可支配收入的比例超过10%。
当地没有动力或缺乏技能的城市规划者或许该承担部分责任。几乎没有南非人会把连任的约翰内斯堡市长阿莫斯? 马松图(Amos Masondo)描述为一位理想主义者。按照非国大的惯例，在今年的地方选举中，他再次被任命为市长，而不必与竞争者竞选。
尽管在其左派言论中承诺要“让所有的人都生活得更美好”，但在很大程度上，非国大对城市发展采取了一种放任自流的态度。虽然在市中心迫切需要政府补贴的低收入住宅，但私人开发商实际上可以不受约束地将先前的办公大楼改造为豪华公寓。中产阶层住宅开发项目不断向城市北部蔓延，几乎毫无计划可言。除了布里克菲尔德附近的新城(Newtown)地区，市政官员对制定规划、改善希尔布拉等贫困地区的现状毫无兴趣。规划和开发咨询公司Urban Inc的经营者尼尔? 弗雷泽(Neil Fraser)表示：“这座城市没有城市设计框架，它迫切需要一个这样的框架。”
受到四年后承办世界杯(World Cup)责任的部分推动，约翰内斯堡政府官员开始作出反应。一条欧洲风格的铁路快运线路Gautrain正在建设之中，它将缓解城市的交通问题。约翰内斯堡所在豪登省的省长姆贝奇玛?希洛瓦 (Mbhazima Shilowa)本月晚些时候将推出“全球城市地区”(global city region)计划，将约翰内斯堡与临近的茨瓦纳（原名比勒陀利亚）和爱库鲁莱尼（原名东兰德）等城市连在一起。该项目旨在提升这一地区与全球其它“超级城市”竞争的能力，吸引投资。
甚至连落后地区希尔布拉的生活也在改善，尽管起点较低。该地区原来破败的酒店Europa Hotel已被改造为体面的低收入住宅。最能说明该地区命运也许已出现转机的是，私营地产开发商已开始进入该地区。尽管破败，但希尔布拉的高层公寓也有其值得夸耀之处：全景景观及地段，而后一优点在约翰内斯堡的需求正不断增长。
