Townships in South African cities – Literature review and research perspectives

In 2011 South African townships marked 20 years after the scrapping of apartheid legislation. While the spatial impress of apartheid planning will be with South African cities for many decades to come, have townships undergone a dramatic transformation? In this literature overview paper we identify key themes of research that focussed on townships mostly since the 1990s. We conclude the paper by briefly examining urban protests, one of the social pathologies of township life, to show how tensions within the townships have ramifications for democracy, civic peace and the focus on urban challenges of the past.

► We review academic literature on South African townships twenty years after the scrapping of apartheid legislation.
► Key themes of research are discussed in three periods: until the mid-1970s; late apartheid period; and since the early 1990s.
► We briefly examine urban protests, to show how tensions within the townships have ramifications for urban challenges of the past.