Urban Planning

Open Access Journal

ISSN: 2183-7635

Article | Open Access

The Indifference of Transport: Comparative Research of “Infrastructural Ruins” in the Gauteng City-Region and Greater Maputo

  • Margot Rubin School of Geography and Planning, Cardiff University, UK / SARCHI Chair in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa
  • Lindsay Blair Howe Institute of Architecture and Planning, University of Liechtenstein, Liechtenstein
  • Sarah Charlton School of Architecture and Planning, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa
  • Muhammed Suleman School of Architecture and Planning, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa
  • Anselmo Cani Faculty of Architecture, Eduardo Mondlane University, Mozambique
  • Lesego Tshuwa African Mayoral Leadership Initiative, University of Cape Town, South Africa
  • Alexandra Parker The Institute for Voluntary Action Research, UK
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Abstract:  States in the Global South have consistently invested in large-scale, vanity infrastructure projects, which are often not used by the majority of their residents. Using a mixed-method and comparative approach with findings from Greater Maputo, Mozambique, and the Gauteng City-Region exposes how internationally-supported and expensive transport projects do not meet the needs of lower-income urban residents, and meanwhile, widespread, everyday modes of commuting such as trains, paratransit, and pathways for walking deteriorate. State-led development thus often generates an infrastructural landscape characterised by “ruin” and “indifference.” These choices are anachronistic, steeped in a desire for a modernist-inspired future and in establishing narratives of control. In the cases of Gauteng and Maputo, whether or not the infrastructure is “successfully” implemented, these choices have resulted in a distancing of the state from the majority of urban residents.

Keywords:  Gauteng; infrastructural ruins; Maputo; Mozambique; South Africa; transport infrastructure

Published:  

Issue:   Vol 8, No 4 (2023): Between the “Structural” and the “Everyday”: Bridging Macro and Micro Perspectives in Comparative Urban Research

Supplementary Files:

DOI: https://doi.org/10.17645/up.v8i4.7264


© Margot Rubin, Lindsay Blair Howe, Sarah Charlton, Muhammed Suleman, Anselmo Cani, Lesego Tshuwa, Alexandra Parker. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits any use, distribution, and reproduction of the work without further permission provided the original author(s) and source are credited.

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