Background
Your Assignment
Navigating the Case
Where to Begin
In late November 1995, residents in the Johannesburg, South Africa, neighborhood of Yeoville took to the streets to protest government inaction in the face of what many thought to be the rapid decline of their community. The catalyst for public outrage was the stabbing death of a popular restaurant owner, Ridley Wright, at the hands of a well-known drug-dealer. Property owners and store owners decried the lack of police action in stemming the growing trade of hard drugs sold openly in Yeoville's main business district.
For many, the presence of the drug dealers had come to represent a more widespread social unravelling, the other manifestations of which ranged from litter on city streets to the decline of property values, business flight, and the rise of unlicensed, immigrant "hawkers" throughout the town. Some hoped Wright's murder would, for once, galvanize action to reverse Yeoville's decline.
That Yeoville had undergone dramatic change over the years was obvious. One of Johannesburg's oldest suburbs and long-time home to Orthodox and Hasidic Jews, Yeoville had evolved over the latter part of the 1900s into South Africa's pre-eminent bohemian enclave, similar in energy if not size to New York City's East Village, Amsterdam's Camden, and London's South End.
The eclectic mix of races, backgrounds, and lifestyles that characterized Yeoville was in stark contrast to the social agenda of the country's apartheid legislation. As might be expected, Yeoville in the late 1980s became a bastion of apartheid defiance, spearheaded by a strong and heterogenous local chapter of the African National Congress, the political party that Nelson Mandela helped build.
With the demise of apartheid in the early 1990s, followed by elections in 1994, Yeoville began to change once again. On the level of local infrastructure, the maturity of the ANC branch smoothed the way for the creation of various "community forums" that were intended to be the engines of social and economic change in the post-apartheid era.
But the demographic profile of the community was also rapidly changing. A preponderance of low-rent housing coupled with the community's long tradition of openness to all kinds had made the area a natural magnet for new immigrants from within South Africa as well as other African nations. Yeoville offered an urban toe-hold and at least the prospect of opportunity at a time when both were difficult to find even in the wealthiest country of the world's poorest continent. It was the fusion of the old bohemian Yeoville with the new pan-African Yeoville that appeared to pose the greatest challenge to Yeoville's future.
With Wright buried, his murderer convicted, and the protest placards long discarded, Yeoville residents now faced the enduring questions of how best to work towards rebuilding their community at a time of widespread social upheaval. Some despaired of Yeoville ever regaining the charmed era of its unified multiracial, multicultural rebellion in the days of apartheid. Others saw in Yeoville a portent of the challenges before the whole country. "If we're going to talk about South Africa as the rainbow nation," says Richard Levin, Yeoville resident and sociologist, "Then if we fail in Yeoville, we fail in South Africa."
You were recently hired as an Executive Officer in the Metropolitan Planning, Urbanisation and Environmental Management Cluster of the Greater Johannesburg Metropolitan Council (GJMC). As a trained development planner, you are responsible for the coordination of development planning for the entire Greater Johannesburg Metropolitan Area. You report to Mr. Tshepiso Mashinini, Strategic Executive of the Metropolitan Planning, Urbanisation and Environmental Management Cluster. However, to do your job you need to liaise and work with the planning staff in the four Metropolitan Local Councils that underpin the GJMC.
For projects concerning Yeoville, you need to coordinate your activities with the planning staff in the Eastern Metropolitan Local Council, headquartered in Sandton to the far north of the metropolitan area. However, due to the fact that Yeoville has traditionally been run by the old, all-white Johannesburg City Council before it was disbanded and restructured, the Sandton-based planning department is far less familiar with Yeoville than the staff in the GJMC. It is for this reason that your Strategic Executive is particularly interested in Yeoville and what can be done to meet its needs.
The GJMC has a large budget for bulk infrastructure. The Metropolitan Local Councils must attend to matters such as housing, cleanliness, road surfaces, business development and street lighting. Safety and security matters are not a local government function because the police service is controlled by National Government, with policy oversight at the local level under the aegis of Provincial Government. [For a discussion of the structure of local governance, see Local Government in South Africa in the RESOURCES section of this case.]
Despite the fragmented nature of governance in Johannesburg, your Strategic Executive is of the view that his Cluster is responsible for developing a coherent strategic vision for the metropolitan area as a whole, and for Yeoville in particular. Implementation of this, however, will only happen if this vision is supported by the Metropolitan Local Councils and the other Clusters that make up the GJMC.
Like many new local governments in South Africa, the GJMC is under pressure to show results, please varied stakeholders, and stay within its budget. It could use a high profile "success story" to boost confidence in its role.
Like you, the Strategic Executive is also new in his job. The Strategic Executive is eager to learn quickly about Johannesburg's many and varied neighbourhoods, and he wants to choose a few neighborhoods in which to pilot a multi-faceted, collaborative (public-private-community-based) program to enhance quality of life.
Given the special character of Yeoville, he wants to make it one of the first "pilot" development projects. He has piles of studies and expert opinions but prefers to learn "hands on". He has therefore asked you to arrange visits for him to Yeoville and other key neighborhoods.
The visit to Yeoville is to culminate in a one day meeting with the Local Development Forum that includes all the key local community leaders. Your Strategic Executive would like to go into this meeting somewhat informed about the problems and with some ideas about what the GJMC and the Eastern Metropolitan Local Council could do to resolve Yeoville's problems. He would like to be perceived as being "on the ball", but at the same time open to suggestions and proposals from the community.
To prepare for the visit and the meeting with the Local Development Forum, you've decided to do some basic fact finding to help you suggest questions and next steps for your Strategic Executive.
The elements of your assignment
Your assignment includes four parts:
The case consists of four basic sections that contain information about Yeoville:
In addition to these sections, one final section, GUIDE, describes the contents of this site in greater detail and provides hints for navigating through the information.
Links to all the above pages appear at the bottom of every page of the case, as well as in the left-hand side "navigation bar". You can reach this page through the HOME link.
The case is designed to be approached in several different ways. Once you've read the Background section above, you can approach the case through VOICES, PLACES, or NEWS. RESOURCES offers an overview of the structure of municipal government by Yeoville Councillor Sisa Njikelana. In general, however, it's best to familiarize yourself with the information in the first three sections before venturing farther afield through RESOURCES.
To begin the assignment, click on the names of one of the sections below or one of the icons in the navigation bar to the left of this page.
