Bridge City

There is no question that the living conditions in the third world are not the most favorable. Life in many townships and slums around the world is not the safest, healthiest, and need to say appealing of conditions. However, there is something to be said about the community that is created within these areas. One of the most common misconceptions about life in slums and townships is that they are all extremely violent and miserable. This is not always the full story in the cause of many townships within Southern Africa there is a vibrant culture that emphasis music, art, and family. Along with this culture comes a large pride for their expression of the act of sacrificial.

This pride does not excuse for the lack in sustainable and healthy living conditions. Any people that travel to South Africa can see one of the main conditions that this nation is faced with is the division of the poor and the rich. Many rich urban developments are built with in meters of local townships. Over the years each development, the township and the rich urban establishment, grow larger and are beginning to meet each other. Through the architectural landscape of South Africa it becomes clear that this problem is not only an economic one but a larger ethical one. How can one person live next to poverty and attempt to do nothing about it?

The South African goverement, aware of this problem, has begun to address the poverty gap. Currently in the areas of Inanda, Ntuzuma, KwaMashu and Phoniex, which were previously disadvantaged areas, are being transformed into a town centre, called Bridge City, which will be funded by Moreland Development Company. The town centre will help the movement of the poor into sustainable living conditions, where RDP (Reconstruction and development programmed) housing will be placed in certain areas.

Moreland and the presidential back project hopes that Bridge City will live up to its name and “bridge” a community between the poor local communities and the rich. Moreland MD Gordon Hibbert furthers this hope, “Deification is the means with which poorer members of society can be intergraded into the economic fabric of society. Essentially, urban design control will improve the use of infrastructure to minimize costs and maximize economies.” Thus by creating a manufactured urban environment, which will most likely mimic those of the rich urban areas.

What worries me about this project is that the design, feel and space of this complex may get rid of the cultural aspects that these slum communities have created. This leaves the designers of these new communities a hard job have incorporating the cultural aspects of these slum communities with the rich urban landscape that has become prevalent in South Africa. The “urban design control” that Hibbert reveres to may hinder the ethos of the African community. Bridge City can clean up these areas and be successful, but only if the African community is considered. Like Richard Neutra says in his book Survival Through Design, “Design as an aid to survival must always have an intimate kinship to the life processes it serves within time”(171) Thus Bridge City will only be effect if the space serves a kingship the people it means to serve.


Bibliography

Moreland Developments. “Moreland Views-Bridge City”. (Wednesday, 07 June 2006)[http://www.moreland.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=45&Itemid=1] (12/03/07)

Neutra, Richard. 'Survival Through Design'Oxford Universit Press, Inc. New York, 1954