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

Margot Rubin, Lindsay Blair Howe, Sarah Charlton, Muhammed Suleman, Anselmo Cani, Lesego Tshuwa and Alexandra Parker
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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

Urban Planning, 2023, vol. 8, issue 4, 351-365

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 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cog:urbpla:v8:y:2023:i:4:p:351-365

DOI: 10.17645/up.v8i4.7264

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