Post-apartheid mobility and migration on South Africa’s urban peripheries

Introduction

The democratic transition of 1994 marked a profound rupture in South Africa‘s political and social landscape. Yet, despite the dismantling of apartheid legislation, the spatial imprint of segregation remains deeply embedded in the country‘s urban form. Cities such as Johannesburg, Cape Town, and Durban continue to exhibit stark divisions between affluent scores and impoverished peripheries (Parnell & Pieterse, 2010). Ambitious policy frameworks-including the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP), the Urban Development Framework, and the Integrated Urban Development Framework (IUDF) sought to redress these inequalities. However, their material effects have been uneven, often reproducing inherited hierarchies rather than dismantling them (Turok, 2016).

Urban transformation discourse has emphasised inclusion, empowerment, and growth, but empirical research shows limited impact on the daily lives of the urban poor (Charlton, 2018). Informal settlements, peripheral townships, and transit camps remain characterised by weak infrastructure, insecure tenure, and restricted access to employment. This paper critically reviews scholarship on post-apartheid urban change, focusing on mobility, migration, and informality, and asks whether South Africa‘s transformation agenda has meaningfully advanced spatial justice and urban citizenship (Harrison, 2006; Lemanski, 2020).

Urban peripheries and historical migration

Apartheid planning deliberately produced peripheral spaces through legislation such as the Group Areas Act (1950) and Pass Laws, which relocated Black, Coloured, and Indian populations away from economic centres (Seekings & Nattrass, 2005). Although repealed in the early 1990s, these policies left enduring inequalities in land access, transport, and services (Turok & Borel-Saladin, 2016).

Today, peripheral settlements are primary destinations for both internal migrants from provinces such as Limpopo and the Eastern Cape, and cross-border migrants from Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and Malawi. These migrants are drawn by employment and education opportunities but face long commutes, insecure housing, and exclusion from formal labour markets (Cross, 2006). Informal settlements such as Diepsloot and Dunoon exemplify this dynamic, offering shelter but limited security (Crush & Tawodzera, 2014).

Mobility itself remains marginal in planning thought. Migrants are often framed as temporary, weakening their claims to urban citizenship (Charlton & Kihato, 2006). This raises fundamental questions: whose presence is recognised as legitimate in the city, and whose mobility shapes urban futures?

Internal migration and informal settlements

Internal migration remains one of the most significant drivers of urban change in post-apartheid South Africa. Rural provinces such as Limpopo, the Eastern Cape, and KwaZulu-Natal continue to send large numbers of young people into metropolitan centres, drawn by the promise of employment, education, and access to services. Yet, for many, the city is not a site of upward mobility but of precarious survival. Recent statistics indicate that approximately 13.1% of South African households reside in informal dwellings, most of them concentrated on the urban periphery (Statistics South Africa, 2022).

Settlements such as Diepsloot in Johannesburg and Monwabisi Park in Cape Town illustrate the lived realities of internal migrants. These spaces are often framed in policy discourse as zones of deprivation, but ethnographic research reveals them as sites of social reproduction and collective negotiation. Migrants rely on kinship ties, informal land arrangements, and community leadership structures to secure housing and basic services (Huchzermeyer, 2011). Informal governance mechanisms-street committees, neighbourhood watch groups, and local associations-play a crucial role in mediating everyday life. However, these practices sit uneasily alongside state approaches that continue to treat informality as temporary, rather than recognising it as a durable feature of the urban landscape (Charlton, 2018).

Cross-border migration and xenophobia

The everyday realities of cross-border migrants on South Africa‘s urban peripheries reveal a profound tension between constitutional ideals and lived experience. The post-apartheid Constitution extends basic rights and protections to ―everyone‖ within the country‘s borders, including access to housing, healthcare, and due process. Yet, for migrants and asylum seekers from neighbouring states most notably Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, these legal guarantees have seldom translated into stable social or economic conditions (Crush et al., 2013). Episodes of xenophobic violence underscore the precariousness of migrant life. The outbreaks in 2008 and again in 2015 resulted in deaths, displacement, and widespread destruction of livelihoods. Scholars argue these were not isolated eruptions but symptoms of deeper structural pressures: high unemployment, competition over scarce resources, and the failure of the state to manage local tensions (Neocosmos, 2010). Violence was concentrated in under-serviced areas such as Alexandra, Khayelitsha, and parts of eThekwini, where housing shortages and contested access to informal economic activities intensified everyday insecurity. In these contexts, migrants were frequently portrayed as economic competitors or illegitimate outsiders, irrespective of their length of residence or legal status (Misago, 2017).

Housing, displacement, and peripheral inequality

Africa‘s post-apartheid development project. Following the transition to democracy, the state invested heavily in large-scale housing programmes intended to address long-standing inequalities in access to land and adequate shelter. By 2020, more than four million subsidised housing units had been constructed, largely through the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) and later policy iterations such as Breaking New Ground (BNG) (Department of Human Settlements, 2020). From a numerical standpoint, this represents a significant achievement. Yet scholars increasingly question whether these gains have translated into meaningful socio-spatial transformation (Harrison et al., 2008).

A recurring critique centres on the location of state-subsidised housing developments. While these projects provide formal dwellings, they are frequently situated on the outer margins of cities, far from employment hubs, well-resourced schools, healthcare facilities, and efficient public transport networks. This pattern has been described as the ―suburbanisation of poverty,‖ whereby low-income households-many of them internal migrants or recent arrivals to the cityare placed in areas that offer shelter but few pathways to economic participation or social inclusion (Charlton & Kihato, 2006).

Housing megaprojects in Gauteng, including Lufhereng and Fleurhof, illustrate these challenges. Conceived as solutions to housing backlogs and informal settlement expansion, these developments have delivered large numbers of units. Yet their connection to the broader urban economy remains weak. Residents often face limited public transport options, long distances to employment centres, and insufficient social infrastructure such as clinics, schools, and recreational facilities (Ziblim & Fatti, 2019). For households without stable incomes or access to private transport, these conditions translate into high mobility costs, extended travel times, and constrained livelihood opportunities, reinforcing rather than alleviating urban poverty.

Participatory governance and policy gaps

Post-apartheid local governance in South Africa is formally anchored in democratic principles that emphasise public participation and inclusive decision-making. Institutional mechanisms such as ward committees, community development forums, and the Integrated Development Plan (IDP) process were established to encourage grassroots involvement in municipal planning and to ensure that local priorities inform state action. The Municipal Systems Act (2000) legally obliges municipalities to facilitate public participation, reflecting a broader constitutional commitment to participatory democracy. Yet, despite this progressive framework, participation often remains procedural rather than substantive, functioning more as a formal requirement than a meaningful avenue for popular influence (Oldfield, 2008). Studies of ward committees and IDP consultations reveal persistent shortcomings in how participation is practiced. These spaces are frequently characterised by low levels of engagement, limited transparency, and domination by political or social elites. Meetings are commonly scheduled at times or held in venues that exclude working-class residents, while consultation processes tend to privilege formally constituted organisations over informal or loosely organised groups (Cornwall, 2004). Consequently, residents of informal settlements and peripheral townships-those most directly affected by decisions on housing, infrastructure, and service delivery-are often absent from or marginalised within these forums.

Migrants are particularly disadvantaged within participatory governance structures. Cross-border migrants, especially those without regularised legal status, are effectively excluded altogether, while internal migrants frequently encounter barriers related to informal housing arrangements, lack of documentation, or exclusion from municipal records. This marginalisation is not simply an administrative oversight but reflects deeper structural assumptions about who qualifies as a legitimate urban subject. In practice, participatory governance often reproduces exclusionary patterns by recognising only those residents who fit into formal categories of permanence and tenure. The result is a governance system that struggles to engage with the realities of mobility and informality. Migrants and residents of peripheral settlements remain invisible in planning processes, even though they are among the most affected by decisions regarding housing, infrastructure, and service delivery. This disconnect undermines the democratic promise of post-apartheid governance and perpetuates the invisibility of mobile populations.

Conclusion

Post-apartheid South Africa has made significant strides in housing delivery, infrastructure expansion, and participatory governance. Yet spatial justice remains elusive. Informal settlements and peripheral townships continue to absorb mobile populations, while policy frameworks neglect their adaptive strategies. Cross-border migrants face xenophobia and exclusion, undermining constitutional ideals of dignity and equality. To build inclusive cities, urban planning must embrace mobility as a defining feature of contemporary life. Participatory, rights-based frameworks that integrate migrants into housing, services, and governance are essential. Without sustained engagement with the lived realities of mobile populations, attempts to build more just and inclusive South African cities will remain fragmented and incomplete.