5.2.0 HISTORY
“Warwick Junction has provided exhilarating proof of how poor people, in sensitive collaboration with urban planners, can enliven a city centre, generate employment for themselves and expand services for the population at large”
-Hart in Skinner (2010, p. 1)
Skinner (2010) points out that within the vision of the “modern city” and thus perceived “city- ness” (Robinson 2004), informality and street trading do not form part of the urban language and as such, as has been postulated within this dissertation, there exists a contestation between those making and using “public space” and those controlling it (Sandercock 1998).
Warwick Junction in Durban, South Africa offers one such example of these continued contestations. In January 2009 the City Council announced its intentions to build a large shopping mall in Warwick Junction, threatening the livelihoods of up to 8000 informal traders where private property interests combined with a city facing the need to “modernise” ahead of the 2010 soccer world cup clashed with the livelihood strategies of the urban poor. The following precedent study explores how Warwick Junction as a site of insurgent urbanism was threatened by a typically top down planning intervention (Hou 2010), and as such the traders mobilised as Insurgent Citizens to contest their spatial, social and economic rights to trade in Warwick, and as such halted the cities development plans (Skinner 2010). The case of Warwick shows the power of insurgency and how the “in-between” have the power to control their urban and economic environment.
In 1997 a census was undertaken by the Economic Development Department of the street traders working within Durban. This census found that there were as many as 19 301 street traders within Durban, where up to 10 000 were operating in the inner city, further to this 4 065 were located around the Warwick Junction Area (Data Research Africa in Skinner 2010). These figures suggest the value of street trade through the distribution of cheaper goods in appropriate quantities to poorer South Africans (Skinner 2010). Given the confluence of various transport systems within the precinct, Warwick Junction has always served as a site for street vending as traders take advantage of the many commuters that pass through daily.
71 | P a g e As with the current false assumptions of “city-ness” (Robinson 2004) within developing countries, informal trading in the height of the apartheid era was strictly controlled as the image of the city did not suite informality. It was only in the 1980’s that street vendors were given permission to operate, but no facilities were provided and by the mid 1990’s up to 4000 traders were working in the precinct; displaced by political violence many were forced to both live and work in the area (Skinner 2010). “In 1995 the City Council established an urban renewal initiative to address the urban management concerns in the area” (Skinner 2010, p.
4). Further to this, the city indicated a need to focus on the needs of the urban poor. This focus on the urban poor thus indicated a local authority grappling with the post apartheid urbanity of exclusion and segregation.
5.2.1 INSURGENT CITIZENSHIPS
It was in this political climate that the first signs of Insurgency started to emerge whereby the Self Employed Women’s Union was launched, modelled on the Self Employed Women’s Association of India. The key objectives that SEWU set out to fulfil was to “build leadership among women in the lowest strata of the working class” (SEWU Constitution in Skinner 2010, p. 4) and through its mobilisations and negotiation skills, SEWU leaders “had secured an agreement from the Durban City Council to install water supplies and temporary toilet facilities for street traders” (Skinner 2010, p. 4). Further to these insurgencies were the street or area committees who created the umbrella body of the Informal Traders Management Board (ITMB) in 1995 which had earned the support of the majority of informal traders in the precinct.
The following ten years saw the development of the Warwick Junction Project, whereby council officials and street traders through SEWU and ITMB spatially redesigned the area providing dramatically improved built environments for traders and commuters. Serious urban management concerns such as crime and cleaning were addressed, as well as many other interventions that lead to the positive redevelopment of the area through an active dialogue between the traders and the authorities (Skinner 2010).
5.2.2 CONTESTATION
In 2003 the Warwick Junction Project’s jurisdiction was extended from the Warwick precinct to the whole inner city (Skinner 2010). Struggling to cope with the substantially larger project
72 | P a g e area officials were unable to dedicate the same degree of attention to the project, and thus by 2008 traders and officials noted how some of the infrastructure built in the 1990’s was in need of serious upgrades. Even within this context however, the announcement in February 2009 that the city intended on building a shopping mall came as a surprise to many (Skinner 2010).
The proposed site for the shopping mall was the Early Morning Market; the hub of the fresh produce trade within the precinct, whose history dates back to the 1880’s where it was established by the Indian indentured labourers. There is an estimated population of 2000 people deriving their livelihoods from this market, many of whom are third and even fourth generation traders. As Skinner (2010) points out, it was not only the Early Morning Market traders whose livelihoods were at risk, the developer agreed to construct a 400 bay taxi rank on the third floor and the train station concourse would be connected to the second floor, whilst the current traders would remain on the ground floor. This spatial redesign would result in a situation where commuters would be directed toward the formal shops within the mall, yet would have to go out of their way to pass informal traders, thereby planning the traders out of the precinct which is in complete contrast to the previous approaches of inclusivity and incorporation into the urban fabric as was achieved with the Traditional Medicine Market (Skinner 2010).
Figure 45 & Figure 46-Traders actively contesting the cities decision to build a mall threatening their livelihoods, and a market deeply entrenched with history.
73 | P a g e For the first half of 2009, the city attempted to fast track the project, contradicting their own rules and regulations. There was no call for expression of interest when the land was released as well as no evidence of public tendering process or environmental impact assessments etc.
“Despite the history of detailed involvement of stakeholders, the first consultation about the proposed new Mall was held on 18 February 2009, with construction meant to commence in early June” (Skinner 2010, p. 7). Insurgency came in the form of the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party coming together with the trade organisations under the international alliance of StreetNets’ campaign, “World Class Cities for All”. Planning practitioners and academics joined the fight by calling on the city to cease its plans, and petitions that were circulated gained international support, however the city reacted strongly to these oppositions and traders contesting the plans were dealt with harshly (Skinner 2010). In May 2009, the insurgents staged a legal sit-in in the Early Morning Market as a contestation of their social rights; however were tear gassed by the city police. Further to this abuse, in June 2009 rubber bullets were fired at protesting traders injuring many, including elderly women contesting the threat to their livelihood strategies (Skinner 2010).
Any further requests to protest were refused (Haysom in Skinner 2010). The question that these sites of insurgency bring to mind is why the City Councils approach had changed so rapidly, eager to displace not only historically important sites, but also a livelihood support for a large part of the previously excluded members of society within a country struggling to create jobs.
Skinner(2010) cites that one of the primary reasons for this, as discussed within this dissertation is that of the issue of Identity, and thus “modernist vision of the city that is being fast tracked” (Skinner 2010, p. 7) primarily due to the hosting of the 2010 Soccer World Cup.
This is supported by Bromley (in Skinner 2010, p. 10) who states that “aggressive policing (of street traders) is particularly notable just before major public and tourist events, on the assumption that orderly streets improve the image of the city to visitors”, but as postulated, what is the image of the city (Correa 1989)? What defines appropriate cityness? To paraphrase Skinner (2010) although the city did not explicitly state that traders do not “fit” the image of the city, their actions imply that informality is not part of the future of Durban’s CBD.
Asiye eTafuleni, a local NPO working with the informal traders of Warwick became increasingly aware of the devastating effects the mall would have on the traders of the area,
74 | P a g e such as the bovine head cooks who were to be relocated to an obscure and underserviced location (Dobson 2011). The constant harassment of the bovine head cooks and the market barrow operators by the city officials were a strategy to render the early morning market dysfunctional, however these had counterinsurgent ramifications and as Dobson (2011) points out, this was the catalyst that united the community of informal workers. The Legal Resources Centre at this point agreed to represent the traders, and particularly the barrow operators in an urgent application to the High Court in what was to be known as “Mbali and others vs. eThekweni Municipality and others”, whereby the court order secured the rights of these barrow operators to operate without permits (Dobson 2011). This would be the defining moment in the struggle for the livelihood strategies of the barrow operators of Warwick Junction, where 150 of these insurgents crowded the gallery of the high court to await the award.
The following two years of legal struggles between the traders and Warwick Mall [Pty] Ltd.
represented a significant achievement by means of the insurgency that was created through these resistances considering that “[d]uring this period the City officials and politicians employed all means to harass, threaten, confuse and alienate the community of informal workers and the Asiye eTafuleni staff” (Dobson 2011, p. 3). What is significant in the case of Warwick, is the ability of insurgent citizenships to contest exclusionary top down processes employed by the generally wealthy minority as a means to protect their livelihood strategies.
These contestations have forced the Municipality to reconceptualise a development framework for Warwick that involves a more inclusive consultation process, furthermore during the recent local elections a respected informal trader was elected to Council, securing political prowess for the insurgents. This proves Cornwall (in Miraftab & Wills 2005) sentiment that insurgency goes beyond the right to participate, and can instead create the platform for change. To close, it must be agreed that “undoubtedly informal workers have secured a victory; they have become common-place in the corridors of the High Court;
secured short and long term rights whilst becoming empowered during, and as a result of, the struggle” (Dobson 2011, p. 3).
75 | P a g e 5.3 CASE STUDY: THE TRADITIONAL HERB AND MEDICINE MARKET,