ABSTRACT
Through the description of the emerging middle-class housing market, this chapter highlights political and economic forces which have prompted the process. It details some of the new housing initiatives in Soweto. The chapter examines the gains the state or capital have made from their respective post 1976 urban Black housing ventures. Upgrading of purchased 'matchboxes' has taken a marked upward swing, and since 1983 over 10,000 units have been renovated at an average cost of well over R2,000. Physically, increasing hardship has been manifested in the increase in squatting in the large cities and the dramatic rise of overcrowding in the already small state housing units allocated to Blacks. While the increase in subletting and squatting is undeniably the dominant trend of the 1980s, affecting thousands of people, it has not been the most marked visual transformation in the urban face of Soweto.
