ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses a different approach to examining urban imaginaries through an investigation of urban vernacular vocabularies. It explores the vernacular meaning of the term “city” in one South African “urban” area as an example of the use of urban vocabulary in a southern site, mindful that it does not represent the whole south or all of South Africa. The residential exclusion of black African people from areas that were deemed white cities has a long history. The conventional structure of a scholarly argument is to identify a gap in the literature. There are both practical and political implications of these findings for urban research. Again, what one predetermines as “city” or “not city” will surely shape urban analysis as it shapes what empirical phenomena are included in a study. The elimination of “cities” as legal units in South Africa removes any easy-to-adopt common boundary, and means that urban researchers will need to develop new units for analysis.
