ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts covered in the preceding chapters of this book. The book reveals diverse micro-geopolitical conflicts associated with increasingly unequal spaces and places in Johannesburg. It includes battles over the meaning of neighbourhoods, between older middle-class residents and the newcomers who require lower-cost housing and food options. The book describes how the "urban forest merely provides a screen for metres of electric fencing, razor wire, security cameras, and other forms of domestic 'security' measures, that would not be out of place in a war zone." It remarks that in Vilakazi Street, "the peddled Soweto students' uprising tale resonates with the national monolithic historical narrative, the African National Congress mythology, the victor-loser complex and the Mandela mythology." Protests are as intense in Johannesburg as in any globalising city in the world. The only durable progress in combatting inequality will result from an even more focused class struggle.
