ABSTRACT
Reading 4A David Theo Goldberg: ‘Racism, the city and the state’ 172
Reading 4B Mzwanele Mayekiso: ‘Township politics: civic struggles for a new South Africa’ 174
Reading 4C Richa Naga: ‘Communal places and the politics of multiple identities’ 177
1 Introduction: inside cities
At the same time as cities bring together people, resources and ideas, intensifying social relations and creating intense experiences, they generate and enable different responses to these sometimes overwhelming phenomena. The apparent disorderliness and complexity of cities has contributed to the emergence of all sorts of strategies which help people cope with city life or which try to order and regularize social interactions and urban space. From the studied indifference of the passer-by to the drawing of hard spatial
boundaries in gated communities (see Allen, 1999a; Chapter 3), from an enthusiastic embracing of difference to a disdainful rejection of different ways of living as disorderly (see McDowell, 1999; Chapter 2), from the stimulation of creative enclaves to the disconnection of some areas from city economies (Chapter 1), city spaces bear witness to the different ways in which people have responded to the intensity and diversity of city life.
