Slum clearance in the Western Areas of Johannesburg occupied the efforts
of the town council for many years. Repeated attempts by the JCC to clear
slums in the Western Areas had little success in the 1930s and 1940s.
Once the Nationalist Party government came into power in 1948, it embarked
upon a robust and aggressive policy of slum clearance. This policy involved
the forced removal of Africans from the freehold townships of the Western
Areas, such as Sophiatown, Martindale and Newclare to Diepkloof, Meadowlands,
Dube and Rockville. Similar attempts of slum clearance in Alexandra resulted
in communities removed from this township being resettled in Diepkloof
and Meadowlands. Forced removals began in 1955 and five years later,
the resettlement of African families from the Western Areas to Soweto
had been completed.
The Native Affairs Department (NAD) was transformed when the Nationalist
Party formed the government in 1948. Conflict of interest between the
JCC and the central government threatened to undermine the latter's policy
of slum clearance and Group Areas Act in the Western Areas of Johannesburg.
The JCC should have taken complete responsibility for slum clearance
and resettlement of African communities in the Western Areas in Soweto.
But, dominated by the United Party and reflecting its liberal approach
to Native administration, the JCC was reluctant to do so. It resented
being used as an instrument for implementing what it considered to be
racially motivated policies. The Nationalist Party government ignored
the JCC and set up its own local authority whose brief was to implement
slum clearance policies that had left the JCC paralysed for over 20 years.
The Native Resettlement Board (NRB) was a local authority set up by
the Nationalist Party government for specific purposes. These were to
implement slum clearance by forcibly removing Africans from the Western
Areas of Johannesburg and relocating them to Soweto and, to become a
local authority in charge of communities from the Western Areas resettled
in Meadowlands, Diepkloofand Rockville. Consequently, between 1955 and
1972, communities in Soweto were administered by two sets of local authorities
each with its own style of governance. In townships under the authority
of the JCC, location regulations were not applied as strictly and stringently
as under the rule of the WRAB. Communities being administered by the
NRB were subjected to a plethora of location regulations, with influx
control measures being brutally applied.
The resettlement pattern of the Western Areas communities in Meadowlands
and Diepkloof was carefully and deliberately designed so that communities
were grouped according to their ethnic identity. The purpose pf dividing
the communities along ethnic lines was that they could not articulate
their concerns as a unit. By doing this, the WRAB managed to establish
effective mechanisms pf social and political control of township dwellers
in Moroka.
The squatter movements in
Orlando grew size between 1944 and 1946. Some of the squatters came
from the Old Pimville location, faking advantage
of negotiations going on between the JCC and squatters previously residing
in Orlando as sub-tenants. As the squatter problem became unwieldy, the
JCC decided to set up controlled site-and-service schemes in Moroka and
Jabavu. Between 1947 and 1960, the government embarked upon a massive
housing scheme at the end of which the Moroka and Jabavu emergency camps
were demolished. Residents of Moroka and Jabavu emergency camps were
relocated in Moletsane, Molapo, Tladi, Naledi, Senaoane, Dlamini, White
City and Jabulane. This group of townships, which include some of the
most impoverished areas of Soweto, are often referred to as ‘the
Wild West’. These townships experiences very high levels of crime
during the 1960s and 1970s
