PHYSICAL DECLINE IN AN INNER-CITY NEIGHBOURHOOD A Case Study of Hillbrow, Johannesburg ALAN MORRIS

THE SETTING Hillbrow is a small (about two kilometres square), high-density neighbourhood in the heart of Johannesburg, South Africa's largest city. By the late 1960s almost all of Hillbrow's approximately 25 000 people lived in one of the 200odd apartment blocks in the area (Jubber, 1973; Unterhalter, 1968). Only a handful of detached, single-storey homes remained, and Hillbrow was commonly viewed as the most densely populated area in South Africa. Besides a few h u n d r e d domestic workers, security guards, and their families who lived in rooms on the roofs of apartment blocks, up to the mid1970s all Hillbrow's residents were white (Jubber, 1973; Mather, 1987; Unterhalter, 1968). Hillbrow's whites-only status started to erode from 1977 when a few dozen Indian and coloured people braved transgressing the Group Areas Act and m o v e d into the n e i g h b o u r h o o d (Morris, 1994a; PickardCambridge, 1988). Initially, the movement of black people into Hillbrow was fairly slow as it was a risky undertaking. Black residents were constantly h a r a s s e d and p r o s e c u t e d by the authorities (Morris, 1994a; PickardCambridge, 1988). Despite intense harassment, by the mid-1980s the black population in HiUbrow had grown substantially and the apartheid state was no longer able or willing to stem the flow. By the early 1990s 85 per cent of Hillbrow's apartment dwellers were black and Group Areas legislation in Hillbrow had defacto collapsed (Morris, 1994b). This paper will not focus on the processes leading to the collapse of the Group Areas Act in the Johannesburg inner city. This topic has been fairly well covered (Morris, 1994a, 1996; Parnell and Pirie, 1991; Pickard-Cambridge, 1988). Rather, the aim of this paper is to analyse the physical decline of many of Hillbrow's apartment blocks from the mid-1980s. The paper is based on a survey of 396 randomly selected Hillbrow households. The sampling design

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was a probability r a n d o m sample. The survey was administered by trained f i e l d - w o r k e r s b e t w e e n S e p t e m b e r 1992 a n d A p r i l 1993. A s t a n d a r d questionnaire was used to collect information on the basic demographics, socio-economic status and perceptions of Hillbrow residents. In addition, 156 i n - d e p t h i n t e r v i e w s w e r e c o n d u c t e d . E x c e p t for f o u r t e e n t e l e p h o n i c interviews all the interviews were done in person by the author. The largest and most significant group i n t e r v i e w e d in-depth w e r e adult flat-dwellers most of w h o m were selected with the help of the questionnaire survey. Other g r o u p i n g s i n t e r v i e w e d w e r e l a n d l o r d s , m a n a g i n g agents, c o u n c i l l o r s , business people, a n d c o m m u n i t y activists. Most of the i n t e r v i e w s w e r e conducted in 1993. The survey found that physical deterioration in Hillbrow was u n e v e n 17.2 per cent of r e s p o n d e n t s said that their a p a r t m e n t block was in b a d condition, 36.9 per cent said it was in reasonable condition and 46 per cent said it was in good condition. These figures do not indicate a w h o l e s a l e deterioration of the neighbourhood. The picture becomes more disturbing, however, w h e n respondents' perceptions of decline are broken d o w n by racial category. Table I indicates that although only 5.8 per cent of white respondents felt that their apartment block was in bad condition, 22.8 per cent of African respondents felt that this was the case. The only other substantial piece of research on inner-city d e c l i n e in Johannesburg has been the study by C r a n k s h a w and White (1995). They argue that in order to cover the high rents being d e m a n d e d , poorer residents h a d to

Table 1 : Flat-dwellers' perceptions of the condition of their blocks of flats by racial classification

Condition of block

'Racial classification' African (N=219) %

Coloured (N=65) %

Very good

12.3

20.0

Good

24.7

Reasonable Bad

Indian (N=26) %

White (N=86) %

Total (N=396) %

15.4

27.9

17.2

29.2

11.5

44.2

28.8

40.2

33.8

65.4

22.1

36.9

22.8

16.9

7.7

5.8

17.2

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

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overcrowd their apartments and this in turn pushed up maintenance costs, particularly in older apartment blocks. This led to some landlords neglecting their properties. While this phenomenon did occur, this study examines actors and processes these authors overlook, most notably, the roles of financial institutions, the local state, managing agents and tenant organisations. It also goes further in analysing the role of landlords and tenants. Finally, a key argument running through this paper, and one which is underplayed by Crankshaw and White, is that the conduct of the key actors involved can only be understood within the context of a crumbling apartheid system and the shift in the racial composition of tenants. For the purposes of clarity, the paper analyses the role of each of the key actors in turn, but it is evident that all the actors identified are interlinked. The first focus is on landlords, the second on landlords' representatives, the third on tenants and tenants" organisations, the fourth is on financial institutions and redlining, and finally the role of the central and local governments is examined.

THE ROLE OF THE LANDLORD At the beginning of 1993, 84 per cent of Hillbrow apartment-dwellers were tenants rather than owner-occupiers (Morris, 1994b:4). In a neighbourhood where a large proportion of the residents are tenants, landlords will necessarily be central players in shaping the locality concerned (Elliot and McCrone, 1975:541). The role that landlords played in Hillbrow, however, was not uniform nor straightforward as, universally, landlords are not a uniform grouping. They are differentiated 'in terms of the amount of capital at their disposal, the number of dwellings owned, their legal status, and their different reasons for owning residential property' (Allen and McDowall, 1989:163), and thus do not operate with a collective mind nor do they have identical interests. Hillbrow landlords, although all driven by the quest for profit, certainly had differing attitudes towards their tenants. Some were far more exploitative and abusive than others. Their access to capital, the size of their holdings and their managerial skills all played a role in shaping their relationship with their tenants.

The Setting of High Rents and Inadequate Maintenance by Landlords The principal way in which Hillbrow landlords contributed towards decline was by demanding high rents. From the mid-1980s, especially, some Hillbrow landlords started imposing rent increases that were way above the rate of inflation. These increases coincided with the substantial increase in the demand for accommodation in the neighbourhood from black South Africans.

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Landlords soon realised that black tenants were prepared to pay much higher rents t h a n w e r e w h i t e t e n a n t s . Their d e s p e r a t e desire for r e n t e d accommodation in the inner city because of the critical shortage of township housi ng (the Group Areas Act was still being strictly enforced in most neighbourhoods) combined with the high levels of violence in the townships meant that incoming black tenants were prepared to commit a large proportion of their earnings to renting an inner-city apartment. The situation was crisply summed up by Mr Venter, a senior housing manager at First National Bank (FNB): 'The landlords k n e w they had a captive market and a lot of those landlords quite frankly didn't give a zig for the tenants, and they pushed the rentals as high as they could." The events at Midhill Gardens, an apartment block in the m i d d l e of Hillbrow, is a good illustration of ho w the advent of black tenants led to substantial rent increases in this particular block. Towards the end of 1988 the building was sold and the ne w landlord immediately started to employ a variety of tactics to force out the - mainly elderly - white tenants. The lifts in the ten-floor building were not repaired, the electricity was cut sporadically, as was the coal supply for the boiler used to supply hot water (Simpson and Fink, 1989). Over a short period of time these tactics drove most of the elderly white tenants out of the block and by the end of 1991 there were only a handful of white tenants left (interview with Mr Charles Bonert, a pensioner and one of the last white tenants in Midhill Gardens). The black tenants who moved in were charged more than double the rent the white tenants had been paying: 'The first black tenant, Mrs Freda Masipa, moved into apartment 102. She paid ... R400 per month, while existing residents (Mrs Paul and Mrs Bird) ... paid R178.42 per month for an identical apartment' (Simpson and Fink, 1989:20). The bargaining position of black tenants in regard to rental levels was weakened not only by the intense demand for accommodation but also by the Group Areas Act. The fact that black tenants were living in Hillbrow illegally and had limited options precisely because of the Group Areas Act, severely limited their capacity to challenge the landlords: Ellen, a former resident of Soweto who moved to Hillbrow after leaving her husband, remarked, 'Now blacks, what can they do? They just say, "It's all right as long as I sleep, as long as I've got a roof over my head".' The strong demand for accommodation in Hillbrow empowered landlords not only to charge excessive rents but also to spend a minimal amount on maintenance and to ignore the requests of tenants, especially where the latter w e r e not organised. In m o s t a p a r t m e n t blocks there was no t e n a n t s ' committee. One in five respondents said that there was a tenants' committee in their block but 75 per cent of these committees met only occasionally. Only 44.9 per cent of respondents had heard of the tenants' organisation, the Action Committee to Stop Evictions (Actstop), and just 3.5 per cent of them said that Actstop had been 'very active' in their block. A n o t h e r 6.8 per cent of

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respondents said that Actstop had been 'quite active'. Landlords w e r e aware that if tenants were dissatisfied the lack of alternative accommodation w o u l d probably result in their staying on in any case and, if they w e r e to leave, finding another tenant w o u l d not be difficult: 'The d e m a n d is so great. Come back to me in January (the interview took place in December), y o u w o n ' t be able to talk to me. The p h o n e will be ringing non-stop' (Mr Marks, a landlord w h o o w n e d about 200 units in various apartment blocks in the Hillbrow area). M a n y of the residents, caretakers and m a n a g i n g agents interviewed were critical of H i l l b r o w l a n d l o r d s a n d v i e w e d excessive rentals as the key explanation for the overcrowding, poor maintenance and decline. M a n y of the tenants interviewed felt that the high rents and the inadequate maintenance were often a function of racism on the part of landlords. Nombulelo, an African tenant w h o h a d m o v e d to Hillbrow from Durban, commented, ... the owners of this building they don't care especially where there are black people. They don't paint, maintenance is poor. ... They just w a n t to collect money. They don't care about the welfare of the people. It was evident that some of the landlords and m a n a g i n g agents w e r e prone to ignoring the requests of black tenants. Certainly, white occupants w e r e far more likely to respond that the apartment block in w h i c h they lived w a s well maintained (X2=24.4, p=.000). Only 5.8 per cent of white respondents felt that their block was poorly maintained, while 21.5 per cent of African, 19.2 per cent of Indian and 16.9 per cent of coloured respondents thought that this w a s the case. This finding accords with American studies which found that not only is there a p r o p e n s i t y to increase rents w h e n the racial c o m p o s i t i o n of the n e i g h b o u r h o o d changes but also to reduce maintenance (Logan and Molotch, 1987). A study of 300 landlords in Chicago found that 'property o w n e r s and m a n a g e m e n t firms often see racial change as a signal to cut back p r o p e r t y maintenance and reinvestment in structures' (Logan and Molotch, 1987:130). A l t h o u g h poor maintenance w a s a function of racism in certain instances, there was also a strong association b e t w e e n income and poor maintenance (X2=31.5, p=.000). In the case of respondents living in apartments w h e r e the per capita income was less than R1 000 a month, 28.2 per cent felt that their block was badly maintained, while only 8.3 per cent of respondents w h o lived in apartments w h e r e the per capita income was R1 000 or greater felt that maintenance was poor. The more affluent Hillbrow residents generally lived in less c r o w d e d blocks w h i c h required less maintenance. The increase in rents proved to be a shortsighted option in n u m e r o u s cases as m a n y of the African tenants w h o m o v e d into the neighbourhood in the late 1980s and early 1990s had moderate incomes and the only w a y they could afford the high rents being d e m a n d e d was to share the cost with friends or

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relatives, and occasionally strangers. Close to 40 per cent of r e s p o n d e n t s c l a i m e d that t h e y h a d h a d difficulty in p a y i n g the rent. Most of these respondents h a d to share so as to m a k e staying in Hillbrow feasible. By the e n d of the 1980s most of the buildings in the n e i g h b o u r h o o d were at least thirty years old and m a n y were over forty years old. The apartment blocks that w e r e overcrowded t e n d e d to require far m o r e maintenance. Because of the everincreasing costs and the stagnation of the p r o p e r t y market, some of these landlords refused to invest any more m o n e y in their properties. Apart from greed, racism, and the e n o r m o u s d e m a n d for accommodation in the context of the Group Areas Act, there w e r e other c o m p o n e n t s of the H i l l b r o w l a n d s c a p e that e n c o u r a g e d l a n d l o r d s in the n e i g h b o u r h o o d to d e m a n d high rents and to limit maintenance. The drop in the market price of Hillbrow properties, the difficulty in selling Hillbrow apartments because of redlining, the high interest rates on mortgage repayments in the 1980s and e a r l y 1990s, a n d the i n c r e a s i n g l e v i e s h a d p u s h e d u p l a n d l o r d s ' costs substantially. 1 The case of Mrs Adams, a landlord w h o o w n e d one unit in an apartment block was typical. Mrs A d a m s is an ex-resident of HiHbrow. She bought her apartment in 1983 for R38 000 a n d m o v e d out of the n e i g h b o u r h o o d in 1987. From 1991 she had been trying to sell the apartment and h a d been told by her agent that the m a x i m u m she could expect for it was R34 000. By mid1995 she had still not been able to sell the apartment. Her agent h a d been able to let it w i t h o u t any difficulty but the turnover of tenants h a d been high. Each time tenants vacated, Mrs A d a m s had to fix it up. To do this was costly as the vacated apartment w a s 'usually left in a filthy state'. W h e n she bought it in 1983 her monthly levy was R100 a month. By July 1995, the levy h a d increased to R330 a m o n t h and her monthly mortgage r e p a y m e n t was R550. She also h a d to pay a m a n a g i n g agent fee of R70 a month. Excluding the intermittent repairs, her monthly outlay was thus R950 a month. Even t h o u g h she was letting the apartment for R700 a month, she was still losing m o n e y on it. Mrs Adams, a single parent, claimed that she could not afford to charge a l o w e r rent a n d , b e c a u s e the flat w a s n o t a p p r e c i a t i n g in value, she w a s effectively losing R250 a m o n t h . Against this b a c k g r o u n d she w a s d o i n g everything in her p o w e r to cut d o w n on the costs of maintenance: 'I am very reluctant to do anything other than essential maintenance.' The case of Mrs A d a m s was not unusual and there w e r e probably h u n d r e d s of other small Hillbrow landlords w h o were in a similar situation.

Managerial Capacity and Decline An important issue in Hillbrow as regards landlords was that of managerial capacity. It is apparent that some Hillbrow landlords were far better managers than others. The issue of managerial skills was most pertinent in the case of landlords w h o o w n e d a whole apartment block either singly or in partnership.

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In these cases it was i m p e r a t i v e that the l a n d l o r d m a i n t a i n e d a good relationship with his tenants. Tenants in these apartment blocks, because they had a uniform tenant-landlord relationship were more likely to be organised and to contest the landlord-tenant relationship. In sectional title blocks, 2 because there were usually numerous landlords, each tenant had a different landlord experience. This made united tenant action in these apartment blocks far less likely. The effects of poor landlord management will be elaborated on in the s e c t i o n d e a l i n g w i t h t e n a n t s . The k e y a r g u m e n t is t h a t p o o r management on the part of landlords often led to a breakdown in the landlordtenant relationship. The apartheid context meant that tenants w o u l d often interpret poor management as racist. When this happened in an apartment block wholly owned by one or two landlords, a process would be set in motion which made decline in that apartment block almost certain. One of the biggest and most competent landlords in Hillbrow, Mr George Palmer, argued that ba d m a n a g e m e n t was the key reason w h y some a p a r t m e n t blocks h ad declined in Hillbrow: Bad management will contribute to the decline and fall of any building whether it is in H_illbrow or Sandton [a wealthy area]. Bad management, I think, starts with attitudes and then ... everybody loses ... Attitudes refer to the way your staff perceive the people they are dealing with. We've created a situation whereby my tenants feel comfortable and free to voice grievances . . . . Landlords who curse a nd swear and impose deadlines for p a y m e n t that are impossible to meet create a situation which leads to a loss of respect and this in turn lead to vandalism and decline. Mr Palmer had succeeded in regenerating apartment blocks in Hillbrow that previous owners had seriously neglected and viewed as non-viable.

Landlords' Access to Capital The issue of access to capital was crucial. Those landlords with large amounts of capital at their disposal were more capable of maintaining their properties than those with limited access. Thus the few apartment blocks owned by large corporations were all in good condition. The most notable example is Highpoint, the largest apartment block in Hillbrow, with 26 floors and 333 apartments. Highpoint is owned by Anglo American Property Services which is part of the Anglo American Corporation, the largest company in South Africa. Institutional landlords have the capital to install excellent management and security systems, maintain the block and respond competently and promptly to tenants' requests.

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The smaller Hillbrow l a n d l o r d s were often constrained by their l i m i t e d access to capital. Their lack of capital m a d e it difficult for t h e m to m a i n t a i n their properties a d e q u a t e l y or to embark on i m p r o v e m e n t s even if they h a d w a n t e d to. A Hillbrow l a n d l o r d depicted this d i l e m m a in the following way: You k n o w if y o u can't b o n d your property, w h a t are y o u s u p p o s e d to do? You can't sit outside a n d pray for money. It's n o t going to come. N o w y o u are s u p p o s e d to fix the building. With what? You can't fix it w i t h wishes. You've got to fix it w i t h money. (Mark Steele, owner of three small a p a r t m e n t blocks in Hillbrow) The access of l a n d l o r d s to capital was greatly h a m p e r e d b y the reluctance of financial institutions to grant loans to Hillbrow landlords - redlining.

Landlords in Sectional Title Blocks In sectional title blocks the extent of l a n d l o r d s ' h o l d i n g s i n f l u e n c e d their degree of control over their investment. T h u s a l a n d l o r d w h o o w n e d one u n i t in a sectional title block generally h a d less p o w e r to control the a p a r t m e n t block's trajectory t h a n a l a n d l o r d w h o o w n e d several units there. In sectional title blocks (the m o s t c o m m o n form of o w n e r s h i p in Hillbrow) the ability of l a n d l o r d s to control the d e s t i n y of a block in w h i c h t h e y h a d a stake w a s constrained by the actions of their fellow landlords. If their counterparts w e r e n o t p r e p a r e d to p a y an a d e q u a t e levy or p a y a levy at all, or m a i n t a i n control over the occupants of their u n i t there was little a l a n d l o r d could d o to halt decline. A large l a n d l o r d reflected on the lack of c o n s e n s u s w h i c h often characterises B o d y C o r p o r a t e m e e t i n g s a n d h o w he h a d r e s p o n d e d to the problem: It is very frustrating because w h e n I go to a Body Corporate m e e t i n g all I represent is say ten p e r cent of all owners. There are a w h o l e b u n c h of small investors w h o are n o t terribly interested in e n s u r i n g that the block remains in g o o d nick. They'll often o u t v o t e m e as to w h a t the m o n e y s h o u l d be spent on a n d h o w m u c h s h o u l d be s p e n t ... So n o w we try to either take control of the b u i l d i n g or b u y the entire building. (Mr Marks) It is e v i d e n t t h a t in s e c t i o n a l title b l o c k s t h e r e is s c o p e for p r o f o u n d d i s a g r e e m e n t b e t w e e n l a n d l o r d s and this can trigger a spiral of decline.

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Concluding Comments on the Role of Landlords What this discussion has illustrated is that to view landlords in Hillbrow as an undifferentiated grouping is mistaken. Their were wide differences in approach, abilities, capital access and holdings and these fundamentally shaped the way landlords approached their assets and the occupants thereof.

THE ROLE OF LANDLORDS" REPRESENTATIVES IN PREVENTING OR FACILITATING DECLINE The survey indicated that about two-thirds of Hillbrow landlords had delegated responsibility for their apartments to a managing agent and, in a few instances, to a 'middleman'. The managing agents collected the rent and took responsibility for the maintenance and day-to-day management of the building. The owner usually paid the managing agent 10 per cent of the rent collected. In the case of responsibility being delegated to a 'middleman', this person signed what is called a head lease and paid a set monthly rate to the landlord. In return the middleman had total control over the running of the apartment block concerned.

The Role of the Managing Agent Managing agents played a key role in the management of physical stock in the neighbourhood and freed the landlord from the burden of dealing directly with tenants. In Hillbrow the quality of managing agents certainly varied. Of the respondents who dealt only with a managing agent, 39.9 per cent said that the agent had responded well or very well to their complaints, 41.7 per cent felt that the agent's response had been average, and 18.4 per cent felt that the agent's response h a d been poor. Not surprisingly, there was a strong association between the condition of respondents' apartments and how well managing agents responded to complaints (X2=58.5, p=.000). An ex-tenant of an apartment block controlled by a managing agent described how the agent contributed to the decline of the buildings: Looking at Mount Manor, that was a solid building. Beautiful .... But they didn't maintain the building. We had untold problems with electricity and water, the plumbing and wiring .... They did a quick fix but every time it rains there is water running all over the place. This building is managed by a company called Nedco. They are awful. They don't listen to complaints. They don't do anything. (Nana, an African tenant who lived by herself)

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A key detail concerning m a n a g i n g agents, however, is that in most instances they were constrained by the landlord for w h o m they w e r e acting. Before a managing agent can embark on essential maintenance permission has to be obtained from the landlord. If a landlord refuses to make the m o n e y available, the m a n a g i n g agent cannot proceed. A highly respected m a n a g i n g agent explained the predicament she often faced: We get some owners w h o just don't w a n t to repair a thing, but they w a n t their R600-R700 for their r e n t . . . I think most of the time I a m fighting for m y tenants because I see w h a t is going on. The landlord just wants his rent. I have to fight to get the m o n e y out of h i m for repairs. (Mrs Leo, m a n a g i n g agent operating in Hillbrow) W h e n landlords are not co-operative it is difficult for m a n a g i n g agents to operate effectively and to ensure that particular apartments or blocks as a whole are adequately maintained. On the other hand, there were certainly instances where m a n a g i n g agents w e r e unwilling to fight for the rights of tenants and they reinforced the actions of inattentive landlords. Black tenants, especially, often complained that their m a n a g i n g agent was unsympathetic: 'Every time I w e n t to see h i m he w o u l d be r u d e to me. I saw h i m being very polite to white tenants' (Gladys).

The Role of the Middleman The most dramatic physical decline often occurred in those apartment blocks where the landlord h a d h a n d e d over control to a ' m i d d l e m a n ' rather than a m a n a g i n g agent. Cas Coovadia, an ex-Actstop executive member, alleged that these ' m i d d l e m e n ' h a d b e e n f u n d a m e n t a l in the d e c l i n e of s e v e r a l of Johannesburg's inner-city apartment blocks: In the 1980s w e found a type of property owner w h o , faced with the influx and the organisation of black tenants said, 'I don't need this sort of thing in m y life . . . . ' A n d so the property o w n e r passed on the responsibility to w h a t became k n o w n as the ' m i d d l e m a n phenomenon'. The classic case is the case of Gorfil [a controversial landlord] a n d Malan, w h e r e Malan was the m i d d l e m a n . What Malan did was say, 'Okay, fine, I need to pay Gorfil so m u c h a month for this building. I'm going to fleece the tenants, I'm not going to plough anything back into the building. I'm going to put in as m a n y tenants as I can.' So you h a d the m i d d l e m a n doing that, and this led to a b r e a k d o w n of services, nothing being p l o u g h e d back into the building, m i d d l e m e n fleecing tenants for two, two and a half years and then disappearing and so a vicious cycle developed.

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The m i d d l e m a n usually increased the rents to exorbitant levels and then refused to spend any m o n e y on essential repairs because this w o u l d affect his gross income. The operations of Mr Tony Parbhoo, one of the most notorious m i d d l e m e n in the inner city, was described by a landlord in the following way: 'He collects w h a t he can from the blacks and then just w a i l s off.' (Weekly Mail 23-29 Nov. 1990). In some of the buildings he controlled, Parbhoo refused to h a n d over to the city council electricity moneys collected from tenants. This w o u l d result in the electricity being cut off for extended periods (ibid.). There is no doubt that the m i d d l e m a n p h e n o m e n o n was a far more likely scenario in apartment blocks w h e r e most of the tenants were black. The illegal status of these tenants m a d e them an easy target for unscrupulous m i d d l e m e n .

THE ROLE OF TENANTS AND TENANTS' ORGANISATIONS Landlords and m a n a g i n g agents interviewed constantly accused tenants of d a m a g i n g the apartment blocks. The important question is to w h a t extent this d a m a g e was wilful. Tenants argued that often it w a s not and that the key problem w a s overcrowding. Nana commented: For starters, the overcrowding is going to be the main thing. The building I live in is a fairly small building and they [the apartments] are all meant for single people or couples ...But the people living there are sometimes a full family ... The condition of the flatmust deteriorate w h e n there are so m a n y people. A l t h o u g h some of the deterioration was due to e v e r y d a y ' w e a r and tear', observation and the interviews indicated that there w a s a substantial a m o u n t of w a n t o n d a m a g e b y t e n a n t s . D i a n n e , the c o - o w n e r of a p r o p e r t y administrating company, described w h a t they f o u n d in "75 per cent' of the vacated Hillbrow apartments w h i c h her c o m p a n y m a n a g e d : 'The apartments look w r e c k e d w h e n they leave. Cupboards are broken, toilets are broken, w i n d o w s are broken. W h e n they leave, the flat is filthy.' There are a n u m b e r of w a y s in w h i c h to interpret the actions of wilfully destructive tenants. The first is to v i e w their b e h a v i o u r as a function of their being tenants rather than o w n e r - o c c u p i e r s . It has b e e n a r g u e d that tenants often h a v e a different relationship to their dwellings from owner-occupiers (Coleman, 1985; Dickens, 1990; Saunders, 1990). Even tenants and tenant organisations usually argued that o w n e r - o c c u p i e r s in Hillbrow w e r e more likely to m a i n t a i n their flat adequately:

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U R B A N FORUM 8:2, 1997 We have always maintained in Actstop that one of the key ways to address degradation is to give people a stake in the area ... If I a m living in a flat and I don't have security of tenure and can be kicked out at any time w h a t do I care about the immediate environment? (Cas Coovadia)

The landlord-tenant relationship is necessarily potentially uneasy and volatile (Allen and McDowell, 1989). Ambiguity over respective obligations 3 can result in the landlord deciding that the tenant is not fulfilling his or her obligations and the tenant disagreeing with this conclusion. In Hillbrow, in the b r o a d e r context of the 'culture of resistance' against apartheid w h i c h operated f r o m the mid-1980s, tenant-landlord relationships came u n d e r severe pressure in certain instances. Tenants felt that landlords w e r e not fulfilling their obligations and vice versa. Black tenants r e s p o n d e d to gross exploitation, p o o r m a i n t e n a n c e , the perception that they w e r e being cheated, and to a general sense that they were not being treated fairly, by embarking on various acts of resistance. The forms that this resistance took varied. In some cases it was r a n d o m and informal, involving not caring about the building: 'We didn't respect her [the landlord] because she treated us so badly, so we did nothing to keep the building nice' (Sabi, an African tenant in a building that was characterised by acrimonious tenant-landlord relations). In other cases resistance involved deliberate acts of sabotage: 'Sometimes w h e n tenants m o v e d out they w o u l d break things on p u r p o s e ' (Sabi). At times resistance was far more organised and i n v o l v e d tenants refusing to pay rent until certain conditions h a d been met. The survey established that 13.1 per cent of African tenants h a d been involved in a rent boycott. A variation on this strategy was to pay only a portion of the rent being d e m a n d e d . Rent boycotts were not only inspired by a j u d g e m e n t that the rent was unfair but were also related to a perception that the white landlord was using 'the system' to exploit black tenants and that tenants h a d to fight back: 'We couldn't just let the landlord charge us these crazy rents. He was exploiting us because we were black and he k n e w we had n o w h e r e to go' (Bennett, an African tenant). Embarking on a rent boycott was often a risky tactic as it exacerbated the poor service being r e n d e r e d , increased the tension b e t w e e n l a n d l o r d and tenants and often led to a spiral of decline. Mr D a v i d Moatshe, a h e a l t h inspector at the Johannesburg City Council, explained this in the following way: Okay, it's like this. They are paying but they don't get services. N o w they say we will stop paying. N o w you can imagine, stopping means everything comes to a standstill. Even the landlord w o n ' t pay the municipality. The lights will be switched off. The refuse w o n ' t be collected. The place will just get worse and worse.

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Another response by tenants to perceived exploitation was to form tenant committees u n d e r the umbrella of Actstop. Some of the landlords interviewed saw the actions of Actstop as the key reason for the decline of their apartment blocks. Mr French, a landlord whose three buildings h a d been organised by Actstop and w e r e in poor condition, commented: They're devil okes [people], hey. Terrible, terrible. Yes, I k n o w a couple of t h e m are nice guys, but as an organisation they are terrible people. They are just out to break everything y o u ' v e got. They are just out to destroy your name, your reputation, your credibility, to bankrupt you, to destroy your building. Mrs Ritz, the sole owner of an apartment block that h a d declined dramatically in the 1980s, also blamed Actstop and the broader political context for the turbulence in her block: I e n d e d up with a lot of key figures in the Actstop organisation that took up tenancy in the building. A n d then it started deteriorating as far as p a y m e n t s . . . Then I saw the constitution of Actstop, w h i c h is the ANC's residential arm [sic]. A n d it stated in there that you n o w h a d to break the building to cause a slipping d o w n in the condition. They d e m a n d e d that I get the lifts fixed ... In fact they urinated d o w n the shafts and caused shorts and p o u r e d w a t e r into it and they w o u l d take out the lights in the elevators and then m a k e a fire to see where they w e r e going. There is little d o u b t that there were Actstop activists w h o v i e w e d the landlord as the e n e m y w h o n e e d e d to be u n d e r m i n e d at every opportunity. Landlords w e r e seen not only as landlords, but as beneficiaries of apartheid. Township politics, premised on the notion of ungovernability had, to a limited extent, been taken up in the inner city of Johannesburg. Activists saw tenant-landlord disputes in the inner city as another site of the struggle: The tenantqandlord struggles were an extension of the liberation struggle. We were discovering n e w areas and beginning to assert ourselves in other aspects of peoples' lives. (Sisa Njikelane, former Actstop activist) The traditional social and economic relation between tenant and landlord is characterised by the latter being in control - setting and collecting the rents and making the important decisions - 'private property rights confer on the o w n e r near m o n o p o l y control over the uses to which a certain space is put' (Smith, 1979:541). In the case of Mrs Ritz, her m o n o p o l y control as landlord

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was constantly challenged and eroded. Eventually, it virtually disintegrated as she was essentially stripped of her ability to collect the rent and take the major decisions regarding the r u n n i n g of the building: The tenants m a d e decisions for me. I had no say as a landlord whatsoever. I was told w h a t to do and the more I did, the more they d e m a n d e d .... Then they said, 'Give us the building to run. We h a v e a floor representative on each floor. We are going to be responsible for the rents.' But at the end of the month the people w o u l d n ' t control it whatsoever and the rent w o u l d n ' t come at all. Vivian, a tenant of Mrs Ritz's, argued that the problem was not that the tenants" committee had h a d too m u c h p o w e r but, rather, that it had not h a d enough, and that decline h a d been hastened because of Mrs Ritz's poor m a n a g e m e n t . The apartment blocks in Hillbrow w h i c h experienced some of the m o s t dramatic reversals of fortune w e r e those which were wholly o w n e d by one or two landlords. W h e n these blocks w e r e poorly m a n a g e d it often precipitated a spiral of events w h i c h c u l m i n a t e d in the c o n v e n t i o n a l t e n a n t - l a n d l o r d relationship collapsing a n d the l a n d l o r d s not being able to enforce their authority. Far from being h a v e n s for tenants, however, these blocks w e r e usually characterised by pervasive and deepening decay because the affected landlords became less and less able or prepared to intervene and tenants w e r e unable to carry out the functions of the landlord. Tenants in these contexts w e r e in a c o n t r a d i c t o r y p o s i t i o n . A l t h o u g h t h e y h a d the r e s o u r c e s to u n d e r m i n e the landlord's authority, they generally did not have the material or organisational resources to take over the e v e r y d a y running of the block. There is no doubt that the w a y some landlords perceived black tenants m a d e t h e m m o r e p r o n e to mistreat them. This in turn e n c o u r a g e d black tenants to abuse the buildings. Mr French, one of Hillbrow's most notorious and conflictual landlords, portrayed his black tenants in the following way: You had people in the b u i l d i n g s w h o h a d no respect, h a d no understanding for health, for cleanliness ... These are people, they never had sewerage, no r u n n i n g water, no electricity, okay. They live in dirt, in filth. So they come into the building and they live like that here. The tenants in the buildings o w n e d by Mr French blamed h i m for the poor c o n d i t i o n s prevailing. The c o m p l a i n e d that ' r u b b i s h w a s n o t c o l l e c t e d regularly, the b u i l d i n g w a s left in d a r k n e s s as light bulbs w e r e s e l d o m replaced, and lifts were often out of order' (Weekly Mail 23-29 Nov. 1990). In 1988 the situation in one of his apartment blocks was so bad that the Medical Officer for Johannesburg at the time, Dr H. Hurwitz, 'served a statutory notice

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requiring the o w n e r to take action regarding health hazards in the building' (ibid.). Despite the s u b - s t a n d a r d c o n d i t i o n s in his buildings, Mr French continually d e m a n d e d increased rentals. Throughout the late 1980s a n d early 1990s his a p a r t m e n t blocks w e r e subject to rent boycotts and c o n t i n u o u s decline. What is clear is that if landlords treated their tenants with respect there w a s a far greater possibility that the t e n a n t - l a n d l o r d relationship w o u l d remain cordial and intact. This discussion of tenants demonstrates that the behaviour of tenants was not only a response to poor treatment but was a function of the political context in which they w e r e living. Although, ironically, decline was often a d v a n c e d most rapidly in cases of united and organised tenant resistance, individual acts of defiance and neglect by tenants also caused significant damage.

FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS, REDLINING A N D DECLINE A l t h o u g h l a n d l o r d s a n d t e n a n t s w e r e p i v o t a l p l a y e r s in the d e c l i n e of Hillbrow a p a r t m e n t blocks, the financial institutions too p l a y e d their part. Their reluctance to loan m o n e y to w o u l d - b e purchasers or landlords w h o w a n t e d to u p g r a d e their b u i l d i n g s certainly contributed substantially to decline in the neighbourhood. From the late 1980s, as white flight intensified, financial institutions became more and m o r e reluctant to grant h o u s i n g loans in the H i l l b r o w area. At the e n d of 1991 it was r e p o r t e d that financial institutions h a d 'redlined the area [Johannesburg central flatland], refusing to grant bonds because they believe the financial risk is too high.' (Star 14 Dec. 1991). The report w e n t on to state: Lending institutions have indicated they will offer mortgages once more in the central flatland only if property values cease to drop or if some third party provides collateral to reduce the risk. H o w property prices could be expected to rise in a context of redlining w a s not explained. The precise extent of redlining of Hillbrow was difficult to determine but it was clearly extensive. Some financial institutions refused to grant any bonds in Hillbrow while others agreed to grant b o n d s only on certain buildings. Mr Greg, a m a n a g e r at an inner-city branch of United Bank, one of the largest financial institutions in South Africa, claimed that United Bank and its holding company, ABSA, w e r e the only financial institutions lending on a large scale in the Hillbrow area during the late 1980s and early 1990s: 'Other institutions found every excuse in the book not to do it.' In 1991, referring to the granting of loans in Hillbrow, the business d e v e l o p m e n t m a n a g e r of a branch of the Perm Building Society claimed, 'Due to the deteriorating circumstances [of Hillbrow], Perm's security is continually at risk and this makes it more difficult

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to maintain a lending capability' (Star 25 Sept. 1991). The First National Bank admitted that even after the coming into power of the ANC in April 1994 and much talk of a new dispensation regarding housing loans, it was still difficult to obtain a bond in Hillbrow: 'At the moment it's relatively difficult because of the lack of law and order in that area and the deterioration that has taken place' (interview with Mr Venter, senior housing manager at FNB). Mr Igglestone, a managing agent of long standing in the neighbourhood, alleged that much of the reluctance of financial institutions to grant bonds to potential black purchasers was inspired by racism rather than material conditions: They [black owner-occupiers] pay. They pay their levy. Sure, just like the whites, some of them get into trouble financially, but I don't believe that any of them [the financial institutions] have got major repossessions... I've tried to say to them show me your list of black property in possession or people that you want to take action against ... They refuse. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, financial Institutions were more likely to have regarded any loan to a black purchaser as risky. Besides the possibility of their responses being shaped by an underlying racism, they were concerned that the b o n d boycotts, so p r e v a l e n t in A f r i c a n t o w n s h i p s a r o u n d Johannesburg, could spill over into Hillbrow: 'We were certainly worried that bond boycotts in the townships would spread. This did increase our hesitancy' (Mr Greg). Of course, prior to the scrapping of the Group Areas Act in 1991, financial institutions had an easy excuse not to grant bonds to potential black purchasers - it was illegal for blacks to purchase property in white group areas. By the end of 1994 redlining had eased to some extent, but it was still a major feature. A managing/selling agent estimated that at the end of 1994 two or three out of every five bond applications were refused and that potential buyers were being discouraged by the length of time finandal institutions were taking to process bond applications: 'They make things very difficult by sitting on applications for months' (Mrs Leo, managing agent and real estate agent in Hillbrow). Redlining had a number of related, negative effects on the neighbourhood. It led to the virtual collapse of Hillbrow's property market and a drop in property values. Sellers could not sell, and people who wanted to purchase could not raise the finance required and, subsequently, bought elsewhere. Mr Igglestone outlined the effects of redlining on Hillbrow's property market: Now what happens when there's no finance? Although that buyer is there, he can't buy because he can't get finance. So what is it

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doing? It's destroying the market . . . . I m e a n we were doing anything from 25 to 30 sales of flats a month. In the last year [1991], I'd say if we're doing three or four it's a lot. We get the sales and they fall through. Mr Igglestone c o n t e n d e d that the s l u m p in the h o u s i n g m a r k e t h a d contributed to a substantial decline in property prices in the neighbourhood. One owner-occupier interviewed by the author bought her two-bedroomed flat in 1984 for R59 000. When interviewed in 1992 she had put it on the market for R44 000. Redlining of the n e i g h b o u r h o o d h e l p e d accelerate the decline of the housing stock as it is difficult for a neighbourhood to reverse the process of decline unless finance is available (see Smith, 1979:545). Maintenance declines as many landlords are not able to obtain the requisite finance. Mr Venter of FNB admitted that the bank is extremely reluctant to give loans to Hillbrow landlords, claiming that 'The area has deteriorated to the extent that we can't put our money in there ... It's no use putting money into the bond w h e n the area is up against the wall.' The link between redlining, a drop in property prices and disinvestment is well-established (Lowry, 1960; Meyerson, 1986). Many Hillbrow landlords had become increasingly circumspect about adequately maintaining their housing stock: 'Under-maintenance is an eminently reasonable response of a landlord to a declining market" (Lowry, 1960:367). This response becomes even more reasonable when there is redlining. Another consequence of redlining in Hillbrow was that it perpetuated and increased the predominance of tenants and absentee landlords rather than owner-occupiers. This is significant because, as discussed earlier, owneroccupiers are more likely to keep their apartment and the block in pristine condition than are either landlords or tenants. At the end of 1994 the financial institutions claimed that, in terms of an accord signed between the g o v e r n m e n t and the financial institutions in October 1994, from 1 January 1995 'redlining would be a thing of the past' (Mr Venter of FNB). The re-entry of financial institutions into the neighbourhood, however, was premised on the central or local government revamping the neighbourhood. In view of the massive demands facing the new government, it is unlikely that Hillbrow will be given a great deal of attention. At the time of writing redlining appears to be as pervasive in Hillbrow as it ever was (interview with Mrs Muller, managing agent). In conclusion, it is clear that if the redlining of the n e i g h b o u r h o o d continues unchecked it will perpetuate the dominance of absentee landlords, a stagnant p r o p e r t y market, d e c l i n i n g p r o p e r t y prices, the c o n t i n u e d d e t e r i o r a t i o n of H i l l b r o w ' s h o u s i n g stock and possibly lead to some abandonment (see Sternlieb and Burchell, 1973:237).

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THE ROLE OF THE N A T I O N A L A N D LOCAL G O V E R N M E N T The policy of apartheid was the essential backdrop to the decline of Hillbrow. The decision of the central government to curtail the provision of housing and land for black residential development from the late 1960s meant that by the time influx control was scrapped in 1986 there was a desperate shortage of housing in the Johannesburg area and elsewhere in the country (Hendler and Parnell, 1987; Parnell, 1992; Saff, 1994; Urban F o u n d a t i o n , 1991). In Johannesburg a move to the inner city became the only viable alternative for many black South Africans and, in the absence of substantial government intervention, this continued to be the case throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s. The virtual absence of rent control meant that landlords could charge whatever the market would bear. The bulk of the government's housing budget was allocated for site and service schemes located on the periphery of the city (Mandy, 1991; Reintges, 1992). For much of the population, especially those with reasonable incomes, living in these peripheral, underserviced areas was unacceptable. Hillbrow, on the other hand, was well situated and the apartments provided adequate accommodation with basic facilities like electricity, hot water and waterborne sewerage. The failure of the government to control the activities of inner-city landlords and to heed the complaints and requests of organisations like Actstop gave these l a n d l o r d s the l e e w a y to ignore issues like fair rents, a d e q u a t e maintenance and acceptable density levels. Finally, as already illustrated, the failure of government to intervene in the matter of redlining had serious consequences. In any transitional inner city area, the role of local (city) government is critical, as a proactive and imaginative local authority can do much to prevent decline and stabilise the area concerned. Saltman (1977, 1984) highlights how the response of the local administration was a key factor in ensuring the perpetuation of racially integrated neighbourhoods in different cities in the United States. In Hillbrow, during the key years of the transition in the 1980s, the local authority's intervention in the neighbourhood was minimal. Various informants claimed that this was linked to the racial transition and that, from the early 1980s, the Johannesburg City Council made little effort to rein in slum l a n d l o r d s or to a d o p t proactive m e a s u r e s to halt the decline of the neighbourhood. Cas Coovadia was uncompromising on this point: For allowing the area to slide, the blame must be laid at the door of the City Council. In my view, the City Council only started having a more progressive attitude towards Hillbrow in the last four or five years. Before that they took a very blinkered view of the situation. I know that time and time again when we (Actstop) spoke

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to them about the landlord-tenant situation and the potential for it to escalate, they always took the view that it's a civil matter between landlord and tenant and has nothing to do with Council. Up to the mid-1970s Hillbrow was one of the most sought after suburbs of Johannesburg. As soon as black people started moving in, the Johannesburg City Council simply abrogated its responsibilities. When in 1990 the more liberal Democratic Party (DP) wrested control of the Johannesburg City Council away from the NP, the policy of the City Council towards Hillbrow showed some change. In June 1990 it was announced that for the first time in eight years the council was to spend money on improving the area and that an additional million rand was to be allocated for the upgrading and improvement of HiUbrow (Johannesburg Herald mid-June 1990). The DP's plans, however, remained on the drawing board, and throughout the early 1990s local authority initiatives in the neighbourhood were negligible. At the beginning of 1992 a I-Iillbrow neighbourhood newspaper lambasted the City Council, accusing it of 'total ineptitude' (Around Jan. 1992). Another aspect that made meaningful local authority intervention difficult was the legislation that governed residential buildings in Johannesburg during this period. The main set of regulations which was used to control urban accommodation in the inner city was the Accommodation Establishments Bylaws for the Johannesburg Municipality of 1984. Occasionally the Slums Regulations of the Municipality of Johannesburg of 1989 were applied. Neither of these sets of legislation had stringent requirements. For example, in terms of section 9 (1) of the Accommodation Establishments By-laws only one toilet per fifteen people is required. Section 2 (a) of the Slums Regulations makes provision for '3.7 m 2 of floor space for each person aged 10 years or more ...' (Finance Week 3-9 Aug. 1989). In 1989 the Medical Officer of Health for Johannesburg, Dr Hurwitz, believed 'that three families each occupying a bedroom of a three-bedroomed flat is acceptable' (ibid.). The penalties for infringing these by-laws were negligible and made it difficult for the Council to enforce its authority. In t e r m s of the Accommodation Establishments By-laws a landlord found guilty of an offence was 'liable to a fine not exceeding R300, or in default of payment, to imprisonment for a period not exceeding 12 months . . . . ' (Johannesburg Municipality Bylaws for Accommodation Establishments of 1984:12). Another factor that hampered the ability of the City Council to intervene in the neighbourhood was its fiscal capacity. It was argued that within the context of limited fiscal resources it was difficult for the council to redistribute funds to the Hillbrow/Joubert Park area and that because of its high density levels this locality already consumed a large part of the City Council's budget. In 1992 the Hillbrow Working Group (HWG), a body constituted by the Council to formulate policy on the inner city, reported that 'The Council is in fact

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overspending in the area compared with the rest of Johannesburg." (HWG, Sept. 1992:3). This high expenditure had, apparently, made it difficult to motivate for additional funds for the area. Certainl~ the neighbourhood did consume a large part of the Council's expenditure, but the question of per capita expenditure was not addressed. Clearly the Johannesburg City Council was operating under difficult conditions, but creative and practical endeavours by the Council to halt the decline of Hillbrow were minimal. The few urban renewal schemes to upgrade Hillbrow embarked on by the City Council were often poorly conceived and, as a result, had dubious results. For example, in the late-1980s Quartz Street, one of the major streets in Hillbrow, was cobbledstoned and narrowed. It was opened by the mayor who declared that the development 'would contribute to a greater sense of safety in the suburb.' (Star 18 Nov. 1992). The southern part of Quartz Street subsequently gained a reputation for being one of the most dangerous streets in the neighbourhood and was known as 'murder mile' (ibid.).

This study has shown that in order to u n d e r s t a n d decline in Hillbrow, cognisance has to be taken of a range of actors, processes and structural features. The racial transition in Hillbrow represented a key turning point as regards decline as it laid the ground for a shift in the relationship of landlords and their representatives, financial institutions and the local authority to tenants and the neighbourhood. In combination these key actors placed tremendous pressure on the new, black tenants. When the latter fought back, it was generally a no-win situation and everybody lost. White flight helped change not only the social but also the physical landscape of Hillbrow.

NOTES . The following were the prime overdraft rates in the month of January for the years 1985 to 1993. The mortgage rate and the prime interest rate were generally equivalent (personal communication from Mrs Letitia Theunissen Myburgh, Archivist, Standard Bank Archives):

1985 1986 1987

25% 15.5% 12.5%

1988 1989 1990

13% 18% 21%

1991 1992 1993

21% 20.25% 17.25%

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2. Sectional title refers to apartment blocks where each individual unit is sold separately. Each owner then contributes a monthly sum (levy) for general running expenses. The effect of sectional title is that in some apartment blocks there could be as many as thirty different landlords. Many of the landlords in sectional title blocks were formerly owner-occupiers who had moved to a different neighbourhood but, like Mrs Adams, had retained their HiUbrow apartment because they could not sell it. 3. The key obligations are that tenants pay the rent demanded and that the landlord charges a fair rent, adequately maintains the apartment block and does not evict tenants arbitrarily. Conflict arises when there is a dispute as to what constitutes a fair rent or eviction and adequate maintenance.

REFERENCES Allen, J. and L. McDowell. 1989. Landlords and Property: Social Relations in the Private Rented Sector. Cambridge University Press. Beauregard, R.A. 1993b. Voices of Decline: The Postwar Fate of US Cities. Oxford: BlackweU. Coleman, A. 1985. Utopia on Trial. London: Shipman. Crankshaw, O. and White, C. 1995. Racial desegregation and the origin of slums in Johannesburg's inner city. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 19(4):622-38. Dickens, P. 1990. Urban Sociology: Society, Locality and Human Nature. Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Elliot, B. and McCrone, D. 1975. Landlords in Edinburgh, some preliminary findings. Sociological Review 23(3):539-62. Gans, H. 1974. Urbanism and Suburbanism as Ways of Life. In Pahl, R.E. (ed.), Readings in Urban Sociology. Oxford: Pergamon Press, pp.95-118. Hendler, P. and Parnell, S. 1987. Land and finance under the new housing dispensation. South African Review 3. South African Research Service. Johannesburg: Ravan, pp.423-32. Hillbrow Working Group, 1992. Progress Report. Johannesburg: Johannesburg City Council, 16 Sept. Horrell, M. 1971. Legislation and Race Relations. Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations. Jubber, K. C. 1973. Some Aspects of High Density Flat-living with Special Reference to Flatland, Johannesburg. MA dissertation, University of the ~Arltwatersrand, Johannesburg.

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Logan, I. and H. Molotch. 1987. Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy of Place. University of California Press. LOGAN'S INITIAL? Lowry, I.S. 1960. Filtering and housing costs: A conceptual analysis. Land Economics 36:362-70. Mandy, N. 1991. Local Government Finance and Institutional Reform. In Swilling M., Humphries, R. and Shubane, K. (eds), Apartheid City in Transition. Cape Town: Oxford University Press, pp.119-38. Mather, C. 1987. Residential segregation and Johannesburg's locations in the sky. South African GeographicalJournal 69(2):119-28. Meyerson, A. 1986. Housing Abandonment: The Role of Institutional Mortgage Lenders. In Bratt, R.G., Hartman, C. and Meyerson, A. Critical Perspectives on Housing. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, pp.184-201. Morris, A. 1994a. The desegregation of Hillbrow, Johannesburg, 1978-1982. Urban Studies 31(6):821-35. ~ 1 9 9 4 b . A Survey of Hillbrow Flat-dwellers. Southern Africa in Transition Occasional Papers No. 1. Johannesburg: Department of Sociology, Occasional Paper Series, University of the Witwatersrand. ~1996. Inner-City Transition: A Case Study of Hillbrow, Johannesburg. Ph.D thesis, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Parnell, S. 1992. State Intervention in Housing Provision in the 1980s. In Smith, D.M. (ed.), The Apartheid City and Beyond: Urbanisation and Social Change in South Africa. London: Routledge, pp.53-64. Pickard-Cambridge, C. 1988. The Greying of Johannesburg. Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations. Reintges, C. 1992. Urban (Mis)management? A Case Study of the Effects of Orderly Urbanisation on Duncan Village. In Smith, D.M. (ed.), The Apartheid City and Beyond: Urbanisation and Social Change in South Africa. London: Routledge, pp.99-110. Saltman, J. 1977. Three strategies for reducing involuntary segregation. Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare 4:806-21. ~ - 1 9 8 4 . Neighbourhood stabilisation strategies as social invention. Journal of Voluntary Action Research 13:37-45. Saunders, P. 1990. A Nation of Home Owners. London: Unwin Hyman. Simpson, D. and Fink, J.J. 1989. Memorandum Prepared for Inspection of Joubert Park/Hillbrow, 10th August 1989 by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr R.F. Botha. Johannesburg. Smith, N. 1979. Towards a theory of gentrification: A back to the city movement by capital, not people. Journal of the American Planning Association 45(4):538-48. Sternlieb, G. and Burchell, R. W. 1973. Residential Abandonment: The Tenement Landlord Revisited. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Centre for Urban Policy Research.

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Unterhalter, B. 1968. Some Aspects of Family Life in Flatland Johannesburg. Ph.D thesis, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Urban Foundation. 1991. Urban Debate 2010, 9: Housing for All: Proposalsfor a National Urban Housing Policy. Johannesburg: Urban Foundation.

Legislation Johannesburg Municipality: Bylaws for Accommodation Establishments. 1984. Newspapers and Periodicals Around 1992. 2(1), Jan. Johannesburg Herald 1990. Mid-June. Finance Week 1989.3-9 Aug. The Weekly Mail 1990.23-29 Nov. Star, various dates.

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