Johannesburg’s “model white housing scheme” in the civic social imaginary : the genesis of a white Afrikaner welfarist node, 1933–1937

Abstract

Conceptualised in 1933, the Jan Hofmeyr Improvement Scheme was Johannesburg (and South Africa's) first subsidised municipal housing development for the white poor. Being a slum clearance intervention, its design was informed by the modernist imaginary of rational city planning and the social reformist aspirations of a "garden city"-style working class housing in metropolitan cities. Linked to Susan Parnell's seminal work on the crucial connection between slum clearance, council housing provision and racial segregation in Johannesburg, this is a micro-level analysis of the origins and completion of the Jan Hofmeyr scheme and the civic social imaginaries that shaped it. Focusing on the bureaucratic and political sections of the local state in relation to the Public Health Committee (PHC), it is argued that the city's medical officer of health (MOH), Dr H.L. Milne and Lionel Leveson, a city councillor, each brought a distinctive vision to the project, a vision that was also shaped by civil society organisations. The scheme became important as signifier of the city's racial modernity. Over the period of its construction, a shift took place in the PHC from bureaucratic concern with housing, linked to sanitation, hygiene, and racial segregation, to the incorporation of a welfarist function at local state level. Soon after completion of this project, the city abandoned sub-economic housing schemes. Socio-politically, the site of the Jan Hofmeyr scheme led to the expansion and consolidation of a white Afrikaner welfare node to the west of the city, with a gradual but sure "whitening out" through forced removals of the broader area. Thus the foundations were laid for the later centrality of the area, and the Jan Hofmeyr township itself, to the Afrikaner Nationalist social imaginary. Efforts to uplift poor and working class white Afrikaners were concentrated here until well into the early 1990s.Die Jan Hofmeyr-skema was Johannesburg (en Suid-Afrika) se eerste gesubsidieerde stadsraadbehuisingskema vir wit armes en is in 1933 gekonseptualiseer. Die projek het gespruit uit 'n poging om krotbuurte op te ruim en is deur die modernistiese verbeelding van rasionele stadsbeplanning en die sosiale hervormingsaspirasies van groengordel-voorstedelike behuisings-intervensies vir die werkersklas in metropolitaanse stede geïnspireer. Binne die raamwerk van Susan Parnell se invloedryke werk oor die verband tussen krotbuurt-opruiming rasse-segregasie en stadsraadbehuising in Johannesburg, is hierdie 'n mikro-vlak ontleding van die ontstaan en voltooiing van Jan Hofmeyr en die siviele sosiale verbeelding wat hieraan beslag gegee het. Met 'n fokus op die onderskeid tussen burokratiese en politieke afdelings op plaaslike regeringvlak en in verband met die Openbare Gesondheidskomitee, word die argument aangebied dat die gesondheidsoffisier, Dr H.L. Milne en Lionel Leveson, 'n raadslid, elk 'n spesifieke visie vir die projek gehad het, maar dat burgerlike samelewingsorganisasies ook die projek beïnvloed het. Die skema was simbolies belangrik as vlagdraer van die stad se rasse-moderniteit. Gedurende die tydperk van die skema se konstruksie het 'n verskuiwing in die werksaamhede van OGK plaasgevind van 'n burokratiese fokus op sanitasie, higiëne en rasse-segregasie na die inkorporasie van 'n welsynsfunksie op plaaslike regeringsvlak. Kort na die voltooiing van die skema het die stad afgesien van sub-ekonomiese behuisingsskemas. Sosio-polities het Jan Hofmeyr se ligging met verloop van tyd daartoe bygedra om 'n wit welsynsnode in die weste van die stad te vestig en die area daar rondom toenemend "uit te wit" deur gedwonge verskuiwings. Die fondasies was dus gelê vir die latere belangrikheid van die breër gebied, asook die Jan Hofmeyr-skema, in die Afrikaner-nasionalistiese verbeelding. Tot in die vroeë 1990s sou die gebied 'n konsentrasiepunt vir projekte om arm en werkersklas Afrikaners op te hef bly.