rural idiocy

[Patrick Bond]

Right. In Johannesburg, 40% of the land within ten kilometers radius 
of the centre of our fine city is vacant (according to a 1991 World 
Bank study); moreover the Central Business District has gone from 5% 
vacancy rates to more than 50% in some blocks, and Africa's tallest 
building, the Carlton Centre (owned and operated by Anglo American 
Corporation) has just closed its 5-star hotel and is likely to close 
the 50-floor tower itself within a few months.

An explanation is the overbuilding of commercial property space 
during the late 1980s plus land speculation and redlining -- in short 
uneven urban capitalist development -- with a good dash of racism and 
crime-hysteria by the white professional elite who, aided by new 
communications technologies, have vacated to favoured walled-up 
edge-cities.


> From:          "Max B. Sawicky" <maxsaw at cpcug.org>
...
> Even better, there is vacant or underutilized
> land in cities themselves, contrary to a
> remark I dimly remember in the thread.  To
> some extent, this is already happening as
> the costs of suburbanization mount and begin
> to become noticeable to suburbanites, such
> as the cost of new infrastructure, time
> required for commuting, etc.