Creating Racial Privilege: The Origins of South African Public Health and Town Planning Legislation

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Periodical article

Title:	Creating Racial Privilege: The Origins of South African Public Health and Town Planning Legislation
Author:	Parnell, Susan
Year:	1993
Periodical:	Journal of Southern African Studies
Volume:	19
Issue:	3
Period:	September
Pages:	471-488
Language:	English
Geographic term:	South Africa
Subjects:	segregation public health urban planning Ethnic and Race Relations Health and Nutrition Law, Human Rights and Violence Urbanization and Migration
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/2636912
Abstract:	Town-planning regulations introduced in South Africa in the 1910s were part of the emerging racial framework of urban government in the South African cities. Charles Porter, Johannesburg's first Medical Officer of Health, was a major force behind the introduction of British planning ideas to white South Africa. The inclusion of town-planning clauses in the 1919 Public Health Act and the 1920 Housing Act were aimed at entrenching urban privileges for whites. By establishing colonial city management standards in selected areas of the city, the position of urban Africans was marginalized. Moreover, the passage of public health and town-planning laws which prevented overcrowding and rent racketeering and enabled slum rehousing, offered State assistance to unskilled whites. The social and political problems arising from the exclusion of poor whites from unskilled work were ameliorated by such urban reforms. Note, ref., sum.