Borders of Precints: Unpacking the Politics of White Neighourhood Identities in the Post-Apartheid Black City

The middle-income white precinct in Melville, South Africa, and Johannesburg's predominantly black post-apartheid city are still separate entities. This threatens the democratic production of space in a post-apartheid city like Johannesburg. Through a city-funded “bottom-up” approach, the Johannesburg Development Agency (JDA) funded a Community Participatory Design (CPD) project, known as the Melville Precinct Plan. This plan involving the Melville Residents Association (MRA) helped voice a different opinion about how the urban area is envisioned concerning the Strategic Area Framework (SAF) set out by the City of Johannesburg. Several questions were central to this research. First, why does the MRA disagree with the Metropolitan Development Framework? To what extent do race and fear play a part in the argument? Second, how can a sustainable and equitable post-apartheid city be achieved? Third, what are the values of the government? How do they relate to policies, filter down to the municipal level, and make a difference on communities on an urban level? (Marinova and Hossain, 2013, p. 347). The relationship between pro-liberal urban development and planning projects and the responses of a resistant minority group in Johannesburg in 2017 are considered in this light. The post-apartheid city and the pertinent arguments for and against development are contextualized. What kind of development is important on the city's borders, what fears are synonymous with that, and unfair and exclusionary practices are also considered? Melville Precinct Plan serves as a case study to examine its framing policies and the general outcomes to unpack how the borders, peripherals and edges are used politically to undermine generous public participation processes in planning a new vision of a community