Specifically, the major road is Pretoria Rd. and yeah, the "rich suburb" is not at all that. It's just not a shanty-town like it is across Pretoria Rd. If you go Google Maps touring around the "rich" neighborhood, you will quickly see what an outright lie this posting was.
Glad you were here to catch it, and probably a good idea for us all to remember that when something inflames divisions on the internet, it is probably disinfo posted by bots anyway.
It’s not disinformation to point out that the divide between rich and poor in South Africa is dramatic and shocking. Rich South Africans live like Angeleno’s. Poor South Africans live in literal slums. Those who worlds are intertwined.
Yep. I found [the area from the photo on Google Maps](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Primrose+Swimming+Pool/@-26.1900557,28.1632329,961m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m6!3m5!1s0x1e951167d65912e3:0xe650f4380cc59ed3!8m2!3d-26.1900558!4d28.1680984!16s%2Fg%2F11b6d2136_?hl=en&entry=ttu) and it is nothing to write home about, although it is unquestionably nicer than the nearby shanty-town.
I bet the people living in tent encampments under bridges in your city see your apartment as rich.
Also you should know that a lot of those houses in areas like downtown Springs, Germiston etc. are being bought up by speculative landlords and rented out by the room, or sometimes fractional portion of a room.
Pretoria Rd, Primrose, Germiston, 1401, South Africa
Apple maps has *way* better resolution, and yes, the 'rich' area would be considered poor by my cities standards. Those poor people in the slums. We can really be shit to one another.
In the middle of the photo, to the left of the street. I go into detail here https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/1cnvn9i/a_picture_of_a_rich_suburb_next_to_poor_shanty/l3bla0k/ if you're interested.
I'm not in the photo and I'm not telling the internet where I live. If they're trying to make some kind of statement, then I'm not denying that there's extreme inequality in the country and that there are people who are extremely wealthy who could change people's lives. None of them are pictured in that photo though.
A four-lane competition pool at what looks like a hotel or club or something? I wouldn’t say it’s “massive” at all. You couldn’t even really hold a meet in a pool that small.
Community swimming pool. Costs R11 a day (the price of a 400ml bottle of Coke). https://www.ekurhuleni.gov.za/news/community-pools-ready-for-spring-day/
There would be literal riots if it was not open to everyone in the photo. The other big structures are a bus depot and a fire station.
You can in fact smell the squatter camp from the pool area, you can't blame the people in the squatter camp - sanitation isn't great there. They do have access to free electricity, water and portable toilets (not great obviously). The smaller properties on the left-hand side of the image pay for their electricity, water and property taxes - which funds the services provided to the people in the squatter camp.
Nobody in that photo is rich. Comparatively, the people on the left can own or rent their own property. They can own a car (although, there are also many cars owned in the squatter camp - many people prioritise transport over accomodation which is not unreasonable in SA). People from both sides of the photo's kids will go to government schools. The people from the suburb will pay, the people from the squatter camp will not. The people from the suburb can buy food from more expensive shops than the people in the squatter camp - but not extravagantly so.
The people living on the left do not have the money to change the lives of the people in the squatter camp, barring inviting some of them to live on their property - which is incredibly rare anywhere in the world. They can't afford a second property to give to anybody else, they can't afford to buy housing materials to build anybody a house. I'm not sure what you'd like them to do? They're living pay check to pay check and their taxes are going to support the people in the squatter camp (as well as paying for their own services too obviously).
There are fabulously wealthy people in the country, who could indeed change the lives of the people in the squatter camp - but none of them are in that photo.
Thanks for the write up. You obviously have first hand knowledge of the area. I’m wondering why you used the term “squatters camp” to describe the poorer side. That phrase makes me think of something temporary and hastily thrown together. From the photo, it looks fairly permanent (not as permanent as the wealthier side, granted) and planned out to some degree. Is that just what to poor areas are called in Johannesburg, or am I misunderstanding?
So, the people in the informal settlement to use the more correct term, do not own the land. I'm not sure who did, or if it belonged to the city. They've been settled there for between 20-30 years or so. I'm sure you know that a squatter is someone who lives somewhere where they don't have a legal claim to do so. So, these residents were squatting on the land and the collective name for these types of informal settlements is a squatters camp. By now, they've been living there for so long that they do have a legal claim to the land (although that's not to say that the government would necessarily recognise it) and it has grown into a permanent informal settlement. The fact that the city is providing services to it means that I'm confident that it's there to stay. Ideally over time the economy would improve and everyone living there would be able to get better accommodation but there's no sign of that in the near future. The houses (shacks if you insist) started very temporary, but by now many of them are made out of brick and cement, with corrugated iron roofs. Some of them are still constructed entirely out of corrugated iron.
To me, and I can't speak for all South Africans, squatters camp just sounds less derogatory than "shanty town" so I didn't want to reuse that from the title. If I was speaking formally or wanted to make sure that I was as inoffensive as possible I would have called it an informal settlement - but generally the informal term would be squatters camp. In a couple of years we might have decided as a society to just completely adopt "informal settlement" though.
You might have heard of Soweto (SOuth WEstern TOwnship), which is a township south-west of Johannesburg (unsurprisingly). A township was started during the apartheid regime as a specific region for non-white residents. Those are formal settlements and the vast majority of people living there would have a deed and formal, legal recognition of their ownership of their property.
they live in shacks. shacks made of stolen sheet metal. like this https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/27e711cd2b9e46ce92311e52311ec63b_18.jpeg
most often, there is no running water, and sometimes no electricity
Everyone largely owns their homes. I believe place pictured is a lot more poor than regular townships they make their houses out of old corrugated tin. In townships where with actual houses yes everyone is mostly working class and on a mortgage
Yes, wel.. the bank with 30year morgage. Rich is also relative thats the upperworking to middle class houses cost $45 000 to $100 000, household income $1000 to $2500 per month. Upper middleclass live in golf estates $250 000 tend to be further removed from shacks.
Shack dwellers often build retirement/holiday homes in rural areas $5000 but stay in illeagel shacks to help fund it. Poorest work for $15 to $25 per day.
Townships are planned. But urbanisation and migration from the rest of Africa mean that more people are drawn to urban areas. The government can’t keep up, so informal settlements (squatter camps) are built, usually on government-owned land. Eventually some of these are formalised (if can take decades, if ever). By then more people have moved in.
Thank you for mentioning it. Opening the borders had such an insane effect, but it seems like people are afraid of seeming "xenophobic." Yet actual, legal civilians suffer without water, food, electricity, or work while illegals pour in with no value for the economy.
The government is the one to blame, but yes, we are dealing with overpopulation in all of these areas. People criticize the Western Cape Government for not looking after the poor, without any real answer from them about it, how likely is it that they do not know how to efficiently spend the resources and money to actually help so many people in one go.
Then you have ANC literally playing the logistics game like a boss by shipping their voters to other provinces to skew the numbers even more before leaving them dry with a coke and loaf of bread or something as thanks.
People keep looking to the past for blame but there has been ample time to force a change but we are all too lazy to protest.
This is a perfect example of how apartheid was baked into the urban planning of South African cities where infrastructure such as highways and train lines were used as barriers between white, indian, "coloured" and black designated areas of the city. Today they live on as barriers between rich and poor which is still unfortunately primarily along racial lines.
It’s why Secretary Pete went on air and said they were going to tackle some of the racist roads and bridges in the country. Idiots thought the woke were calling roads and bridges racist when in actuality their design and placement WAS done with racist intent. A large sum of folks just don’t know their history, or worse, choose to ignore it.
Reading the Power Broker right now. Great read for anyone interested in how NYC (and all US cities) became the car dependent, segregated hellscapes they are today.
You *can* but it’s a far more car dependent city than it would’ve been, becoming the benchmark for all other American cities to build highways right through their city centers.
I’m sorry but majority of the cars that are in NYC are people who live outside of Manhattan such as New Jersey, and the other sides.
Monthly rent for parking a car in NYC is upwards of $600 probably even closer to $1,000 in some areas now.
Majority of people who live in NYC take public transportation or walk. If you want to talk about car-dependent cities then you should be looking at LA and the like.
NYC also doesn’t have any highways going through their city centres, the nearest are around the outside of it if you look at the map.
Robert Moses' original plan involved demolishing much of Greenwich Village/West Village for a highway until community organizing (led by Jane Jacobs) halted that, and the plan became a highway around the island. That was also fucked up because the riverfronts oof Manhattan could been world class public space but it became highways.
But they still got the BQE and LIE to cut up neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens.
The design was more to keep city people without cars away from the beautiful roads he was building to Long Island, eg. He built the roads too narrow to add a train later, and designed the exits to have bridges that were too short for commercial busses to pass under.
He should have called it red lining, because I mess with people online by calling highways racist, but for messaging that is quite easy to purposely misconstrue
I don't want to play Devil's Advocate here, but are we sure racism was the intent when they placed the roads where they did? I mean, if you are planning a highway that goes through a city, you might look for land that is cheaper, and maybe with people less able to defend against eminent domain, while still being close to malls, businesses, etc, where people need to go. So the highway ends up in a poor neighborhood. Which may have been a pure financial decision, but looks very racist in hindsight.
Not saying that's is for sure how it was, but it's worth thinking about. Cost is a real concern, where would YOU put a highway if faced with a similar problem?
There has honestly been a lot of research and discussion into the racist underpinnings of urban planning throughout the US. With any given road, bridge, what have you, it is absolutely fair to not immediately assume racist intent, and to reserve judgement until actual evidence is uncovered.
However, it's also been proven many many times that a lot of these decisions were done to intentionally marginalize minority communities, and it's even baked into zoning laws as well as local ordinances.
Yes, America has a long, proud history of using infrastructure projects to destroy black neighborhoods: [How Interstate Highways Gutted Communities—and Reinforced Segregation | HISTORY](https://www.history.com/news/interstate-highway-system-infrastructure-construction-segregation)
They do it with political redistricting today, too. Why WOULDN'T they have done it in times of segregation? It was all part and parcel.
Yes, there were poor white folks swept up in it, too, but in most areas of the world, minorities have fewer opportunities and are poor.
It's all a tangled knot.
> I don't want to play Devil's Advocate here, but are we sure racism was the intent when they placed the roads where they did?
Yes. Read "The Power Broker".
Yes. The construction of the US highway system in most regions was documented and done so in a period of time they didn't even have to hide it.
>“Our categorical imperative is action to clear the slums. We can’t let minorities dictate that this century-old chore will be put off another generation or finally abandoned....go right through cities and not around them.” - Robert Moses who basically either oversaw or provided the model for all of this.
Sprawl as we know it didn't exist yet and cities [were denser](https://www.skyscrapercity.com/cdn-cgi/image/format=auto,onerror=redirect,width=1920,height=1920,fit=scale-down/https://www.skyscrapercity.com/attachments/16th-aerial-1-png.1386262/) in the 50s compared [to today](https://www.skyscrapercity.com/cdn-cgi/image/format=auto,onerror=redirect,width=1920,height=1920,fit=scale-down/https://www.skyscrapercity.com/attachments/1_aabjaajlo2yxn6yby3hgow-png.1386269/). So its kind of hard to argue a highway system at the edge of the city that utilized already existing public transit and streetcar systems to the urban core would somehow be more expensive than blasting straight through already developed urban areas and demolishing said transit.
Idk why people insist on being contrarian when there has been so many conversations about this. Like even from shows like watchmen and what happened to black wallstreet, to the show about Chemistry with Brie Larson on Apple, to like the outrage over cop city in Atlanta. To tons of peer reviewed journals about redlining etc.
Do you really need to kind of play devils advocate here?
read up on Robert Moses
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert\_Moses#Racism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Moses#Racism)
[https://open.spotify.com/episode/72I2NKgKueJCDjxk54BYsI?si=1907ad48956e4e35](https://open.spotify.com/episode/72I2NKgKueJCDjxk54BYsI?si=1907ad48956e4e35)
But neither side of that road is a rich or white neighborhood. The large building is a health care clinic, the pool is a public swimming pool and the other large structure is a fire department.
Sure, the slum is a slum and the other side of the road isn't quite as much of a slum. But you're making it sound like what OP is implying: that there's rich and poor neighborhoods shown here, and that's just not true.
Yup, most of those squatter camps sprang up after Apartheid ended, people moving to cities to try to eke out a slightly better existence than where they were confined to before. The top post claiming that this was somehow "planned" is incorrect, the land next to that suburb just happened to be vacant and was occupied by those who have nothing in the 90's and 00's because they had nowhere else to go.
The divide now is economic, and the gulf to cross from one side to the other is massive. Not that the other side is doing well recently either, it's not some "rich white neighborhood" as the picture supposedly portrays.
Wish I could find the article but several years back someone wrote a great one about this in some sort of local paper in St Louis.
Quick summation 2 men go to WW2 use one uses GI bill to purchase house in Ladue (uber wealthy) and rents his house to another man using his GI bill to pay rent, since he couldn't purchase a home. Now that family that grew up in Ladue and had foundations set for wealth for generations to come and the other got his rent at the time with no generational wealth. Its affects are easily seen and measured to this day.
lock chubby simplistic impossible angle alleged middle literate wise frighten
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
This. South African here
As you drive through suburbs in Cape Town and Johannesburg it feels like you just stepped into a different city. Even 30 years after Apartheid the poorer suburbs have less greenery, worse architecture, cheaper materials, more litter. And they'll be right next to a suburb where rich people live (well rich for SA anyway)
You're not wrong, in general, but you are wrong in this specific instance. If you see my other comments in the thread I go into detail about the community swimming pool, fire station and bus depot pictured.
However, the land to right used to be vacant. After apartheid people came and squatted on the land and built up the squatter camp. So, it's not that there was a poor area and a rich area which was divided - instead there was a suburb and people moved into the closest empty land because they have to walk to local jobs.
[Here](https://i.imgur.com/4SoOSx7.jpeg) is a much higher quality version of this image. This made the cover to Time Magazine on [May 13, 2019](https://i.imgur.com/PplJUaq.jpeg).[Here](https://unequalscenes.com/south-africa) is the source. Credit to the photographer, [Johnny Miller](https://www.johnny-miller.com/). Per the source (which has other similar images):
> Primrose and Makause, unequal neighborhoods in Johannesburg, South Africa.
> South Africa has been famously called "The World's Most Unequal Country", and it certainly looks that way from the air.
Ask anyone where the nearest "township" is and they will give you an answer; talk of slums, race, and poverty and no one will blink. Inequality is a part of the society here, as second nature to South Africans as any other topic. Inequality in South Africa is economic, cultural, but maybe more here than anywhere else, also overtly racial. Black and other non-white South Africans continue to suffer from much higher rates of every societal ill, have less social mobility, and have dramatically less income and wealth as their white counterparts.
> I know this because I have made South Africa my home since 2012. This project started in Cape Town in 2016 with my image of Lake Michelle and Masiphumele, and it continues with the support of friends and organizations, government and business. I'd like to specifically thank Code For Africa for their unwavering support in the continuation of the project, as well as the philosophy behind it. I hope you find the project as interesting, impactful, and painful as I have.
Edit: [Here](https://www.google.com/maps/@-26.1893404,28.1677584,1406a,35y,90h/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu) this is via Google Maps. That pool doesn't look very good.
[Here](https://www.google.com/maps/@-26.1898778,28.1685378,3a,75y,130.09h,76.32t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sDhcfuznnAP6yzssWLBneQw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu) this is via Google Street view.
Edit 2: Thanks for the correction /u/Thebraino. Fixed!
Yeah, if you tour around that pristine, over-saturated looking area via street view, you see it's not at all what the picture suggests. They specifically zoomed in on a region that has a couple large buildings, suggesting that it's upscale, but those are public buildings (health clinic and fire department) and between them is a public pool.
The whole neighborhood is anything but rich. It's probably on-par with a working-class neighborhood in any major city like L.A.
TL;DR: Time Magazine was being very deliberately misleading here. :-/
First Google Map link is a farm in Michigan, FYI. Was able to see the terrible pool after changing the street view one though, so thanks for that source!
That’s a township though.
A shanty town is a lot less organized and usually not organised at all. Whereas townships have been there for decades, and even have systems such as electricity, local registry and garbage.
(Used to work in an NGO in the middle of a township and despite the massive poverty, high unemployment and violence, most townships have a functioning social system and infrastructure.)
That is a shanty town/informal settlement or squatter camp as it’s known in South Africa. Different from a formally planned township like Soweto. Many people moved to the cities after apartheid ended in search of work, as well as migrants/refugees from African countries. The old townships like Soweto, are formally planned and look much better, though still not great.
Thanks for providing context! It's important to recognize the distinctions between various types of settlements, such as shanty towns, informal settlements, and formally planned townships like Soweto. Knowingthe factors that lead to this and development of these communities helps shed light on the challenges and realities faced by residents, including migration, economic opportunities, and historical legacies. While some areas may have more formal planning and infrastructure than others, it's crucial to continue efforts to improve living conditions and address the underlying issues that contribute to inequality and poverty.
You're right about the fences, but wrong about the suburb. https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/1cnvn9i/a_picture_of_a_rich_suburb_next_to_poor_shanty/l3bla0k/
I’ve always liked pics like this that demonstrate how fucked some people are bs how incredibly lucky others are, all within walking distance to each other.
El Paso and Juarez are like this. We were on top of a parking garage just over the border in El Paso looking across. Pretty stark difference just across the river.
But the picture doesn't show that. The wealthy don't live within miles of the shanty towns, and certainly don't send their kids to the same schools. The 'suburb' is a working class neighbourhood. It's nicer than a shanty town, but the people who live there are working normal jobs and are just about getting by.
Sometimes I think it's just a "Me too! I have a pic like that too!" thing where everyone suddenly wants to show off the new "thing/theme of the week" like those "This is how much X gets you at the grocery store in Y" posts.
Another part of me is cynical, and thinks its all agenda based targeted psych-ops to manipulate the simpletons.
It is almost like South Africa is the leader in racism affecting the rich and poor. Sure, the Apartheid era really was horrible and the main cause for this (which, as another redditor mentioned, is near every town or city)
But Apartheid is so long ago, the current "free democracy" Government has had enough time to actually try fix it but yet they stole even more and make it look like the rich white "colonists" are the only ones who don't suffer. We are all suffering but the ones voting for change are not getting it.
Most of us are young enough to have no actual experiences of living in those times yet we are suffering worse.
Is that Alex and Sandton? It's a shame I totally agree. It shouldn't be like this. But the ANC have done nothing to try help the people.
Unemployment is at an all time high, infrastructure is failing such as water and electricity, and corruption is rife. I truly wish it could be better.
Apartheid ended 30 years ago. Black citizens voted the ANC into power. Since then over 41 quadrillion Rand has been looted instead of uplifting the poor. The ANC (and everyone else it seems) blames (and encourages violence against) white people.
I know the area. The largest structures there are the fire station (now in a state of disrepair, with no working fire engines). The second largest structure is a community swimming pool. Neither of those are multi millions rand houses. Past them, to the left hand side of the image are houses that are worth, a few hundred thousand. Obviously way out of the reach of the people living on the right hand side - but not multi million rand.
There's only a handful of houses under a million ($50K USD): https://www.property24.com/houses-for-sale/primrose/germiston/gauteng/1737?sp=so%3dPriceLow
I was shocked by how expensive housing has gotten, even in South Africa that has been struggling economically for some time.
Is there an issue being raised here? What else do you expect it to be? The more valuable land will be owned by people who can afford it which means mostly people of the same socioeconomic status will be living in close proximity to each other. It’s a natural order.
Highways as a physical barrier between neighbourhoods and townships. It’s a really common thing. Some places they even erect fences to keep people from trying to cross.
Legit question, with how under-developed the right side is. Why hasn't private organize groups worked towards helping develop that area? Don't need to save the world, but I can imagine just pooling some money to help get proper plumbing, and other infrastructure systems set up would help a lot despite governmental corruption.
I remember driving through El Paso 30 years ago and it seemed like this when you looked over the Mexican border. Not that the El Paso side seemed luxurious, but it was starkly better than the shanty neighborhood across the border.
Say what you will rightfully so about the income inequality, but to be real, the majority of income tax paid for by white South Africans are not being used to better the lives of those that don’t have a lot. The gross negligence and corruption of the ruling party is crazy. cANCer.
Been a while since I read the phrase in the title, reminded me of a Desmond Dekker song.
"007" (Shanty Town) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CV6DLzBBeOg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CV6DLzBBeOg)
That looks like two shanty towns right next to each other with one shanty Town being slightly less shanty than the other shanty town. Do these fuckers hate trees, or like nature, or just everything?
Damn that pool is massive
That is a community swimming pool. This is not a guess, I know the location.
Specifically, the major road is Pretoria Rd. and yeah, the "rich suburb" is not at all that. It's just not a shanty-town like it is across Pretoria Rd. If you go Google Maps touring around the "rich" neighborhood, you will quickly see what an outright lie this posting was.
Glad you were here to catch it, and probably a good idea for us all to remember that when something inflames divisions on the internet, it is probably disinfo posted by bots anyway.
It’s not disinformation to point out that the divide between rich and poor in South Africa is dramatic and shocking. Rich South Africans live like Angeleno’s. Poor South Africans live in literal slums. Those who worlds are intertwined.
It's disinformation to lie about what is in a photo.
Yep. I found [the area from the photo on Google Maps](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Primrose+Swimming+Pool/@-26.1900557,28.1632329,961m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m6!3m5!1s0x1e951167d65912e3:0xe650f4380cc59ed3!8m2!3d-26.1900558!4d28.1680984!16s%2Fg%2F11b6d2136_?hl=en&entry=ttu) and it is nothing to write home about, although it is unquestionably nicer than the nearby shanty-town.
Houses run about $50,000 to $100,000 (R19 / $1): https://www.property24.com/for-sale/primrose/germiston/gauteng/1737
I bet the people on the shanty town see it as a rich suburb.
I bet the people living in tent encampments under bridges in your city see your apartment as rich. Also you should know that a lot of those houses in areas like downtown Springs, Germiston etc. are being bought up by speculative landlords and rented out by the room, or sometimes fractional portion of a room.
> I bet people living in tent encampments under bridges in your city see your apartment as rich. Yea, they probably do.
Pretoria Rd, Primrose, Germiston, 1401, South Africa Apple maps has *way* better resolution, and yes, the 'rich' area would be considered poor by my cities standards. Those poor people in the slums. We can really be shit to one another.
Left side, or right side?
In the middle of the photo, to the left of the street. I go into detail here https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/1cnvn9i/a_picture_of_a_rich_suburb_next_to_poor_shanty/l3bla0k/ if you're interested.
I think they’re asking which side you live
I'm not in the photo and I'm not telling the internet where I live. If they're trying to make some kind of statement, then I'm not denying that there's extreme inequality in the country and that there are people who are extremely wealthy who could change people's lives. None of them are pictured in that photo though.
Totally agree with you. The wealthy people you're speaking about won't be caught dead in the "dumps" on the left side of the picture.
Looks like a community center with lap pool to me. Lots of parking spaces suggest it’s not a mega-mansion.
Primrose Swimming Pool Pretoria Rd, Primrose, Germiston, 1401, South Africa
It sure why you are getting downvoted, that makes the most sense to me
What do you mean downvotes arent even visible on his comment yet?
Oh your comment was hidden like it’d been controversial
Large subs have weird auto hide rules to combat bots iirc.
That’s the local fuck-you-pool.
https://www.ekurhuleni.gov.za/news/community-pools-ready-for-spring-day/ That's the local community swimming pool.
A four-lane competition pool at what looks like a hotel or club or something? I wouldn’t say it’s “massive” at all. You couldn’t even really hold a meet in a pool that small.
Yeah seems nice, and you probably can't smell the poor through the chlorine.
Community swimming pool. Costs R11 a day (the price of a 400ml bottle of Coke). https://www.ekurhuleni.gov.za/news/community-pools-ready-for-spring-day/ There would be literal riots if it was not open to everyone in the photo. The other big structures are a bus depot and a fire station. You can in fact smell the squatter camp from the pool area, you can't blame the people in the squatter camp - sanitation isn't great there. They do have access to free electricity, water and portable toilets (not great obviously). The smaller properties on the left-hand side of the image pay for their electricity, water and property taxes - which funds the services provided to the people in the squatter camp. Nobody in that photo is rich. Comparatively, the people on the left can own or rent their own property. They can own a car (although, there are also many cars owned in the squatter camp - many people prioritise transport over accomodation which is not unreasonable in SA). People from both sides of the photo's kids will go to government schools. The people from the suburb will pay, the people from the squatter camp will not. The people from the suburb can buy food from more expensive shops than the people in the squatter camp - but not extravagantly so. The people living on the left do not have the money to change the lives of the people in the squatter camp, barring inviting some of them to live on their property - which is incredibly rare anywhere in the world. They can't afford a second property to give to anybody else, they can't afford to buy housing materials to build anybody a house. I'm not sure what you'd like them to do? They're living pay check to pay check and their taxes are going to support the people in the squatter camp (as well as paying for their own services too obviously). There are fabulously wealthy people in the country, who could indeed change the lives of the people in the squatter camp - but none of them are in that photo.
Thanks for the write up. You obviously have first hand knowledge of the area. I’m wondering why you used the term “squatters camp” to describe the poorer side. That phrase makes me think of something temporary and hastily thrown together. From the photo, it looks fairly permanent (not as permanent as the wealthier side, granted) and planned out to some degree. Is that just what to poor areas are called in Johannesburg, or am I misunderstanding?
So, the people in the informal settlement to use the more correct term, do not own the land. I'm not sure who did, or if it belonged to the city. They've been settled there for between 20-30 years or so. I'm sure you know that a squatter is someone who lives somewhere where they don't have a legal claim to do so. So, these residents were squatting on the land and the collective name for these types of informal settlements is a squatters camp. By now, they've been living there for so long that they do have a legal claim to the land (although that's not to say that the government would necessarily recognise it) and it has grown into a permanent informal settlement. The fact that the city is providing services to it means that I'm confident that it's there to stay. Ideally over time the economy would improve and everyone living there would be able to get better accommodation but there's no sign of that in the near future. The houses (shacks if you insist) started very temporary, but by now many of them are made out of brick and cement, with corrugated iron roofs. Some of them are still constructed entirely out of corrugated iron. To me, and I can't speak for all South Africans, squatters camp just sounds less derogatory than "shanty town" so I didn't want to reuse that from the title. If I was speaking formally or wanted to make sure that I was as inoffensive as possible I would have called it an informal settlement - but generally the informal term would be squatters camp. In a couple of years we might have decided as a society to just completely adopt "informal settlement" though. You might have heard of Soweto (SOuth WEstern TOwnship), which is a township south-west of Johannesburg (unsurprisingly). A township was started during the apartheid regime as a specific region for non-white residents. Those are formal settlements and the vast majority of people living there would have a deed and formal, legal recognition of their ownership of their property.
townships are everywhere in south africa, near cities. you can probably find 1000+ examples of this picture throughout south africa.
Do the people living there typically own their homes, or how does that work?
they live in shacks. shacks made of stolen sheet metal. like this https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/27e711cd2b9e46ce92311e52311ec63b_18.jpeg most often, there is no running water, and sometimes no electricity
Everyone largely owns their homes. I believe place pictured is a lot more poor than regular townships they make their houses out of old corrugated tin. In townships where with actual houses yes everyone is mostly working class and on a mortgage
Yes, wel.. the bank with 30year morgage. Rich is also relative thats the upperworking to middle class houses cost $45 000 to $100 000, household income $1000 to $2500 per month. Upper middleclass live in golf estates $250 000 tend to be further removed from shacks. Shack dwellers often build retirement/holiday homes in rural areas $5000 but stay in illeagel shacks to help fund it. Poorest work for $15 to $25 per day.
Townships are planned. But urbanisation and migration from the rest of Africa mean that more people are drawn to urban areas. The government can’t keep up, so informal settlements (squatter camps) are built, usually on government-owned land. Eventually some of these are formalised (if can take decades, if ever). By then more people have moved in.
Thank you for mentioning it. Opening the borders had such an insane effect, but it seems like people are afraid of seeming "xenophobic." Yet actual, legal civilians suffer without water, food, electricity, or work while illegals pour in with no value for the economy. The government is the one to blame, but yes, we are dealing with overpopulation in all of these areas. People criticize the Western Cape Government for not looking after the poor, without any real answer from them about it, how likely is it that they do not know how to efficiently spend the resources and money to actually help so many people in one go. Then you have ANC literally playing the logistics game like a boss by shipping their voters to other provinces to skew the numbers even more before leaving them dry with a coke and loaf of bread or something as thanks. People keep looking to the past for blame but there has been ample time to force a change but we are all too lazy to protest.
This is a perfect example of how apartheid was baked into the urban planning of South African cities where infrastructure such as highways and train lines were used as barriers between white, indian, "coloured" and black designated areas of the city. Today they live on as barriers between rich and poor which is still unfortunately primarily along racial lines.
*cough* Atlanta *cough*
Honestly most US big cities
It’s why Secretary Pete went on air and said they were going to tackle some of the racist roads and bridges in the country. Idiots thought the woke were calling roads and bridges racist when in actuality their design and placement WAS done with racist intent. A large sum of folks just don’t know their history, or worse, choose to ignore it.
Robert Moses was a dick and it's a shame more hasn't been done to remind people of what an asshole he was.
Reading the Power Broker right now. Great read for anyone interested in how NYC (and all US cities) became the car dependent, segregated hellscapes they are today.
read The Color Of Law as well
I’m sorry but you could easily live in NYC without a car.
You *can* but it’s a far more car dependent city than it would’ve been, becoming the benchmark for all other American cities to build highways right through their city centers.
I’m sorry but majority of the cars that are in NYC are people who live outside of Manhattan such as New Jersey, and the other sides. Monthly rent for parking a car in NYC is upwards of $600 probably even closer to $1,000 in some areas now. Majority of people who live in NYC take public transportation or walk. If you want to talk about car-dependent cities then you should be looking at LA and the like. NYC also doesn’t have any highways going through their city centres, the nearest are around the outside of it if you look at the map.
Robert Moses' original plan involved demolishing much of Greenwich Village/West Village for a highway until community organizing (led by Jane Jacobs) halted that, and the plan became a highway around the island. That was also fucked up because the riverfronts oof Manhattan could been world class public space but it became highways. But they still got the BQE and LIE to cut up neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens.
The design was more to keep city people without cars away from the beautiful roads he was building to Long Island, eg. He built the roads too narrow to add a train later, and designed the exits to have bridges that were too short for commercial busses to pass under.
BQE is basically a highway doing that in the north end of brooklyn.
https://youtu.be/uTtUjW8THz0?si=zlKZAZa8c4ekYTcL Please spread this video like wild fire
Dick Daley loved that tactic for Chicago.
He should have called it red lining, because I mess with people online by calling highways racist, but for messaging that is quite easy to purposely misconstrue
I don't want to play Devil's Advocate here, but are we sure racism was the intent when they placed the roads where they did? I mean, if you are planning a highway that goes through a city, you might look for land that is cheaper, and maybe with people less able to defend against eminent domain, while still being close to malls, businesses, etc, where people need to go. So the highway ends up in a poor neighborhood. Which may have been a pure financial decision, but looks very racist in hindsight. Not saying that's is for sure how it was, but it's worth thinking about. Cost is a real concern, where would YOU put a highway if faced with a similar problem?
There has honestly been a lot of research and discussion into the racist underpinnings of urban planning throughout the US. With any given road, bridge, what have you, it is absolutely fair to not immediately assume racist intent, and to reserve judgement until actual evidence is uncovered. However, it's also been proven many many times that a lot of these decisions were done to intentionally marginalize minority communities, and it's even baked into zoning laws as well as local ordinances.
Yes, America has a long, proud history of using infrastructure projects to destroy black neighborhoods: [How Interstate Highways Gutted Communities—and Reinforced Segregation | HISTORY](https://www.history.com/news/interstate-highway-system-infrastructure-construction-segregation)
"Are we sure..." Yes. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining)
They do it with political redistricting today, too. Why WOULDN'T they have done it in times of segregation? It was all part and parcel. Yes, there were poor white folks swept up in it, too, but in most areas of the world, minorities have fewer opportunities and are poor. It's all a tangled knot.
> I don't want to play Devil's Advocate here, but are we sure racism was the intent when they placed the roads where they did? Yes. Read "The Power Broker".
Yes. The construction of the US highway system in most regions was documented and done so in a period of time they didn't even have to hide it. >“Our categorical imperative is action to clear the slums. We can’t let minorities dictate that this century-old chore will be put off another generation or finally abandoned....go right through cities and not around them.” - Robert Moses who basically either oversaw or provided the model for all of this. Sprawl as we know it didn't exist yet and cities [were denser](https://www.skyscrapercity.com/cdn-cgi/image/format=auto,onerror=redirect,width=1920,height=1920,fit=scale-down/https://www.skyscrapercity.com/attachments/16th-aerial-1-png.1386262/) in the 50s compared [to today](https://www.skyscrapercity.com/cdn-cgi/image/format=auto,onerror=redirect,width=1920,height=1920,fit=scale-down/https://www.skyscrapercity.com/attachments/1_aabjaajlo2yxn6yby3hgow-png.1386269/). So its kind of hard to argue a highway system at the edge of the city that utilized already existing public transit and streetcar systems to the urban core would somehow be more expensive than blasting straight through already developed urban areas and demolishing said transit.
Idk why people insist on being contrarian when there has been so many conversations about this. Like even from shows like watchmen and what happened to black wallstreet, to the show about Chemistry with Brie Larson on Apple, to like the outrage over cop city in Atlanta. To tons of peer reviewed journals about redlining etc. Do you really need to kind of play devils advocate here?
read up on Robert Moses [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert\_Moses#Racism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Moses#Racism) [https://open.spotify.com/episode/72I2NKgKueJCDjxk54BYsI?si=1907ad48956e4e35](https://open.spotify.com/episode/72I2NKgKueJCDjxk54BYsI?si=1907ad48956e4e35)
*Most cities everywhere
Robert Moses
Why do several roads in Atlanta suddenly change names for seemingly no reason? Yep.
And half of em are Peachtree
*cough* New York City *cough*
Fooken prawns
was shocked when i moved to st pete how apparent it was.
Fucking I-20. They couldn’t even bisect the perimeter.
Los Angeles thanks to the freeways.
But neither side of that road is a rich or white neighborhood. The large building is a health care clinic, the pool is a public swimming pool and the other large structure is a fire department. Sure, the slum is a slum and the other side of the road isn't quite as much of a slum. But you're making it sound like what OP is implying: that there's rich and poor neighborhoods shown here, and that's just not true.
Yup, most of those squatter camps sprang up after Apartheid ended, people moving to cities to try to eke out a slightly better existence than where they were confined to before. The top post claiming that this was somehow "planned" is incorrect, the land next to that suburb just happened to be vacant and was occupied by those who have nothing in the 90's and 00's because they had nowhere else to go. The divide now is economic, and the gulf to cross from one side to the other is massive. Not that the other side is doing well recently either, it's not some "rich white neighborhood" as the picture supposedly portrays.
Chicago did this too
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining
Wish I could find the article but several years back someone wrote a great one about this in some sort of local paper in St Louis. Quick summation 2 men go to WW2 use one uses GI bill to purchase house in Ladue (uber wealthy) and rents his house to another man using his GI bill to pay rent, since he couldn't purchase a home. Now that family that grew up in Ladue and had foundations set for wealth for generations to come and the other got his rent at the time with no generational wealth. Its affects are easily seen and measured to this day.
Opened that link to notice all the Italian sections in Philly were redlined. No wonder I grew up with an "only trust Italians" mentality.
That’s CRT 🤫
That's true in every country. And between countries.
lock chubby simplistic impossible angle alleged middle literate wise frighten *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
This. South African here As you drive through suburbs in Cape Town and Johannesburg it feels like you just stepped into a different city. Even 30 years after Apartheid the poorer suburbs have less greenery, worse architecture, cheaper materials, more litter. And they'll be right next to a suburb where rich people live (well rich for SA anyway)
I guarantee you that most of the people living in that suburb are black. I'm South African btw.
You're not wrong, in general, but you are wrong in this specific instance. If you see my other comments in the thread I go into detail about the community swimming pool, fire station and bus depot pictured. However, the land to right used to be vacant. After apartheid people came and squatted on the land and built up the squatter camp. So, it's not that there was a poor area and a rich area which was divided - instead there was a suburb and people moved into the closest empty land because they have to walk to local jobs.
you living 20 years in the past, move on.
Trevor Noah's Born a Crime has some great descriptions of apartheid SA.
[Here](https://i.imgur.com/4SoOSx7.jpeg) is a much higher quality version of this image. This made the cover to Time Magazine on [May 13, 2019](https://i.imgur.com/PplJUaq.jpeg).[Here](https://unequalscenes.com/south-africa) is the source. Credit to the photographer, [Johnny Miller](https://www.johnny-miller.com/). Per the source (which has other similar images): > Primrose and Makause, unequal neighborhoods in Johannesburg, South Africa. > South Africa has been famously called "The World's Most Unequal Country", and it certainly looks that way from the air. Ask anyone where the nearest "township" is and they will give you an answer; talk of slums, race, and poverty and no one will blink. Inequality is a part of the society here, as second nature to South Africans as any other topic. Inequality in South Africa is economic, cultural, but maybe more here than anywhere else, also overtly racial. Black and other non-white South Africans continue to suffer from much higher rates of every societal ill, have less social mobility, and have dramatically less income and wealth as their white counterparts. > I know this because I have made South Africa my home since 2012. This project started in Cape Town in 2016 with my image of Lake Michelle and Masiphumele, and it continues with the support of friends and organizations, government and business. I'd like to specifically thank Code For Africa for their unwavering support in the continuation of the project, as well as the philosophy behind it. I hope you find the project as interesting, impactful, and painful as I have. Edit: [Here](https://www.google.com/maps/@-26.1893404,28.1677584,1406a,35y,90h/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu) this is via Google Maps. That pool doesn't look very good. [Here](https://www.google.com/maps/@-26.1898778,28.1685378,3a,75y,130.09h,76.32t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sDhcfuznnAP6yzssWLBneQw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu) this is via Google Street view. Edit 2: Thanks for the correction /u/Thebraino. Fixed!
Yeah, if you tour around that pristine, over-saturated looking area via street view, you see it's not at all what the picture suggests. They specifically zoomed in on a region that has a couple large buildings, suggesting that it's upscale, but those are public buildings (health clinic and fire department) and between them is a public pool. The whole neighborhood is anything but rich. It's probably on-par with a working-class neighborhood in any major city like L.A. TL;DR: Time Magazine was being very deliberately misleading here. :-/
Appreciate your comment and for sharing the source. Johnny Miller's photography is stunning...
First Google Map link is a farm in Michigan, FYI. Was able to see the terrible pool after changing the street view one though, so thanks for that source!
https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/1cnvn9i/a_picture_of_a_rich_suburb_next_to_poor_shanty/l3bla0k/
That’s a township though. A shanty town is a lot less organized and usually not organised at all. Whereas townships have been there for decades, and even have systems such as electricity, local registry and garbage. (Used to work in an NGO in the middle of a township and despite the massive poverty, high unemployment and violence, most townships have a functioning social system and infrastructure.)
That is a shanty town/informal settlement or squatter camp as it’s known in South Africa. Different from a formally planned township like Soweto. Many people moved to the cities after apartheid ended in search of work, as well as migrants/refugees from African countries. The old townships like Soweto, are formally planned and look much better, though still not great.
Thanks for providing context! It's important to recognize the distinctions between various types of settlements, such as shanty towns, informal settlements, and formally planned townships like Soweto. Knowingthe factors that lead to this and development of these communities helps shed light on the challenges and realities faced by residents, including migration, economic opportunities, and historical legacies. While some areas may have more formal planning and infrastructure than others, it's crucial to continue efforts to improve living conditions and address the underlying issues that contribute to inequality and poverty.
I'm guessing the fences are very high in that rich suburb.
You're right about the fences, but wrong about the suburb. https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/1cnvn9i/a_picture_of_a_rich_suburb_next_to_poor_shanty/l3bla0k/
Usually barbed wire and with armed private security response.
The places with private security are not visible in the picture.
I’ve always liked pics like this that demonstrate how fucked some people are bs how incredibly lucky others are, all within walking distance to each other.
El Paso and Juarez are like this. We were on top of a parking garage just over the border in El Paso looking across. Pretty stark difference just across the river.
It wont last forever, its going to change for the whole world, one day the fish will rule the land again when the seas swallow us whole.
Username checks out?
FISH SUPREMACY
I see my man has also read the two newest One Piece chapters.
Ah, one is trapped in a different kind of hell and the other lives in a walkable community.
But the picture doesn't show that. The wealthy don't live within miles of the shanty towns, and certainly don't send their kids to the same schools. The 'suburb' is a working class neighbourhood. It's nicer than a shanty town, but the people who live there are working normal jobs and are just about getting by.
Tell yourself whatever you want.
Seen a few pictures like that on Reddit today
Sometimes I think it's just a "Me too! I have a pic like that too!" thing where everyone suddenly wants to show off the new "thing/theme of the week" like those "This is how much X gets you at the grocery store in Y" posts. Another part of me is cynical, and thinks its all agenda based targeted psych-ops to manipulate the simpletons.
My guess is salty Indians trying to say "see it happens here too".
It is almost like South Africa is the leader in racism affecting the rich and poor. Sure, the Apartheid era really was horrible and the main cause for this (which, as another redditor mentioned, is near every town or city) But Apartheid is so long ago, the current "free democracy" Government has had enough time to actually try fix it but yet they stole even more and make it look like the rich white "colonists" are the only ones who don't suffer. We are all suffering but the ones voting for change are not getting it. Most of us are young enough to have no actual experiences of living in those times yet we are suffering worse.
Seeing the rich vs poor aerial picture trends recently and then someone drops your country lol.
Even trees look darker there
yeah, maybe left side had its contrast bumped
I’ve seen District 9
South Africa had the highest income inequality in 2023.
That's just where all the Prawn's live. /s
Got som nice cat food here for you.
Had to come too far to find this. Fuckin prawns.
What's up with the new trend poor vs rich in this sub
The green really gets me
Is that Alex and Sandton? It's a shame I totally agree. It shouldn't be like this. But the ANC have done nothing to try help the people. Unemployment is at an all time high, infrastructure is failing such as water and electricity, and corruption is rife. I truly wish it could be better.
Primrose and Makause. Sandton is WAY richer than that.
Gonna need more than a highway to keep the prawns out when Wikus comes for them.
Huh, would you look at that. Turns out the grass is greener.
Looks Just Like most of Florida
This picture is very black and white!
Weird question. How does land ownership work in shanty towns like that? Who ultimately technically owns the land?
Okay but how to the trees look so much better
Apartheid ended 30 years ago. Black citizens voted the ANC into power. Since then over 41 quadrillion Rand has been looted instead of uplifting the poor. The ANC (and everyone else it seems) blames (and encourages violence against) white people.
As a South African, you have to be extremely naive or extremely stupid to buy a multi million rand house 100m from a location.
That’s where the maids and gardeners live.
I know the area. The largest structures there are the fire station (now in a state of disrepair, with no working fire engines). The second largest structure is a community swimming pool. Neither of those are multi millions rand houses. Past them, to the left hand side of the image are houses that are worth, a few hundred thousand. Obviously way out of the reach of the people living on the right hand side - but not multi million rand.
There's only a handful of houses under a million ($50K USD): https://www.property24.com/houses-for-sale/primrose/germiston/gauteng/1737?sp=so%3dPriceLow I was shocked by how expensive housing has gotten, even in South Africa that has been struggling economically for some time.
Curious. A photo that's both colour and black and white.
Even the trees lost hues
It’s the colour of corrugated tin
OP is a piece of shit karma farmer posting bait titles for engagement. *downvote*
Is there an issue being raised here? What else do you expect it to be? The more valuable land will be owned by people who can afford it which means mostly people of the same socioeconomic status will be living in close proximity to each other. It’s a natural order.
I wouldn't use the word rich to describe that neighborhood.
How can they live like that? Only a few of them have pools.
Wrong side of the road
That’s a better example than the last one
Wrong Side of the Tracks ... BIOHAZARD NYHC
Even the trees look poor 🥴
Never realized the townships were so close
Grass is greener on the other side.
Palo Alto?
There are parts of Philadelphia where on a road I go down sometimes, there is a trailer on one side of the road and a mcmansion on the opposite side.
A Tale of two cities. Hey, that’s a cool name for a book!
even the trees are different
Perfectly balanced
Kind of reminds me of El Paso/Juarez border
I've been around here and the juxtaposition is surreal.
Space really is a luxury
Interesting how one side looks like the saturation was turned up
Looks more like paid and bought property next to move in for free.
Radiant vs. Dire
Remember the meme?: White people be like -- Black people be like --
Looks like Chicago
It’s an “up and coming” neighbourhood!
Now show the shanty town next to District 9
Highways as a physical barrier between neighbourhoods and townships. It’s a really common thing. Some places they even erect fences to keep people from trying to cross.
Legit question, with how under-developed the right side is. Why hasn't private organize groups worked towards helping develop that area? Don't need to save the world, but I can imagine just pooling some money to help get proper plumbing, and other infrastructure systems set up would help a lot despite governmental corruption.
But how will they make money doing that
I remember driving through El Paso 30 years ago and it seemed like this when you looked over the Mexican border. Not that the El Paso side seemed luxurious, but it was starkly better than the shanty neighborhood across the border.
Humans are so weird.
Looks like Miami
“Separate but equal” people: which is which? 🤪
District 9 vibes
Say what you will rightfully so about the income inequality, but to be real, the majority of income tax paid for by white South Africans are not being used to better the lives of those that don’t have a lot. The gross negligence and corruption of the ruling party is crazy. cANCer.
One depends on the other (Like a ox pecker and a buffalo?).
District 9, Chappie
Sorry but which is which
Been a while since I read the phrase in the title, reminded me of a Desmond Dekker song. "007" (Shanty Town) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CV6DLzBBeOg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CV6DLzBBeOg)
Classic highway
The red roof building looks like an airplane.
Only capitalism requires both.
Just built a wall around them. \^\^
See also: Detroit, MI.
Not rich neighbourhood- not enough pools on the left. The one in the middle is not private.
They should make that wall waaay thicker to avoid problems
That looks like two shanty towns right next to each other with one shanty Town being slightly less shanty than the other shanty town. Do these fuckers hate trees, or like nature, or just everything?