City of Extremes

“In this meticulously researched account of Johannesburg’s socio-spatial history, Martin J. Murray gets beneath the surface of the city’s chaotic present to discover the inertia of long-term deployments. He finds that ingrained habits of urban planning and real estate entrepreneurship have always been mobilized in the city as twin mechanisms of change and renewal across moments of territorial mutation. This exposes post-apartheid transformation as a rearticulation of old orders and habits and makes an important contribution to revising the idea of a decisive historical rupture at the end of apartheid.”—Lindsay Bremner, Professor of Architecture, Tyler School of Art, Temple University

“Martin J. Murray navigates the slippery interfaces where mega-development, social progress, dystopian dread, racial enclaving, and mobilities of all kinds intersect, revealing both the alarming disposition of Africa’s most heterogeneous city and a rough-hewn humanity despite the odds. At each step, Murray is precise and impassioned in this no-holds-barred analysis of the lengths to which politicians, business people, planners, entrepreneurs, and developers will go to hold a city down.”—AbdouMaliq Simone, author of For the City Yet to Come: Changing African Life in Four Cities

“This is a book that should be read with attentiveness. It traces the lines of a city in which profound daily violence and suffering coexist with theatrical excess. It shows in convincing breadth that although the living conditions of suburban enclaves and those who dwell in abandoned buildings of the inner city may be ‘worlds apart,’ they are also closely connected to one another, and part of the same historical and economic processes.”

“The political, economic, and social tensions that have accompanied the city’s everchanging urban landscape are on display in this well-researched and penetrating work. . . . City of Extremes is a significant and helpful resource for the study of cities in an era of globalization and urbanization.”

“[A]n excellent addition to the literature on Johannesburg, and a must-read book for all serious scholars with an interest in the City of Gold.”