URBAN CHANGES THE South African city as we know it today is largely based on a modernist (functionalist) concept of planning. After all, it was aimed at creating structures that supported the apartheid society and economy. The apartheid city was brought about by clearing small, older locations and the laying out of separate, large areas on the periphery for new housing estates, i.e. segregated black townships. This city was based on the Fordist industrial developments of that period, aimed at mass production. MAJOR changes affected South African society after 1970. These changes led to serious problems in the protected industrial economy of South Africa, and an absolute depression set in in terms of jobs and productivity. At the same time, the large-scale public investments in the road infrastructure resulted in urban change. The suburbanization of a variety of economic activities got under way. Up and coming prosperous suburban locations contrasted with abandoned old centres with a marginal economy and impoverished residents. This all had an enormous and disastrous impact on the built environment. In the Seventies the housing programme was terminated that had provided 100,000 new homes between 1955 and 1965 in Johannesburg, for example, as well as tens of thousands of high-rise apartments built during the same period. A mere 5,000 homes were built in the Seventies, resulting in overpopulation in the townships and the emergence of informal settlements in the urban periphery. Investments during this period were concentrated in offices, luxury homes and waterfront developments, while they were cut down for factories, affordable homes and public areas. THIS led to the emergence of dual cities. The population groups became caught up in a process of social polarisation. The other side of the rich enclaves in the north of the cities is formed by the growing homelessness and the social ghettoes. Older one-family units are rented in an incredible way in many areas of Johannesburg (especially Bertrams): up to one hundred people in six rooms, up to sixteen shacks on one plot of land. You can find something similar in the corticos in S‹o Paulo. THE South African city exerts a growing magnetic force not only on people from other countries but also for people in the countryside. The main reason is work. This influx increased considerably with the abolition of the influx control. The urban population increased by 2.8 million between 1985 and 1991. By now 51% of the South African population live in cities, and this percentage is still rising. The urban population is expected to increase by 300,000 people a year for the next few years. The implications for housing, education and facilities are immense. VIOLENCE in the cities has increased enormously. It is impossible to consider the future of the cities without taking into account the problem of the rapid growth of physical violence. In some parts of the South African city the crime rate is among the highest in the world, comparable to that of Bogot‡ and some Brazilian cities. Fear of this violence has led to an extremely high level of the walling of houses and suburbs in the north of Johannesburg, for example. What we see is the enclosure of the white middle class in malls and atria: it is as if the city is being turned inside out. The result is the exclusion of the poor population which is faced with homelessness and unemployment.