Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
ileged group of city dwellers became even more privileged, and the social gap between
themselves and those who lived in other parts of the city widened. For some an apart-
mentbecame theprimarysourceofincome; someusedtheprofitsfromselling anapart-
ment, or the income from renting one out, to build a concrete-block house in the
subúr-
bios
or the city's distant and spacious exurbs (Jenkins 2011). The City of Cement didn't
just house the African middle class. A generation after independence it also brought the
middle class fully into being.
Theoretical Considerations: Transformations from a Racial System to a Class
System
What can critical geographers and Marxist sociologists learn from the nationalization
of housing in Maputo's City of Cement? The quick transformation after independence
from a city divided principally by race to a city divided principally by class was not
remarkable in itself: it was the common experience in cities throughout the decolon-
ized world. African and Asian elites moved into neighborhoods built to house European
elites(Coquery-Vidrovitch2005).Inmostcolonialcities,whitedistrictswerenotpartic-
ularly large, and their occupation by ruling parties amounted to little more than a chan-
ging of the guard. But in Maputo, after the new regime occupied the choicest real es-
tate, much of the extensive City of Cement still remained to be parceled out. And as it
distributed these properties, Frelimo favored an already favored class of people who in
speeches it vilified as potential counterrevolutionaries.
Perhaps this decision reflected an inveterate modernizing impulse, one evident in so
many state interventions after independence. Perhaps Frelimo envisioned a “modern”
cityasanessentially Europeanoneinitsorder,appearance, andstratification. Ifso,Fre-
limo's policy was an only slightly modified recapitulation of attitudes that shaped the
city in the past, and those Mozambicans called
assimilados
were the natural inheritors
ofthe“civilized”partofthecity.Another,moreimportantfactor,however,wasatwork:
Concrete.Ontheonehand,thebuildingsoftheCityofCementweren'tgoinganywhere.
Ontheotherhand,thebuildingsweresubjecttofallingapartifnotproperlymaintained,
requiring an investment in the buildings themselves, in the almost 900 building super-
intendents to look after them, and in the bulky bureaucracy required to manage it all.
To foot this bill, Frelimo was compelled to preserve the kind of economic and social
segmentation that in other areas—such as public health and education—it refused to do.
Thereismoretoconsider,furthermore,thanFrelimopolicy.Evenformanypeopleearn-
ing steady wages, life in a low-rent apartment, and even a rent-free apartment, proved
considerably harder than life in the
subúrbios
. Inequality was seemingly hardwired into
the city's structure.
