South Africa's second largest metropolitan area, Durban, forms the focus of this paper. Durban's residents live in an urban environment of fragmentation, violence, and class and racial stratification which has not disappeared with the removal of apartheid, and which now guides emerging struggles. Apartheid policies such as forced removals, and gerrymandering of borders, have resulted in a divided city of five components: the city of death, the city of survival, the city of hope, the city of entitlement, and the city of superfluity. Although not necessarily spatially separate, people within each of these cities see the others as a threat, and the cities operate in parallel with each other. There is no co-ordinated city system, no coherent development plan, and no sense of unity of purpose or interdependence. Uniting the city involves both subjective and objective dimensions. The vote, constitution and emerging democracy are important in developing conditions under which the unification of the city might occur. Creating the objective conditions for a non-racial and democratic city provides important challenges. To unite our city we need to develop a new way of thinking about it, and to develop principles based on non-racialism, democracy, non-sexism and unity.
