Formally Meeting the Informal Sector

As in many African cities, Durban’s informal sector is growing fast.  Some estimates suggest that about 16% of the labour force derives its income from informal means rather than the formal economy, which actually may be lower than the African average (over 50%) suggested by the graph below.  However, a municipality plan for “Durban’s Informal Economy Policy” states that the economy is not divided into these binary categories of formal or informal, but is instead a spectrum with “a more formal end and a more informal end.”  Instead, the municipality quantifies street traders, rather than everyone participating in the informal sector, in the Durban Municipality Area at about 20,000.  60% of those traders, the report adds, are women.  Many members of the sector “provide services for low pay (such as domestic work) followed by trading, catering and accommodation” (Durban’s Informal Economy Policy, 2001).

http://www.cityfarmer.org/Figure_4.jpg

In Durban, the use of space for the informal sector has historically been defined by a lack of guaranteed permanence in the space occupied in a given moment.  Street traders, by far the most visible members of the sector (or part of the spectrum), set up stalls on certain streets or in large markets but always face the risk that the city will decide they don’t belong there.  Even the historic Early Morning Market, which has now existed on the same spot for over a century, faced years of debate in court as the traders fought municipality plans to build a state-of-the-art mall in the market’s place, a move which would have displaced thousands of traders.  Traders in other parts of the city report being moved from their normal locations as the city government decided the informal stalls did not present a desirable image of a city set on progress.  On occasion, these removals have resulted in resistance and protest resulting in arrest. 

Check out these two photos from the Early Morning Market!

 http://www.urbanadventures.com/data/153/tour_343/zauf__early_morning_market_durban.jpg

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIb_tU2ruZHTtU7ESVRg_lPs6WXlgvcKrTnM0QW4Cp3Pz3RG6X68Uq34CgycAYMU8Xg0q1sIIyXldTKdYW0coYSLmllNqZP6hOzB5Vbz5ZiQ1qBq-SgxukES42sUw2qvVAs9haF6hUMv18/

The World Cup provided a particularly interesting moment in street trader – authority relations.  The municipality actually encouraged street vendors realizing that they would serve as a tourist attraction for the millions of visitors.  Some street vendors were even taught new languages like French to increase the number of visitors with whom they could communicate.  At the same time, however, vendors were prohibited from the most lucrative spots – the stadiums themselves.  In these sites, only formal sponsor companies could set up shop.   

While street traders may be the most visible informal sector workers, they “are far outnumbered by the many home based and outside workers” (Durban’s Informal Economy Policy, 2001).  Many workers based out of their homes face a threat of removal too, however.  Durban’s numerous informal settlements face regular eviction threats, further adding to the tension between informal sector workers and the police and authorities.

Durban’s Informal Economy Policy promised, in 2001, to develop more programs to support the informal sector by offering more formal structures for them to use.  Identifying three sites for pilot programs, the policy planned to provide street traders and other informal sector members who work outside of their homes with more legitimate means to claim work space.  For a small fee, these workers could avoid fear of harassment from police and forced removal.  Given that the aforementioned clashes between police and traders or residents of informal settlements have occurred in very recent years, well after 2001, one must question the impact of that policy.  The following maps highlight some of the policies plans.

 Under the 2001 policy, the sites labeled in red in the above image were places where workers in the informal sector could go to pay fees for the right to set up stalls on certain locations.  We can see from this image that one of these sites is conveniently located at the Early Morning Market itself, while the other (the Martin West Building) is also in the same downtown area, not far from Victoria Street Market.

The policy proposed three pilot programs, to take place at the three pinpointed sites in the map above.  The Alice Street program is right in the downtown area, while the other two are in suburbs of the city.  This map highlights the space in between the pinpoints - the numerous neighbourhoods that would not benefit from the policy's plans until after initial experimentation with the pilot spots.    

http://www.kwazulu-natal.co.za/12.Fact-File-Durban.htm

http://www.durban.gov.za/Resource_Centre/Policies/Documents/INFORMAL%20ECONOMIC%20POLICY%20FINAL%20DOCUMENT.pdf

http://mg.co.za/article/2011-11-04-giving-the-sidelined-a-voice

http://mg.co.za/article/2010-03-03-durban-street-vendors-tackle-new-languages-for-world-cup

Finally!  The moment we've all been waiting for!
Here is the final piece of the puzzle - the last section of a larger old Nairobi map that I've been working to rectify on a WorldMap base:

At first I was at a total loss of how to match this last clip to WorldMap, as there was almost nothing on the old map in the way of identifiable features in this section.  I ended up matching it to the other sections by using the numerical markings on the edges (which were not coordinates but functioned in a similar way, so they might have been numbers specific to the original map's grid). 

And here is the total image - ten pieces of an old map of Nairobi on the WorldMap base:

I just wish all the sections lined up more smoothly together!  That said, I do feel confident that, taken individually, each section has been warped with accurate control points such that at least parts of it are spot on!

While I plan to leave the warped maps in a semi-transparent state so that one can see both the bottom and upper layer, here's another version of the total image with opaque versions of the warped maps so they can be better seen.

Despite all the frustration, it's pretty exciting to see the final picture!

All Roads Lead to Durban

Let’s first look at transport in Durban by considering the location of major transport hubs in relation to each other.  The new airport, King Shaka International Airport, opened in 2010 in time for the World Cup, and it located about 22 miles from the city centre.

King Shaka International Airport 

http://warwickchapman.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Airport_058jpg.jpg

It makes sense that the city’s central train and bus stations have much more convenient locations with respect to the downtown areas.  Durban Railway Station is located just north of the CBD, in walking distance from key office areas, the political centre at the City Hall and the commercial centre at Victoria Street Market, only just over a mile to the harbor and just under a mile to the beach.  The bus station is situated just a couple of blocks to the northeast of the train station, facilitating travel that uses a combination of train and bus or taxi.  That said, there was very little available information on this so-called “main” bus station, to the point that I was unsure as to whether I really had found the central hub.  Certainly, reviews of public transportation in Durban warn visitors that bus companies have been in disarray for as long as nearly four years now since violent industrial action in 2009.

Durban Railway Station

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hennie_rautenbach/5632384964/

Worldtravels.com describes Durban’s public transportation as “ad hoc at best.”  With the recent decline of the main bus system, “working-class Durbanites” depend on minibus vans known, as they are called around much of southern Africa, as Kombies.   The irregularity of their schedules and routes, in addition to their reputation for danger both on the road and within the vehicle, considerably complicates the daily commute of many of the city’s inhabitants.  Very recent signs show some signal of improvement in the near future as municipal officials look to minimize travel inefficiencies.
Check out more information on these two sites:

http://www.wordtravels.com/Cities/South+Africa/Durban/Transport

http://www.mile.org.za/QuickLinks/News/Pages/news_20120315.aspx

Kombies

http://onechildoneheart.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/traffic-2.jpg

  

A study conducted back in 2000 addressed the rapidly changing story of migration to Durban at the end of the 20^th century.  Violence in the city  during the 1980’s limited the numbers of people who sought to migrate there, but the mid to late 1990’s saw a dramatic boost in numbers of foreigners, both legally and illegally immigrating.   Immigrants from all over sub-Saharan Africa arrive in Durban, often not directly from their home countries but via another city or region, and numbers continue to flow in from further destinations like India as well! 

http://www.jstor.org/stable/486110?seq=3

New African Immigration to the Durban Region. Brij Maharaj and Vadi Moodley. Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue Canadienne des Études Africaines , Vol. 34, No. 1, Special Issue: Transnationalism, African Immigration, and New Migrant Spaces in South Africa (2000), pp. 149-160.

Reflecting many of our course readings this semester, Durban has seen a steady influx of South Africans from rural areas.  Many of these migrants, however, maintain strong ties with their villages and families back home so their stay in Durban may be a temporary one.  Some migrant workers make their Durban homes in the informal settlements, such as the one in the photo below, which were established in but still remain from the apartheid era.

http://exploringafrica.matrix.msu.edu/images/highdesnity2_durban.jpg

Rectification Continues!

Overall, the process of rectifying maps onto the modern WorldMap has been a fascinating but frustrating process.  For each map, I have complete confidence that the control points I used to warp the maps were accurate, yet most of these maps show sections where roads on the new version are quite clearly off-kilt with their counterparts on the old version.  Take the first map here, for example.  The road intersections in the red box on the bottom left were some of the easiest to warp because of the clear square blocks.  While that section of the map has warped very well, however, the red box on the top left shows a major discrepancy between the old and new versions.

I'll hold off on showing the complete rectified picture until I add the final piece to the puzzle on next week's blog - let the suspense build!!

Rectification continued!

To my great relief, I'm beginning to get the hang of the warp tool, so warping old maps onto worldmap is taking less time than it did last week.  It's also more exciting now that I can see the four historic maps of Nairobi together on the worldmap base.

In both of the two newly rectified maps, the streets and railways line up quite well, but the river does not match between the images.  It would be interesting to find out whether the river is simply marked incorrectly on the historic map or whether the path of the river really changed that substantially over the last 55 years.

Above, we can see the four rectified maps of Nairobi so far, beginning to get an idea for what the larger original historic map might look like!

To mix it up a bit, I also rectified one map of Taourirt, Morocco.  It was a somewhat confusing assignment, as I was supposed to rectify a map of Melilla, Morocco, but the map was titled, "Taourirt (Melilla)," and the historic map did not actually encompass Melilla at all!  Below, the historic map is overlayed onto the Worldmap base using the cities of Taourirt and El Aioun, along with the railway line that has run between them at least since the older map was produced, as control points.  The Moulaya river lines up nicely between the old and new map.

 This next image below highlights where Melilla is in comparison to the rectified map - close, but not the same!

While rectifying old maps of Nairobi and Melilla, it makes sense to think about them in comparison to each other and to Durban.  Durban (on the right) and Melilla (below) are strikingly alike from a distance.  Obviously both seaports, they even share similarly shaped harbours with narrow inlets around which the city centres were built.  Both cities feature areas that are structured on an organized grid but the discontinuity between those small areas suggest organic rather than entirely planned growth on a city-wide scale.  Melilla differs substantially from Durban in the fact that it is a constrained city, an area surrounded by a fence demarcating the Spanish territory from the rest of Morocco.      

 As we can see below, Melilla lacks the extensive beaches of which Durban can boast, so its city buildings lie more immediately on the coast.  

In contrast to both Durban and Melilla, Nairobi is a sprawling, landlocked city.  With rivers rather than a central port, the location of Nairobi's city centre appears more arbitrary than in the other two cities.  It is difficult to easily distinguish the borders of the city, as the downtown area blends into more surburban and slum neighbourhoods. In the image below, for example, one doesn't get a sense that the entire city is contained in the photo's dimensions, yet zooming out further makes it hard to see that one is looking at a city at all!  While Nairobi's outskirts are far more extensive than Durban's, they both feature a mix of middle-class suburban neighbourhoods and slum sections.

Below, we can see that, like Durban and Melilla, Nairobi's downtown area features sections of grids, rather than one constant structure.

Rectifying Maps

For this week's assignment we needed to find a historic map of our city to rectify onto modern maps.  I learned that such maps of Durban are practically impossible to find online!  I was unable to find even one good historic map of Durban that I could access (free of charge).  Imagining what maps from the mid-20th century might look like, I would expect that there would be evidence of apartheid planning - divisions of the city into areas for different races and ethnicities, which often meant divisions of the city by wealth too.  I would expect to see residential areas with large houses conveniently located near key downtown areas, separated by roads or perhaps railway tracks from other sections with significantly smaller, more crowded housing.  Today, aerial views of Durban do show a great variation from one neighbourhood to the next, but wealthier-looking sections are mixed in randomly with sections that appear poorer, which is a change from the larger homogenous sections we might have seen in historic maps.  Using google earth today to view the Durban suburb below, we can see large houses with considerable properties and swimming pools very close to a series of much smaller, more tightly-packed houses.

Like historic maps, historic newspaper articles on Durban are also tricky to come by but I was able to find this short clipping, reposted on a number of websites, focusing on the development of the locomotive engine.  In the mid-19th century, A Leeds-based engine company produced the locomotive for the new Natal Railway in South Africa. The locomotive, appropriately named “Natal,” became, in June 1860, the first locomotive in South Africa to haul a public train.  The article below was printed in September 1860 in the Leeds Mercury. 

http://c9425687.myzen.co.uk/MRT/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=58&Itemid=138

The article is an optimistic and excited report of the development to people back home in England.  It describes the opening day as one of “unprecedented rejoicing” and expresses pride in the fact that the colonists were able to organize such a feat “without external pecuniary aid.”  The article’s author does not miss a chance to compare this modern development to the assumed ignorance of the “natives,” as he describes the amusing sight of “wonder-stricken Kaffirs” chasing after the train but “of course” – these words emphasizing that they should have already known they did not stand a chance against the locomotive marvel – failing to keep up.

I had a little bit more success with rectifying historic maps of other cities, largely because I was assigned images to warp so did not have to hunt the pictures down first!  Below are two rectified historic maps of Nairobi, Kenya from 1955.  

 I was able to locate each historic map within the WorldMap by identifying roads and rail lines that remain the same nearly 60 years later.  Although some of the paths of roads and shape of intersections remained the same, the names of the roads had changed, often from the names of English cities to those of post-independence heroes.  Many roads and train tracks had been expanded or even truncated since 1955, making alignment even more challenging!  In the map above, the historic map only shows a small, concentrated portion of the roads that exist today, so the overlap of the two demonstrates the expansion that has taken place in the last half-century.

This map demonstrates that even if one identifies the correct location of intersections, the historic and modern maps may still not line up perfectly.  Quite frustrating!

 In addition to exploring the art of Warping, I’m beginning to plan ahead for my final paper.  As I’m planning to write my senior thesis on Abahlali baseMjondolo, the Shackdwellers’ Movement based in and around Durban, I’m hoping to explore the movement in this paper as well.  If the necessary information is available online, I would really like to map the location of informal settlements in Durban today and trace their history, focusing on their size and location at the initial establishment and following their growth and movement.  There have been several cases of forced removal of informal settlements by the government, so I’m interested in tracking potential patterns as initial readings suggest that removals have tended to shift informal settlements away from urban centres.  Ideally, I would also like to research the sites of major protests by the marginalized poor throughout Durban, comparing where the Shackdwellers’ Movement organizes protest today with the locations of major apartheid demonstrations.  This comparison would address interesting larger questions of the memory in space over time!      

Urban Life

Online portrayal of Durban:

Durban’s appeal as a beachy holiday destination for national and international tourists alike is unsurprisingly emphasized by many South African websites that seek to promote the country’s tourism industry.  “South Africa Online” situated the city in contrast to the country’s other biggest urban centres by explaining that “If Johannesburg has a business culture and Cape Town has a culture culture, Durban has a beach culture!”  The article on Durban goes on to describe warm, beautiful weather maintained by Indian Ocean currents and the multitude of fun attractions to enjoy, only briefly touching upon the seaport-centered industry before returning to content aimed at the average tourist who is looking to “sip a cocktail on one of the sun drenched wooden decks.” “Encounter South Africa” also emphasizes Durban’s beach and surfing opportunities (calling the city, “South Africa’s playground”) but does additionally inform tourists about historic and cultural attractions such as museums and musical performances.  The city is described as both “cosmopolitan,” combining cultural flavours of India, England, and continental Europe, and “sport crazy,” so this article pays a little bit more attention to the popular life of the actual residents of the city rather than focusing solely on tourists as did South Africa Online.  That said, the four images on the city’s page depict the beach or pools.

http://thetouristattractions.blogspot.com/2012/02/10-fascinating-tourist-attractions-in.html

In contrast, a short, fun youtube video titled “A Stop Motion Interpretation of Durban Culture” aims to highlight the importance of buskers and crafters to the daily street life of Durban and to capture the colour and vibrancy that craftsmen and their wares bring to the city.  While the video might appeal to tourists, tourism itself is not the focus of the Durban that the clip portrays.  The website for the United Nations Climate Change Conference 2011 offers another perspective of Durban as a city with an important role to play in global discussions.  Here, Durban is “the most culturally diverse [city] in Southern Africa” and claims to be the friendliest city in South Africa because of the “great warmth and openness of its people and the laid-back lifestyle that everyone here enjoys.” Other websites highlight the cultural diversity, and particularly the large presence of Indians, in Durban.  There are more Indians in Durban than in any other city outside of India, and the impact of the Indian population is seen in all aspects of culture, from the presence of Hindu temples and parades today to the significance of Gandhi’s historic South African struggles.

http://www.v-brazil.com/world-cup/2010/durban-travel-guide/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/booksa/3353426598/

Learn about Durban’s popular life online!

·      http://www.southafrica.co.za/about-south-africa/cities-of-south-africa/durban-city-information-tourism-weather-and-more/

·      http://www.encounter.co.za/article/208.html

·      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zZAg7CbnWk

·      http://www.cop17-cmp7durban.com/en/durban/about-durban.html

·      http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-07-23/mumbai/29807173_1_durban-south-africa-uk

Moses Mabhida Stadium:

http://www.civildesigner.com/news/MosesMabhidaStadium.jpg

Since its completion 2009, the Moses Mabhida Stadium often features on informational webpages on Durban.  The stadium was built for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, so has a great deal of meaning to the Durban residents who saw their city take part in hosting the momentous international event.  It was built on the grounds of an earlier stadium that was demolished to make room for the new one, and is adjacent to another stadium such that the two structures create a sports area that is distinct from the surrounding residential neighbourhoods.  The stadium is located to the north of the harbour and city centre, right next to the beach. 

Looking back...

Durban may have been overtaken by Johannesburg in terms of population, but South Africa’s second largest city can take consolation in having a longer history than Joburg, even though over three hundred years past between when Vasco da Gama arrived 1497 and when a formal British settlement was established in 1824.  Despite naming the bay, “Terra do Natal” (meaning Christmas Country, because it was around Christmastime when da Gama landed), the Portuguese did not feel compelled to establish a port in the bay as they already had great Indian Ocean access from Maputo.  The British Cape Colony finally founded “Port Natal,” arranging a shaky deal with the Zulus who tolerated the port for its trade benefits.  The Voortrekkers, who arrived in Natal in 1837, did not continue the same good relations with the Zulus and battle ensued before the victorious Voortrekkers founded the republic of Natalia.  Soon after the Zulus were defeated, however, battle over the region continued, this time against the British.  British victory in 1844 brought Natal into the British Cape Colony while the Voortrekkers continued north to other regions.  Throughout the power struggle, the settlement remained small.  Once officially incorporated into the formal British colony, however, it became one of the most important ports of the empire.

In the early 20^th c. the city authorities used revenue from the municipal beer monopoly to invest in city infrastructure while they consolidated control through strict policing and the requirement of permits to limit immigration.  They built townships – like Lamontville, Durban’s oldest – specifically for Africans so as to restrict their living quarters to one area.  These township communities then became centers of protest in response to the government’s failure to provide adequate services and their inhabitants played a large role in the struggle against the injustice of the apartheid system at large.  In the late 20^th c. and into the current century, Durban developed a great reputation for tourism, thanks to a warm climate, a beautiful beach along the Golden Mile, and a dynamic multicultural environment.

While the first known written documentation of Durban did not precede da Gama’s visit, archaeological evidence suggests that hunter-gatherers inhabited the area since 100,000 BC, followed by Bantu farmers and pastoralists.  This part of the history is greatly overshadowed by the European and apartheid histories of the city.  This dominance is also reflected in the prominence of the name, Durban, given to the city in 1835 in honour of the Cape Governor Sir Benjamin D’Urban.  The Zulu name for the city, “Thekwini,” meaning “the place where the earth and the ocean meet,” is rarely used in maps or international conversation but in South Africa one will often see or hear references to the eThekwini Municipality.

If you're interested in learning more about Durban, I recommend the following sources:

For general historic information:

1) "Durban - History of the City" 

       http://www.southafrica-travel.net/kwazulu/edurban1.htm   

2) "Explore the Durban Local History Museums"

       http://www.durban-history.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=69&Itemid=85

3) "South African History Online - Durban"

       http://www.sahistory.org.za/places/durban

On health issues...:

4) Pranitha Maharaj and John Cleland - "Condoms become the norm in the sexual culture of college students in Durban, South Africa"

       http://www.jstor.org/stable/25475258

5) Marge Berer - "HIV/AIDS, Sexual and Reproductive Health at AIDS 2000, Durban

       http://www.jstor.org/stable/3775284

On urban planning...:

6) Dianne Scott - "'Creative Destruction': Early Modernist Planning in the South Durban Industrial Zone, South Africa"

       http://www.jstor.org/stable/3557418

On apartheid history and other issues of justice...:

7) T. G. Ramamurthi - "Lessons of Durban Riots"

       http://www.jstor.org/stable/4400894

8) Brij Maharaj - "The Integrated Community Apartheid Could Not Destroy: The Warwick Avenue Triangle in Durban

       http://www.jstor.org/stable/2637602

9) Dianne Scott et al - "Double Trouble: Environmental Injustice in South Durban

       http://www.jstor.org/stable/4066473

On ethnic and cultural identity:

10) Catherine Campbell et al - "Evidence for an Ethnic Identity in the Life Histories of Zulu-Speaking Durban Township Residents"

       http://www.jstor.org/stable/2637026

11) Thomas Blom Hansen - "Plays, Politics, and Cultural Identity Among Indians in Durban"

       http://www.jstor.org/stable/2637493

Also, check out the google hybrid map of Durban and its surroundings on AfricaMap!: http://worldmap.harvard.edu/maps/1290

Getting to know the environment

Durban lies on South Africa's eastern coast on the Indian Ocean at 29 degrees south and 31 degrees east.  The city, and its beautiful, sandy beaches, stretch about fourteen miles along the coast but the city centre sits compactly around a deep-set harbour, the nation's busiest port, which is accessible from the ocean through a narrow canal between two pointy capes.  The main circuit of urban streets appear to extend inland no further than four miles at any given point, after which the suburbs become increasingly less populated and more remote as one continues west.  Including the smaller towns further along the coast and further inland, Durban's municipality is the biggest on Africa's east coast.

While the satellite view of Durban (above) is useful for distinguishing more densely built-up areas from more spacious tree-lined suburbs, open spaces, or parks, we glean different pieces of information from the other views available on AfricaMap.  The roadmap view does not directly distinguish areas by concentration but one would guess that areas with more and shorter roads are more urban.  The hybrid map, overlapping satellite and roads, confirms that hypothesis.  The open street map details even the minor roads and reveals a pattern in which streets in town centres tend to follow a rough grid, while roads are more random and infrequent in the suburbs.  Finally, the terrain map reveals that while Durban does not feature any extreme changes in elevation, it is quite hilly throughout, particularly as one moves further inland.

A look from lower altitude satellite begins to distinguish different neighbourhoods from each other.  The neighbourhood of Central Durban (map below), north of the harbour, is packed with roads following a fairly rigid grid pattern as well as businesses ranging from restaurants to sports centres, and from spas to hotels.  It opens out onto the Golden Mile, a particularly popular stretch of the beach that attracts South African and international tourists.  In contrast, the neighbourhood of Bluff (second map below), south of the harbour, appears largely residential with narrower roads and organized lines of similarly-sized red-roofed houses.  It barely has any Google Earth "gallery" markers and, while some areas may have received more labeling attention from Google Earth just by chance, it seems likely that the absence of notable markers confirms that this neighbourhood is less about tourists, more about everyday residential life.  Both Central Durban and Bluff feature parks and, in general, green spaces seem to be common throughout the city.

An additional distinguishing feature of Central Durban, the city centre marked with a yellow pin, is the way in which major roads in the area converge towards it.  As seen on the Google Earth map below, the M4 from the southwest and the N3 from the northwest are only the two most prominent of many roads into that area.   What look like three major east-west avenues also run past the city centre.

The Dewit Totius Africae Accuratis map from 1675 portrays what is now South Africa's east coast without any labeled cities.  Proportions and coastal edges are distorted so it's challenging to tell where Durban should be on the map, but a region on the coast labeled "Natalis Stat" is a definite possibility.  Similarly on the Desnos l'Afrique 1770 map, one might guess that Durban's location is in the region, "Terre Natal," south of the river, "St. Lucie," and north of "Riviere Large."

Based on the malaria distribution AfricaMap, Durban appears to have a high prevalence of malaria, like much of the coastal region around it.  The distribution of malaria decreases as one moves further inland into KwaZulu-Natal. 

Finally, to study Durban through different AfricaMap layers, I chose to use smaller-scale maps of Durban and surrounding South Africa in order to get some context.  

First, the map below layers language families and locations of armed conflict.  It reveals that the large area surrounding Durban speaks predominantly Bantu languages, but Durban itself has remained unclassified, presumably due to the linguistic diversitiy to be found in cities.  (The area marked in red adjacent to Durban is specifically associated with the Khumalo family, reflected on the ethnicity map further below!)  The locations of armed conflicts are particularly interesting because, in addition to the expected accumulation of markers around Durban because it is a city, the rural areas around Durban and Johannesburg have notably more markers than do rural areas in south-central or western South Africa.  

Zooming in a bit on the next map, one can further explore the predominance of different ethnic families across regions (2001).  Again, we see that the Khumalo family represents the prime ethnicity in the region around Durban, but the smaller area including Durban is not identified with a dominant ethnicity.    

On the last map, zooming in even further, we can get a sense of the travel and power facilities available in Durban and the vicinity.  Durban is serviced by two airports at either end of the city, and another much further away in the northwest corner of this map, but it does not have any power plants.

Triple Layer Maps

Before I get into my investigation of Durban, some general practice with AfricaMap is clearly needed.  To get familiar with the layering feature, I've created layered maps of four countries from different regions of the continent - Botswana, Sierra Leone, the DRC, and Tunisia.  On a google terrain base, my maps show population density (2006), armed conflict locations (1997-2010), and major rivers.

These maps do not show the countless small rivers that may exist in each state, but it is immediately noticeable that the DRC is the only one of these four countries to contain a major river.  The Congo traces a large curve across the country such that it can serve as a major lifeline for much of the land, supporting irrigation and facilitating trade and transport to and from the Atlantic.  Neither Tunisia nor Sierra Leone have a major river but their locations on the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts respectively make this a less serious potential problem than that faced by landlocked Botswana.  Botswana lacks the coastal trading opportunities of the other nations but may benefit from the Zambezi and Chobe Rivers, each serving as a tiny portion of the northern border. 

The limited water access may be at least a partial explanation for Botswana’s small and dispersed population.  Large sections of the country, particularly around the Kalahari Desert, are sparsely populated while the southeastern regions around capital city Gaborone show greater densities.  The map of Botswana shows fewer armed conflict locations than in most other Sub-Saharan African states, possibly a direct reflection of population size or density.

The map of Sierra Leone shows a much greater population density and highly populated areas spread across the country, with the north and parts of the southwest as notable exceptions.  Urban life therefore plays a greater role in Sierra Leone than in Botswana, particularly on the coast where trading opportunities would have encouraged city growth.  There are considerably more markers of armed conflict in Sierra Leone and the country’s map suggests once again that population and armed conflict are correlated.  The fact that armed conflicts occurred in regions across the nation and with greatest frequency around the capital, Freetown, suggests violence on a national scale, rather than just local disputes.

Similarly, armed conflict in the DRC is also pervasive across the whole territory.  The markers of conflict, however, are clearly most concentrated on the borders with Uganda and Rwanda, a reflection of the volatile relationships the DRC has had with its neighbours and the disruptive role that both refugees and militant rebel groups from other countries have played.  Population is notably heavier in some regions such as the country’s corridor to the Atlantic Ocean than in others, and it is interesting to see that high population density does not necessarily follow the path of the Congo River.  Like Sierra Leone, the DRC has more, and more heavily populated, urban areas than Botswana.

The same could be said for the northern half of Tunisia where big coastal cities give way to more sparsely populated regions as one moves further inland.  At about the midway latitude point, however, Tunisia becomes a little-inhabited desert suggesting some similarities between Tunisia’s Saharan regions and Botswana’s Kalahari.  Also like Botswana, Tunisia has seen relatively little armed violence since 1997 by continental standards.  The occurrences that have registered on the map appear in the more densely populated north, another connection between population and armed struggle.