The Integrated Community Apartheid Could Not Destroy: The Warwick Avenue Triangle in Durban

In the urban literature in South Africa considerable attention has focused on the forced relocation and destruction of integrated communities under apartheid. The best known examples are the destruction of Sophiatown in Johannesburg, the razing of District Six in Cape Town and the annihilation of Cato Manor in Durban. In contrast, this paper focuses on the Warwick Avenue Triangle (WAT), an inner city community, and attempts to explain how one of the oldest mixed residential areas in Durban defied the apartheid state's strategies to destroy it. The paper traces the history of integrated residential development in the area and examines how slum clearance laws, the Group Areas Act and urban renewal programmes were used to try to destroy the community. Attempts by the residents to resist removal and relocation are assessed. Reconstruction and planning strategies to redevelop the area in the post-apartheid era are evaluated.