Summary: Durban As A European City

In accordance to O’Connor, there are 6 types of African city. Namely, the indigenous city, Islamic city, The Colonial city, European City, the Dual city and the Hybrid city. Out of all the six, Durban was best described as a European city. What best explains a European City is that it can be regarded as a true colonial city (O 'Connor, 1983). Just like a typical European city, Durban was used by European settlers as a place of permanent for the European to develop trade and urban services, and its main service was administration and trade and later on developed to manufacturing. Durban became the leading port in southern Africa which later resulted in an increase in growth due to industrial development. The population growth was not mainly

The streets having British names was a way of representing political power. After colonisation Durban regained its political power and decided to change the street names. Durban’s renaming of its streets to its African political leaders shows a ritual of political revolution. In 1980 the city council of Durban renamed 181 streets (Koopman, 2012). These new names represent the history of the heroes which consist mostly of the ANC leaders who fought the struggle against colonialism, white domination and apartheid (Koopman, 2012). The reasons for the change of the street names from the European name is because the Zulu’s refuse to accept it since they were named after political oppressor (Koopman, 2012). According to Mayors and Geographers, Durban has been internationally recognised as a tourism destination with its name and it will cost too much to change it to EThekwini as it has no international resonance (Koopman, 2012). In this case I would have to argue that Durban should be renamed eThekwini as it belongs to the black African settlers of Durban. The same applies to other cities where they name their city in accordance to their

These two cities were planned in such a way as to segregate its population according to race. Durban is also an example of apartheid planning where marginalised area were built far away from the city centre. During its progressive years it has challenges with its urban development. Nairobi was discovered by the British colonial in the 19th century so is Durban. The first European settlement was in KwaZulu Natal in 1824 (Adebayo, 2012). However, one can argue that the British settlers saw potential in that area because it was close to the coast and it gave rise to trade. Trade resulted in the urban growth of the city of Durban. The physical character in both these cities was influenced by the racial attitudes of socio-economic fragmentation and segregation along racial lines (Adebayo, 2012). In Nairobi there was racial segregation between the Europeans, Asians and Africans, similar to Durban. Nairobi had a large number of Asian origins who had been residing in there for such a very long time (O 'Connor, 1983). The Europeans had spacious areas around them whilst the Africans lived in crowded conditions. The colonial era first began in around 1652 till 1948. In order to have the interest of the white race during the trend of urban growth and urbanization which gave out a rule to have a boarder created to limit the movement and access of the black population in certain areas in