Johannesburg

"Taken together, the essays in "Johannesburg: The Elusive Metropolis" offer radically new ways of thinking about this complex city, as well as many hints about emerging or re-emerging cities elsewhere. The essays challenge dominant models of urbanism and demonstrate with force and subtlety how African cities in general and Johannesburg in particular outpace urban theory. Each essay 'de-scribes' the city now in order to envision the city to come. In this volume, we hear--over the droning cliches that still circulate about the African city's ruin and decadence--another note, another cadence."--Ackbar Abbas, author of "Hong Kong: Culture and the Politics of Disappearance"