“…The struggle of black people inevitably appear in an intensely cultural form because the social formation in which their distinct political traditions are now manifest has constructed the arena of politics on ground overshadowed by centuries of metropolitan capitalist development, thereby denying them recognition as legitimate politics. Blacks conduct a class struggle in and through race. The BC of race and class cannot be empirically separated, the class character of black struggles is not a result of the fact that blacks are predominantly proletarian, thought this is true…”- (Frank Talk Staff Writers in ‘Azania Salutes Tosh’ – circa 1981)
front cover:
Tosh by Steve Gordon
back cover:
Kippie by Basil Breakey
Cityscapes 2: Inside "the World-Class City" (Africa Centre for Cities, Winter 2012)
Cityscapes is a continuous adventure in trying to decipher the emergent cities of the global south. The magazine understands that with a constant overflow of dynamics and meaning, it is best to operate in the zone of juxtaposition, contrast, typology, irony and creative critique.
The cover of issue two features a portrait of Sushma Prasad, an assistant clerk in the Cabinet Secretariat Department in Patna, capital city of the state of Bihar in eastern India. The work, by Dutch photographer Jan Banning, establishes the tone for the two contrary dynamics explored in this issue: bureaucratic inertia and world-class aspirations.
Featured in this issue is an in-depth look at Johannesburg’s aspirations to be a “world-class city,” by journalist Kim Gurney, as well as Rahul Mehrotra‘s complimentary look at developments in Bangalore, India. Kenyan author Binyavanga Wainaina weighs in on a speculative new city outside Nairobi and much more.
