21st Century (2000–present)

Waterfall City Masterplan (Midrand, SA)

2010s– · South Africa · Sub-Saharan Africa · State-capitalist megaproject urbanism · Planned by Balwin/ATTACQ

Aerial masterplan render of Waterfall City, Midrand: the Mall of Africa at the centre with offices, hotels and residential towers on the surrounding ring roads of the private mixed-use city between Johannesburg and Pretoria. · © LYT Architecture — used with credit · LYT Architecture — Waterfall City Masterplan, Midrand

Core idea

Mixed-use private city between JHB and PTA

Why it matters

Significant private-led urban node

Description

Waterfall City is a privately developed mixed-use city on a large landholding at Midrand, midway between Johannesburg and Pretoria, built out from the 2010s by developers including Attacq and residential builders such as Balwin. The masterplan combines the Mall of Africa, corporate headquarters campuses, logistics parks and secured residential estates on land held under a long-term leasehold arrangement rooted in an Islamic trust, structured around the Gauteng motorway network.

Significance

Waterfall is one of Africa's most substantial examples of private-led urban development, effectively a corporate new town inserted into the Gauteng city-region. It sharpens South African debates about privatised urbanism, gated development and the reproduction of spatial inequality after apartheid, since its motorway-oriented, security-led model contrasts with public policy goals of integration and public transport. It is frequently compared with other African private city projects in scholarship on state-capitalist and enclave urbanism.

What shaped it

Neoliberalism (1970s–1990s)
Splintering Urbanism (Graham & Marvin) (2001)
The master plan (early 20th c.)

Sources

Open it on the interactive timeline →

hub.toekom.st — History of Urbanism · an interactive timeline of 850 planned cities across 6,000 years.