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WATERFALL CITY (JOHANNESBURG): PRIVATIZED URBANISM IN EXTREMIS

Abstract

Located halfway between Johannesburg and Pretoria, the mixed-use megadevelopment

called Waterfall City is a master-planned, holistically-designed, urban enclave built

entirely from scratch on 2,200 hectares of vacant land. This expansive city-building

project at Waterfall City combines a hyper-modernist stress on ‘smart’ growth, cutting-

edge technologies, and state-of-the-art infrastructure with the New Urbanist focus on

mixed-use facilities, a human-scale built environment, and pedestrian-friendly precincts.

By performing all the conventional functions expected of a municipal administration, the

real estate developers at Waterfall City have effectively replaced public authority with

private management and control. With its private governance structures and ‘go-it-

alone’ mentality, Waterfall City is an exemplary expression of a privately-managed

municipality that falls within the broad tradition of company towns, treaty concessions,

free ports, and independent city-states. Apart from its sheer size and scale and

administrative autonomy, the outstanding feature of Waterfall City is its unique blend of

stern religious conformity (grounded in a traditional interpretation of Islamic principles)

combined with a forward-looking commitment to private enterprise and consumerist

consumption.

Key Words

Entrepreneurial urbanism

Master-planned and holistically designed satellite Cities

Private cities

Instant Cities

Extraterritorial sovereignty

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Introduction

Situated in the heart of the fastest growing metropolitan region on the African

continent about halfway between the Johannesburg central city and Pretoria, Waterfall

City is a sprawling, mixed-use, real estate development that brings together

businesscommercial activities, high-end residential components, and leisurely lifestyle

amenities in a single location1 Along with similar mega-projects located nearby that are

either under construction or in the planning stages, Waterfall City represents a

completely new prototype for city building in urban Africa (Murray, 2013, 2014). Hailed

as “the biggest property development in South African history”2 and proclaimed as the

real estate “coup of the century,”3 this self-contained satellite city represents a new

prototype for city building in the Greater Johannesburg metropolitan region that came

into existence after the end of apartheid. Set over a sprawling 2,200 hectare site

roughly the size of the nearby suburb of Bryanston, the scale of this mega-project is

close to “unimaginable” – as one property developer exclaimed.4 Billed as the “next

1 In addition to numerous on-site visits to Waterfall City over a span of five years beginning in June 2011 and culminating in July 2014, research for this article relied

upon in-depth interviews with key informants, including property developers, real estate companies, technical experts, and municipal planning officials. The research for this paper extends and deepens analysis in previous research (Herbert and Murray, 2014).

2 Ian Fife & Xolile Bhengu, “Land of Promise: Sprawling new Minicity Signals

Development Spurt,” Financial Mail, 2 February 2006.

3 Ian Fife, “Property Development: Dare to Share,” Financial Mail, 5 September 2008.

4 Paddy Hartdegen, “R21-billion Waterfall City goes Ahead,” Property24, 18 November

2010 [available at http/:www.property24/articles/co.za>]. Interviews with Werner Van

Rhyn (14 June 2012); and Willie Vos (14 June 2012).

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Sandton” (the reigning financial hub of Africa), the proposed Waterfall City mixed-use

development is poised to become the most important business and residential growth

point in the entire Midrand region. With a completion date set for 2016 at an estimated

total cost of that could reach R45 billion [$5.8 billion], this large-scale property

development is the most ambitious city-building project ever undertaken in South Africa,

let alone Africa. Real estate developers at Waterfall City have promised that their

experiment with the “new, new urbanism” will eventually fulfill the promise of moving

toward that ultimate cosmopolitan urbanist goal of the twenty-first century: to become a

post-industrial, hyper-modern, high-tech city bustling with service industries and filled

with skilled knowledge workers who can live, work, and play within a self-enclosed, safe,

and secure environment. 5

Above all else, Waterfall City is an exemplar of a master-planned, holistically

designed, and privately-managed ‘satellite city’ constructed ex nihilo. This

unconventional tabula rasa approach to building cities can trace its inspiration to the

colossal experiments with fast-track, “instant urbanism” and the wholesale celebration of

architectural spectacle, commercialism, and private entrepreneurialism that began with

Dubai and quickly spread from the Persian Gulf to the Asia Pacific Rim, to India, to

China, and beyond (Acuto, 2010; Bagaeen, 2007; Bloch, 2010; Elsheshtawy, 2010;

Hogan and Houston, 2002; Kanna, 2011; Pacione, 2005). But the origins of this

approach have much deeper roots in a long tradition of utopian thinking that has been

5 Anna Cox, “Shopping Centres worth Billions in Pipeline,” Pretoria News, 3 July 2006;

and “City within a City,” EPROP Commercial Marketplace, 26 August 2009 [available at

<http:/www.eprop.co.za.html>].

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tied to imagining the planned city of tomorrow (Hall, 2002). In both theory and practice,

city building has never been far removed from grand, arcadian, and idealistic ideas for

how to best use the tools of architecture, design, engineering, and planning to bring

about improvements to urban living. Leading figures in the urban planning canon,

including such visionaries as Ebenezer Howard, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Le Corbusier,

soundly rejected the gradualist idea of incremental improvements to the built

environment of existing cities, and instead endorsed a radical approach that called for

building new cities from scratch in accordance with holistic design specifications

(Fishman 1982; Hall 2002). Modernist and high-modernist city building is marked by a

utopian temporality, which “presupposes to regenerate the present by means of an

imagined future” (Holston, 1989, page 56).

At least in terms of its huge scale and the tabula rasa approach to city building,

Waterfall City resembles old-style Modernist planning efforts like the colossal Soviet

urban experiments of the 1930s or the creation of Brasília in the 1950s (Holston, 1989).

Yet what makes Waterfall City a distinctive kind of city building is that it shares nothing in

common with the conventional understanding of an organic metropolis where citybuilding

is typically an awkward, incremental process that unfolds haphazardly over time, where -

- through the modernist principles of erasure and re-inscription (or creative destruction) --

new buildings are laid over or replace old ones. Instead, city building at Waterfall

conforms to the principles of what might be called a temporally compressed “instant city”

fashioned de novo without the burden or even collective memory of past building efforts.

As a historically specific species of master-planned urbanism, starting afresh with a

blank slate has the distinct advantage of enabling city builders to conveniently bypass

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the messy problems associated with retrofitting existing built environments, having to

compete with deeply entrenched vested interests, and negotiating with municipal

planning authorities. This fast-paced urbanism makes

Waterfall City -- with its new town center and residential neighborhoods unburdened by

history, and its developers unconstrained by existing zoning codes, outdated land use

planning regulations, historic preservation battles, or community activism -- an unusually

pure, unfiltered exemplar of what brand new cities look like in the current age of

globalization. Expansive city-building projects like Lippo Karawaci and BSD [Bumi

Serpong Damai] City (outside of Jakarta), Shenzhen (near Hong Kong), Eko-Atlantic

(Lagos), Masdar City (Abu Dhabi), Lavasa (India), New Songdo City (Seoul), Astana

(Kazakhstan), and Lusail City (Qatar) bear some resemblance to Waterfall City. Yet,

strictly speaking, none of these master-planned and holistically-designed ‘satellite cities’

conform to the monopolistic model of organized capitalism (‘unfree enterprise’) and

exacting private regulation that characterizes the Waterfall City project (Bach, 2011a;

Datta, 2008; Halperin, et. al., 2013; Hogan and Houston, 2002; Koch, 2010).

Built on privately-owned land, managed by a single corporate enterprise, and

financed by a consortium of large-scale real estate developers, Waterfall City exemplifies

a distinctive kind of privatized urbanism – it is a corporate city par excellence (Goldberger,

1996). Instead of promoting a conventional laissez-faire approach to property investment,

the real estate developers who have planned this satellite city practice a brand of planned

and highly regulated real estate capitalism where necessary goods and services are

packaged as commodities and bought and sold in non-competitive markets. The Waterfall

Islamic Institute Trust – a private company owned by the descendants of the commercial

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trader Moosa Ismail Mia – retains ownership over the landed property at the entire site.

A single corporate entity – the Waterfall Investment Company (WIC) – is the sole

proprietor of the real estate project itself, and has spun off perhaps a dozen private, profit-

making subsidiaries that specialize in the monopolistic delivery of requisite services.

Moreover, WIC does not allow rival companies to have offices on the premises and to

engage in marketplace competition with its subsidiaries. In addition to these

entrepreneurial practices, WIC has established strict guidelines governing what business

enterprises and individual homeowners can build on their properties and under what

conditions.6

Operating outside the reach of public oversight, Waterfall City is a spatial

manifestation of the kinds of extraterritoriality that have accompanied the unfolding of

contemporary global urbanism. Arising out of legal loopholes that offer immunity from

municipal jurisdiction, this new satellite city is a self-governing island that resembles the

independent city-states and autarkic ‘free ports’ of yesteryear. As a distinctive kind of

extra-territorial enclave, Waterfall City is highly specialized assemblage of territory,

authority, and rights and entitlements that has effectively established its own modes of

governance outside of the conventional institutional framework of public administration

(Sassen, 2008a, 2008b). In this instance, the process of de-territorialization has

resulted in an institutional vacuum that has enabled real estate developers at Waterfall

City to effectively delink from the existing normative order of the ‘public city’ and to

establish their own privatized regimes of centralized control. The planned roll-out of

6 Interviews with Werner Van Rhyn (14 June 2012); and Willie Vos (14 June 2012). See

also “The Waterfall Investment Company” (Promotional Materials n.d.).

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Waterfall City signals how extra-territorial power can produce and justify a new kind of

enclave urbanism that bears little relation to conventional practices of city building. This

process of radical re-urbanism has fundamentally recast the conventional balance

between public authority and municipal governance, on the one side, and corporate real

estate interests and private proprietorship, on the other (Easterling, 2005, 2007b).

Waterfall City has effectively unbundled sovereignty from territoriality, thereby

creating what amounts to (for all intents and purposes) an extraterritorial self-governing

enclave. By setting its own rules and regulations governing the use of urban space,

Waterfall City operates as a kind of “concessionary space” that undermines legal

spatiality, that is, the supposition that the law and legal remedies are integrally linked to

territorial sovereignty (Raustiala, 2005, page 2503). The enclave format developed at

Waterfall City approximates what Gerald Neuman (1996) and Eileen Scully (2001) have

described as “anomalous zones,” and Fiona McConnell (2010) has called “geopolitical

anomalies.” The hallmark of the zone format is the capacity to legally re-designate

activities within a delimited space, and thereby avoid outside scrutiny and unwanted

interference (Palen, 2003). As a general rule, anomalous zones are clearly

demarcated territorial locations where the standard package of legal rules and juridical

protocols that otherwise embody the fundamental policies of the larger legal system in

the surrounding territory are suspended (Newman, 1996, page 1201).

A plethora of recent visionary schemes like Charter Cities, StartUp Cities, Free

Zones, and the Seasteading movement have appropriated, and re-appropriated, this

utopic tradition and have combined it with individualist (entrepreneurial) self-reliance

and ‘anti-statist’ self-governance (Bach, 2011b). Proponents of Charter Cities (with their

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administrative autonomy), Startup Cities (envisioned as anarcho-capitalist enclaves),

Free Cities (libertarian experiments with independent living), and the seasteading

movement (animated by dreams of sovereign “floating cities” and flotilla fiefdoms)

emphasize the significance of institutional rules and norms as the bedrock upon which

to construct orderly, efficient, and well-functioning cities. Each visionary scheme for

unveiling news strategies of city-building privileges a particular version of governance

that thrives on the creation of an extra-legal ‘regime of exception’, that is, a relaxation of

the conventional rules and administrative compliance that define territorial sovereignty

(Baptista, 2013). What the ‘business model’ at Waterfall City shares with these

freemarket libertarian schemes is an unwavering commitment to private

entrepreneurialism. But what makes entrepreneurial activities at Waterfall City entirely

different is that they function in conformity with a model of planned capitalism

characterized by noncompetitive regulated market exchanges.

Straddling major arterial highways and with its own Gautrain station (and with

three others -- Marlboro, Midrand, and AECI -- in close proximity), Waterfall City is just

minutes from Sandton and within easy access of Pretoria and the Johannesburg central

city. Designed as a “city within a city,” this master-planned ‘satellite city’ is ideally

positioned to transform the vast suburban catchment area that surrounds it into a major

commercial growth point and, in the process, create a new central business district for

Midrand. With its synergistic mixed-use development framework and its incorporation

of the latest urban design principles, Waterfall City promises to become a bustling hub

of efficient global commerce, a center for business and finance, an exemplar of upscale

residential living, and a safe and secure retirement community.7

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Historical Origins and Contemporary Challenges

7 Paddy Hartdegen, “R21-billion Waterfall City goes Ahead,” Property 24, 18 November

2010 [available at http/:www.property24/articles/co.za>]. Interviews with Werner Van

Rhyn, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Waterfall Investment Company, Woodmead North

Office Park, Jukskei View, 14 June 2012; and Willie Vos, Waterfall Investment

Company, Woodmead North Office Park, Jukskei View, 14 June 2012.

The original property deed for farm Waterval No. 5 was signed by the President

of the Transvaal Republic, Paul Kruger, in 1889. In 1894, the British Gibson brothers

(James, John, and Frederick) purchased the farm from Arthur Ballantyne Edgson.

Besides operating a tram service in Kimberley and engaging in real estate development

in Cape Town, the three brothers owned the Red Star Line, perhaps the most lucrative

coach service that specialized in the transport of passengers and freight from the coast

first to the diamond diggings around Kimberley and later to the gold fields on the

Witwatersrand. They used the farm for storing transport equipment, for breeding cattle

(to counteract the rinderpest epidemic), and for commercial agriculture. As part of their

transport business, they established a hotel called Halfway House, located between

Johannesburg and Pretoria (Louw, 2008, pages 66-68).

During the Anglo-Boer war (1899-1902), the British Expeditionary forces

destroyed buildings and plundered the farm, commandeering horses and mules

effectively undermining the lucrative business ventures the Gibson brothers had so

painstakingly developed. Descendants of the three brothers continued to work the farm

until 1928, when a dispute between the heirs eventually ended in court. In June 1934, a

company called Witwatersrand Estates (which belonged to the family of a wealthy

Muslim trader named Moosa Ismail Mia) purchased the 2,361 hectare farm for the

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equivalent of R25,000 [$3 million] from the descendants of the Gibson family who had

fallen on hard times and wished to dispose of the property. Taking advantage of

leverage provided by Swiss missionary intermediaries, Moosa Ismail Mia used the

company as a vehicle to purchase the farm because the 1932 Transvaal Asiatic Land

Tenure Act prevented him from owning property in his personal capacity.7 In July 1940,

Moosa Mia and Maulana Mohamed Mia opened the Waterval Islamic Institute on farm

Waterval. Its purpose was to provide for charitable work among Muslim communities,

including opening a boarding school for underprivileged, troubled, or orphaned Muslim

youngsters and building mosques.8

After 1948 when apartheid law prevented “non-whites” from owning land, the Mia

family “donated” the land to the Waterfall Islamic Institute Trust, with relatives acting as

trustees. Over the years, the Mia family was able to successfully rebuff repeated

attempts by the apartheid state administration to seize the property and to close the

school. The Mia family managed to hold onto the land because of a legal loophole.

7 Moosa Ismail Mia had arrived in South Africa penniless from Gujarat around 1880 to find work on the sugar cane plantations in Natal. After a short stop in Rustenburg where

he made considerable money as a general dealer, he migrated to Johannesburg in the

mid-1890s where he started a small trading company. In 1924, along with Essop Mia

he opened a wholesale business in downtown Johannesburg, on Diagonal Street, close to Newtown. See Ian Fife, “Dare to Share,” Financial Mail (5 September 2008), pp. 34-39 (esp. p. 37; and Ian Fife, “Funds for Schools and Mosques,” Financial Mail, 5

September 2008, p. 37.

8 For the following paragraphs, see Isaac Mahlangu, “Gauteng’s Land Barons Keep it in

the Family, “Sunday Times, 29 June 2014; Ian Fife, “Dare to Share,” Financial Mail (5

September 2008), pp. 34-39 (esp. p. 37; and Ian Fife, “Funds for Schools and Mosques,”

Financial Mail, 5 September 2008, p. 37.

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Because they were “non-white” residents, they were not permitted to own the land

outright. Nevertheless, they were able to hold mineral rights. Seizing an opportunity,

they started a quarry on the farm. In the end, however, the state administration did

succeed in expropriating around 800 hectares to build Megawatt Park, the headquarters

office complex for Escom, and to accommodate the Allandale-Buccleuch interchanges

along the expanded N1 highway which runs through the farm.

The descendants of Moosa Ismail Mia still own the rights to all the land, which is

held in trust in the name of the Waterfall Islamic Institute. Some members of the

extended Mia family (perhaps 160 persons in all) still reside on the property, in a street

of modest brick suburban houses dating from the 1940s and 1950s. With the proceeds

derived from their majority ownership in the Waterfall City project, representatives of the

Mia family (particularly Ibrahim and Yaya Mia, the great grandsons of Moosa Mia) intend

to expand their Islamic school, to build a new mosque on the site, and continue with

ongoing charitable work in Muslim communities around the world.9

The structure of the property deal at Waterfall City presents two key challenges

to conventional real estate development in South Africa. First, the Waterfall City

megadevelopment completely “overshadows the bite-size, short-term, catch-as-catch-

can projects” that have typified the property development schemes of real estate

developers since the volatile, risky apartheid years of the 1980s and 1990s.10 Second,

Waterfall City incorporates religious principles into the codes of conduct governing the

9 Interviews with Werner Van Rhyn (14 June 2012); and Willie Vos (14 June 2012).

10 Ian Fife & Xolile Bhengu, “Land of Promise: Sprawling new Minicity Signals

Development Spurt,” Financial Mail, 2 February 2006.

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use of the properties. Devoutly religious, the extended Mia family long resisted

developing the property because Muslim convention gives the land holy status.

According to strict Islamic law, the land at Waterfall is considered waaqf khairi – held in

trust for religious purposes and can never be sold outright. In order to get around these

strict prohibitions, the Mia family agreed to a compromise solution that involved granting

large-scale leasehold over properties while they retained freehold ownership (through

the Waterfall Islamic Institute Trust) over the land itself. When it is held as a strictly

private asset outside the public domain, leasehold is a relatively rare form of property

tenure that allows a buyer to purchase the right to occupy land or a building for a given

amount of time from a private owner. It differs from a monthly rental lease in that

individual properties can be bought and sold, registered in the deeds office, and

financed through a mortgage.11 These leasehold contracts are automatically renewed

every year. While some outside observers have suggested that potential buyers have

remained skeptical about committing to this sort of property arrangement, the WIC has

rejected these concerns as inconsequential.12

The strict devotion of the Mia family to a rather austere variant of Islam has

meant that those who own commercial establishments and residents must abide by a

number of religious restrictions. While alcoholic beverages can be purchased for

consumption in restaurants, strict rules of commercial conduct at Waterfall City prohibit

11 Ian Fife, “New Lease on Life for Leasehold,” Financial Mail (5 September 2008), p. 41.

12 Interviews with Jean-Luc Limacher (29 June 2012); Werner Van Rhyn (14 June 2012,

8 July 2014); and Willie Vos (14 June 2012, 8 July 2014).

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the establishment of retail liquor stores and nightclubs, in addition to forbidding other

activities inimical to Islam. While there is a mosque on the property, the establishment of

Jewish synagogues and Christian churches is not allowed.13

Property Development Model

As the driving force behind the entire city-building project, WIC fashioned a

“property development model” that began with the creation of a Master Development

Plan, including comprehensive and detailed design specifications for every parcel of

land in each of the separate precincts. WIC has taken charge of the roll-out of the

mega-project on behalf of the Waterfall Islamic Institute Trust in alliance with a veritable

“who’s who” of premier property developers, including Century Property Developments,

Sanlam Properties, Investec Property Group, Growthpoint Properties, Zenprop, Group

Five, Netcare, and, finally, Atterbury Property Group. These real estate developers

agreed in advance to install the entire bulk infrastructure, such as roads, water,

sewerage, and electricity, to the standards set by WIC before they put their properties

up for sale. Corporate buyers who purchase 99-year leasehold rights over commercial

parcels are required to ensure that their buildings conform to strict guidelines specifying

everything from street setbacks, bulk ratios, height restrictions, functional use, color

coordination, and stylistic design. In a manner that closely resembles rules governing

homeownership in gated residential estates, prospective home-buyers at Waterfall City

can purchase 49-year (renewable every year) leases on residential properties. In order

13 Anna Cox, “R15bn 'City' to link Pretoria and Joburg,” The Star, 3 May 2006; and Ian

Fife & Xolile Bhengu, “Land of Promise: Sprawling new Minicity Signals Development

Spurt,” Financial Mail, 2 February 2006.

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to counteract the popular trend that features prominently in the construction of generic

"villa" clusters spreading across the suburban landscape, the planning experts at

Waterfall City have placed a blanket ban on pseudo-Tuscan, Balinese, Georgian, and

French architectural styles. Pre-existing rules restrict building materials to stone and

other natural external finishes, with plastered walls, and slate, ceramic tile, or iron roofs

to create what Century Properties (the exclusive residential property developer) has

called “a restrained and timeless built environment.”14 WIC has appointed a committee

of architects and designers who must approve all design specifications for both

commercial and residential properties. These zero-tolerance development controls are

the key to maintaining rigid land use regulations, aesthetic clarity, and functional

integration of the entire site.15

The Assembled City

Waterfall City is the largest single private property development ever undertaken

in South Africa. In contrast with the gradualist approach to city building, these

masterplanned, holistically designed “instant cities” like Waterfall City emerge fully

formed without the need to reshape an already-in-place built environment and without

any pressure to negotiate and compromise with existing property owners. Cobbled

together to form the likeness of an integrated whole, Waterfall City consists of an

assemblage of fourteen separate, almost perfectly ordered miniature precincts, where

each performs a remarkably persuasive imitation of the places which were the original

source of their inspiration. The underlying logic behind the holistic master-plan is to build

14 “Waterfall” [Century Property Developments, Advertising Brochure (n.d.)]. 15 Interviews with Werner Van Rhyn (14 June 2012); and Willie Vos (14 June 2012).

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as much complexity and variety into its overall design so as to provide a distilled version

of what can stand for genuine urbanity within its spatial boundaries. Taken together, the

sprawling site resembles a collection of thematic enclaves, with evocative names that

convey familiar images, such as Waterfall Country and Equestrian Estate, Waterfall

Valley Mature Lifestyle Estate, Waterfall Distribution Campus, Waterfall Business Estate,

Waterval Main City Campus, Landmark Park, and Waterfall Hills Retirement Village.

Each with their distinctive functional specializations and diverse range of options, these

discrete zones form an artificial whole which includes all the facilities and amenities

necessary to fulfill the promise of live, work, and play within the bounded space of the

entire complex. As a prescriptive exercise in holistic master-planning, Waterfall City

approximates an open web or connected network, where the aggregated field of diverse

components conforms to an underlying dynamic of compositional form, that is, an

endproduct that exhibits a fixed relation between different pre-determined building

typologies and their functional usages. In this sense, Waterfall City is at once an

indivisible, self-contained, and self-regulating enclave virtually cut off from the

surrounding landscape.

Hailed as a ‘cradle-to-grave’ mixed-use development, the assembled precincts at

Waterfall City include a central town square, office blocs, industrial and business parks,

an estimated 20,000 luxury apartments, neighborhood shopping centers, a state-of-

theart private hospital and health clinics, private schools, retirement villages with fully

equipped gymnasiums, luxurious health spas, upscale retail shopping, residential

compounds, petrol stations, an exclusive five-star international hotel with conference

facilities, show rooms, lifestyle centers, a service-repair yard for the high-speed

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Gautrain, as well as private homes ranging in price from low-income properties costing

around R200,000 to luxury (multi-million rand) mansions in an upscale 120-unit

Equestrian Estate.16 With its impressive diversity of residential estates including the

largest planned retirement precinct in South Africa, innovative retail centers, world-class

business parks, a planned private medical school (the first of its kind in South Africa), a

recreational lake, exclusive polo fields, horse-riding and cycling trails, and South Africa’s

largest cemetery (with 500,000 grave sites), Waterfall City is a genuine ‘city-within-acity’

which is set to become a cosmopolitan benchmark in cutting-edge urban design.17 The

real estate developers behind the Waterfall City project created a single master plan

that consolidated and centralized services as a way to not only improve efficiency but

also reduce waste and contain costs. What these private planners have envisioned is a

truly integrated, self-enclosed, and sustainable urban environment that can provide

corporate clients and residents alike with aesthetically pleasant surroundings, easy

access, convenience, and prestige.18

Sketched in bold strokes, the Waterfall City complex is divided into two primary

components. Atterbury Property Group, which has been at the forefront of developing in

excess of 700, 000sqm of prime property in high growth nodes across South Africa, has

entered into a joint partnership with the high-end architectural firm of Boogertman and

Partners Architects to build an expansive 330-hectare central business district entirely

16 “Green Architecture: a First for SA,” Pretoria News, 17 November 2010.

17 Interviews with Sue Parke (11 July 2011); and Irving Steyn (11 July 2011). 18 “Central Park at Waterfall Business Estate set to become an icon of 21st Century

quality urban living,” SA Commercial Prop News 23 July 2012.

17

from scratch.19 Expected to take fourteen years to complete with an estimated cost of

R25 billion, this fully-functional commercial-business precinct -- called Waterfall

Business Estate --consists of a staggering 1.6 million square meters of mixed-use

commercial development, including everything from its own town square, central

business district, five-star hotels, upscale inner-city apartments, high-rise office towers,

a transport hub, and an upscale, 115,000 square meter shopping mall evocatively

named the “Mall of Africa.” 20 Atterbury property developers have called this mixed-use

commercial development – the innovative heart of Waterfall City -- “the most ambitious

of its kind ever undertaken in South Africa,” with proposed office space in its central

business district equivalent to about two-thirds of the Sandton CBD about 5 km away,

substantially larger than the celebrated Victoria & Alfred Waterfront in Cape Town, and

equal to half the entire industrial space of Midrand. Almost the size of the legendary

Sandton City mall, the massive three-story “Mall of Africa” is the single largest project of

its kind ever developed in a single phase in South Africa. When completed in 2016, it

will host over 300 retail outlets along with a full complement of entertainment options,

with a projected consumer base of over a million visitors per month.22

The centerpiece of the entire mega-development – the central business district –

is located on top of a hill, forming a kind of separate elevated sanctuary. In a fashion

19 Ian Fife & Xolile Bhengu, “Land of Promise,” Financial Mail, 2 February 2006.

20 Interviews with Sue Parke (11 July 2011); Irving Steyn (11 July 2011), and Morné

Whitehead (7 July 2014). The ownership and control relations between a host of

innerconnected companies are convoluted and complex. For example, Atterbury

Investment Holdings renamed itself ‘Attacq’, and, in 2008, acquired the development

rights for the business-commercial section of Waterfall City from the Waterfall

Development

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designed to mimic the iconic stature of Manhattan’s Central Park, this showcase site

features a signature parkland, a vast green space surrounded on three sides by office

blocs and high-rise apartment buildings. On the fourth side, the park opens into a

natural relaxation and recreation area. The main road will run beneath the park,

eliminating the need to cross a busy city street to get from the office buildings to this

natural green zone.23

In partnership with WIC, Century Property Developments has managed the

construction of the nearly 640ha of mixed-use and residential components that offer a

Company. See “Attacq all set to list on JSE with R12.5 billion portfolio,” SA Commercial

Prop News, 27 September 2013.

22 Ian Fife & Xolile Bhengu, “Land of Promise,” Financial Mail, 2 February 2006.

23 “Century City Property Developments: Invest in your Lifestyle” (Newsletter #3. 2012).

See also Interview with Morné Whitehead (7 July 2014).

wide range of lifestyle options. At one end of the spectrum, Century has completed the

construction of 500 units of affordable housing (the largest in Gauteng Province) along

with an 860-unit middle-income estate. At the other end, Century has virtually

completed construction of an exclusive residential estate called Country Lifestyle Village

built around a full-service pavilion that includes game rooms, a library, restaurants, and

a swimming pool and sauna. In addition, the yet-to-be-finished 120-unit Equestrian

Estate with its ample stables, paddocks and bridal paths, training tracks, veterinary and

tack rooms, veterinary and tack rooms, a jumping and dressage arena and lunging ring

epitomizes the stress on outdoor lifestyle activities. Besides comprehensive plans to

build estimated 20,000 apartments, Century has partially completed construction on two

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retirement villages. 21 Marketed as “mature lifestyle options” for elderly residents, these

retirement villages offer special gym facilities along with a range of entertainment

options, and provide a delicatessen that delivers fresh milk and bread to residents, a

cinema, horticultural center, a library, travel agency, frail care center, an arts-and-crafts

studio, restaurants, and a hair-and-beauty salon.22

Century Property Developments has placed a great deal of emphasis on what

their promotional brochures refer to as “a uniquely South African outdoor extroverted

lifestyle.” The prime focus of the assorted residential precincts at Waterfall City “will be

on building and reinforcing the family unit which is so vital, considering the frantic pace

at which most people live today.” “Residents of the Waterfall Development Precinct will

welcome the new lifestyle era which this development heralds, living, working, shopping

and playing within one incredible cosmopolitan area close to Africa's busiest

International Airport, OR Tambo, and within easy reach of two of the new Gautrain's

stations.” In their promotional materials and advertising campaigns, Century has sought

to attract potential home-buyers “who want to enjoy a superior quality of life by living

close to their place of work and to a wide range of recreation facilities as well as

providing a feel for outdoor life through gardens, trees and greenery in parks, sports

fields, golf courses and open spaces.”23 Environmentally-friendly, lifestyle amenities at

21 Ian Fife and Xolile Bhengu, “Land of Promise,” Financial Mail, 2 February 2006; and

Anna Cox, “Green Architecture: A First for SA,” Pretoria News, 17 November 2010.

22 “Waterfall Valley: Mature Lifestyle Community” (Promotional materials, n.d.). 23 “Waterfall” [Century Property Developments, Advertising Brochure (n.d.), source of

quotations].

20

Waterfall City also include 300 hectares of an indigenous greenbelt accommodating

over 17 kilometers of walking paths and mountain bike trails. A multi-story clubhouse

with viewing decks overlooks an artificial lake, which has been outfitted for the use of

non-motorized water sports.24

Besides the business center, office blocs, green spaces, and residential

components, real estate developers have focused on establishing Waterfall City as a

bustling trade gateway. Acting in partnership with Atterbury Property Holdings, WIC

aims at positioning itself as a catalyst for the development of a gigantic distribution and

warehousing center with tentacles spread over large parts of the African continent. The

planned warehousing precinct – named the Waterfall Distribution Campus -- consists of

a vast array of distribution centers, logistics campuses, and conventional storage

facilities – all with cutting edge designs -- where industrial tenants can concentrate their

business operations in a central location.25 The centerpiece of this warehousing precinct

is the 30,000sqm distribution center for Massbuild, the South African subsidiary of U.S.

giant Walmart. This massive storage facility has been joined by an 8,000sqm

distribution warehouse for Digistics, which services fast food industry companies like

KFC and McDonalds.26

24 “Waterfall: Live in Johannesburg’s Largest Secure Parkland” (promotional materials,

n.d.). 25 Interviews with Sue Parke (11 July 2011); Irving Steyn (11 July 2011), and Morné

Whitehead (7 July 2014).

26 Dimakatso Motau, “Atterbury launches R25bn Property,” Engineering News, 27 April

2012 [available at <http:/www.engineeringnews.co.za.html>]; and “Waterfall Unites

Northern Sandton with Midrand,” Eprop Property News, 24 July 2012.

21

The New Corporate City and Vanishing Public Authority

Urban planners and land use specialists working at the municipal and provincial

levels operate within an overall spatial design framework. One of the most challenging

bottlenecks in implementing the spatial integration of the Greater Johannesburg

metropolitan region is lack of adequate financing for improved road transportation

linkages.27 Real estate developers have learned that by providing funding and

technical expertise in the installation of bulk public infrastructure (like road upgrading,

storm drainage, and other physical improvements), they greatly enhance their chances

to win approval for large-scale development projects. After reviewing the precinct

proposals for Waterwall City, city officials at the Department for Development Planning

and Urban Management were satisfied that the overall master plan complied with

requisite scheme conditions, including density and coverage, floor space ratios, height

restrictions, parking, landscaping, road access, and the like. Because local government

did not have sufficient funds to pay for bulk infrastructure, WIC agreed to install

everything within its boundaries, including electrical power, underground cables, water,

sewerage, storm drainage, roads and bridges, landscaping (including the importation of

thousands of trees indigenous to South Africa), street lighting, and so forth.28

In preliminary discussions with the real estate developers, city planning officials

expressed concerns about the increased traffic congestion that building such a large

27 Interviews with Kobus Potgieter (26 June 2012, 3 July 2014), Nkateko Shipalana (26

June 2012, 3 July 2014), and Inneke de Villers, 3 July 2014). 28 Interviews with Sue Parke (11 July 2011); Werner Van Rhyn (14 June 2012); Willie

Vos (14 June 2012).

22

mega-project would invariably produce. In response, WIC financed a traffic master plan

that used computer-simulation model to forecast changing traffic patterns within a

20kilometer radius of the main entry and exit points at Waterfall City. In exchange for

fasttracking the approval process, Atterbury agreed to spend an estimated R217-million

[$27 million] on highway improvements, including upgrading Pretoria Main Road to a

dual carriageway, a proposed new bridge at the Allandale exchange off-ramp, and the

widening and extension of many surrounding roads such as Maxwell Drive in

Woodmead. Traffic engineers hired by Atterbury have argued that the upgrade to the

Allandale intersection and the establishment of an extensive road network are sufficient

to alleviate congestion and allow for easy access to the Waterfall Development

Precinct.29

The business model adopted at Waterfall City is ingenious in its simplicity.

Because of its controlling interest in the WIC, the Waterfall Islamic Institute receives a

huge monthly payment derived from its exclusive ownership of the land. But the

Waterfall Islamic Institute functions more as a “silent partner” than anything else, with no

direct control over everyday operations. In terms of everyday decision-making, WIC

and Attacq/Atterbury are strategically positioned at the apex of the corporate

hierarchy.Iits voting dominance in a five-person monitoring committee has enabled the

WIC to retain the authority to approve (or disapprove) all building projects, including

those of its business partner Atterbury. In terms of the complex ownership

29 Interviews with Kobus Potgieter (26 June 2012); Nkateko Shipalana (26 June 2012); Werner Van Rhyn (14 June 2012); Willie Vos (14 June 2012), and Morné Whitehead (7

July 2014).

23

arrangements, the Waterfall Islamic Institute has become 22 percent shareholders in

Atterbury Investment Holdings, ensuring that it will share in the future corporate growth

of the company.30

At the start, Atterbury purchased exclusive development rights from WIC to

construct the commercial and business components of Waterfall City on 99-year

leasehold arrangements. Atterbury and WIC have compiled a comprehensive list of

strict guidelines – referred to as “the Bible” (ironic, since the Mia family relied on a

reading of the Koran to justify their engagement with the Waterfall real estate

development) – covering every aspect of building, ranging from aesthetic principles,

land use standards, and functional (“highest and best”) use. In order to ensure

compliance with these pre-ordained regulations, they have jointly formed a “design

review board” to oversee all building projects. Operating within this spatial design

framework, Atterbury has worked with its corporate clients to construct their buildings to

meet their peculiar functional requirements and aesthetic tastes. Along with Atterbury,

the WIC negotiated with the City of Johannesburg for what both parties have referred to

as a “basket of rights” that covers the entire mega-project and not individual parcels.

Finite but flexible, this “basket of rights” has enabled Atterbury a great deal of flexibility

and discretion in negotiating with specific corporate clients around building

specifications, such as height, volume, bulk size, set-backs, and floor-to-height ratios.

In all likelihood, Atterbury will return to the negotiating table with planning authorities at

30 Ian Fife, “Dare to Share,” Financial Mail (5 September 2008), p. 36.

24

City of Johannesburg, requesting additional rights to build bigger and taller. Unlike

Century Properties which intends to build residential units for quick sale on the

marketplace, Atterbury has adopted a business model that enables it to operate as both

(profit-seeking) real estate developer and long-term (rent-seeking) landlord. Besides

designing and constructing the full range of non-residential commercial and office

buildings in accordance with pre-established guidelines, Atterbury has decided to

remain at Waterfall City as a property (but not land) owner, leasing its buildings to

business clients.31

Atturbury has brought together its own team of landscape architects, design

specialists, and urban planners to construct an integrated master plan for the entire

business-commercial component. Three quarters of the roads in the commercial zone

have public access. Atturbury agreed with the City of Johannesburg to build the roads

and then turn them over to the Johannesburg Roads Authority (JRA), a public agency.

In exchange for maintenance of the public streetscape, Atturbury has retained the

authority to determine who can use the roads and how. For example, private security

companies aligned with Atterbury allow taxis to pass through the commercial zone to

drop off and pick up passengers, but these vehicles are not allowed to stop and park.

An overlapping network of Section 21 (not-for-profit) companies has enabled

property owners and business enterprises in each of the eleven (or so) precincts in the

31 Information in this and the following paragraphs is derived from interviews with Willie

Vos (12 July 2011, 14 June 2012, 8 July 2014); Werner Van Rhyn (14 June 2012, 8 July

2014), and Morné Whitehead (7 July 2014).

25

Atterbury section of Waterfall City to govern and oversee everyday operations in their

individual areas. These Section 21companies has adopted a zero tolerance policy

toward unauthorized use of open spaces for social congregation, and have promised to

prevent informal trading, loitering, or the use of public space by “unwanted persons.” In

looking toward the creation of a distinctive kind of privatized governance structure,

Atterbury has unveiled plans to establish a Section 21 company with the principal aim of

overseeing the private management of the commercial and business side of Waterfall

City. The key component of this management strategy is the appointment of a city

manager (referred to as the “mayor”) who acts exclusively on behalf of the large-scale

property owners and is not part of any public authority. At the end of the day, complex

networks of power and authority ensure that Atterbury remains in ultimate control over

the direction of commercial development at Waterfall City.32

Urban Enclaves: The Cosseted Life

As an exemplary expression of privatized urbanism, Waterfall City has

constituted itself as a semi-autonomous city-state, outside the jurisdiction and the

cumbersome regulations of local government and hence immune from outside oversight

or interference from public authorities. Merging the power of private capital with the

logistics of networked infrastructure, this planned satellite city offers the promise of a

new way of urban living for those business enterprises and the mostly well-to-do

residents who can afford the high price of admission. The introduction of new modes of

32 Information in this and the following paragraphs is derived from interviews with Willie

Vos (12 July 2011, 14 June 2012, 8 July 2014); Werner Van Rhyn (14 June 2012, 8 July

2014), and Morné Whitehead (7 July 2014).

26

urban governance at Waterfall City marks a radical departure from our conventional

modernist understanding of a fragile and precarious balance between private interests

and public authority in the administration of the contemporary city.

The conventional way of thinking about extra-territoriality has focused on

identifying a designated space or special status that lies outside territorial boundaries,

and either benefits or suffers from the suspension of jurisdiction which overrules the

existing sovereignty (Newman, 1996). Geopolitical anomalies like embassies, refugee

camps, and free trade zones are some key examples that operate in this way

(McConnell, 2010). Yet over time, the number and genres of extraterritorial spaces have

greatly increased, diversified, and crystalized into a dense and opaque configuration of

exception and exemption that superimposes its own rules and, as a consequence,

erodes and undermines the very notion of territorial sovereignty (Easterling, 2007a,

2007b; Winters, 1996).

The enclave format is a mutating formula for blending unrestrained free

enterprise within the overarching framework of strict management controls. Though its

roots can be traced back to the independent city-states and free ports of classical

antiquity, only in last several decades has the zone emerged as a powerful

extraterritorial global form, evolving rapidly from an out-of-way precinct for warehousing

custom-free goods to an aggressive strategy for jump-starting stalled economies of the

so-called “developing world” to a paradigm for building such glittering world cities as

Hong Kong, Singapore, and Dubai (Palen, 2003). Whatever else, the zone provides the

perfect extra-legal format for incubating corporate enterprise immune from outside

interference. As a legal instrument, the zone presides over a laundry list of exemptions

27

and exceptions, coupled with the imposition of a host of restrictive covenants, internal

guidelines, and tight regulatory regimes (Easterling, 2005, 2007a, 2007b).

In places like Waterfall City, real estate developers extol the virtues of the

enclave format because it enables them to build a city according to their own

specifications without outsider oversight or interference. Yet even as the enclave format

has replaced conventional municipal governance with private management, it has itself

become an instrument of corporate domination and market manipulation. If meticulous

planning of every detail and integrated infrastructure are the key ingredients to getting

the project underway, then a hierarchically-organized command-and-control structure is

the driving force behind making Waterfall City work. In strictly operational terms, WIC

sits at the apex of the administrative hierarchy. The fourteen (or so) precincts that

make up Waterfall City operate more or less independently of each other. WIC has

established a strict regulatory regime that enables the company to maintain blanket

control over decision-making down to the precinct level. Corporate tenants and

homeowners who purchase title deeds to specific properties agree to join a precinctlevel

(not-for-profit) Section 21 company and to abide by their rules and regulations.

Corporate tenants and in each precinct form a property-owners association to represent

their interests, and to adjudicate disputes that may arise and oversees the enforcement

of precinct rules and regulations. But in order to safeguard its own overarching

interests, the WIC uses its majority voting rights in every Section 21 Company

28

(particularly residential associations) in order to maintain veto power over all decision-

making, and hence enforce its own vision of precinct management.33

The Enclave as Profit-Making Machine

Keller Easterling (2007a) uses the term extrastatecraft to refer to specific places

governed by private business interests operating more or less independently of local,

national, and international law. Perfectly designed to legally legitimate a new kind of

entrepreneurial governance, Waterfall City promises to be one such place. WIC sits at

the apex of the hierarchy, overseeing the management of the entire mega-project.

Leading figures at Waterfall City have make it quite clear that want to have as little to do

with existing municipal service providers like Pikitup (the primary waste management

agency), the South African Police Services (SAPS), or the Johannesburg Municipal

Police Department (JMPD), which is largely responsible for monitoring traffic and city

safety initiatives.34

WIC operates with a business management model that relies extensively on

hierarchically-ordered private-private partnerships. This octopus-like arrangement is

both hierarchical and monopolistic. While the partners operate autonomously, ultimate

controlling interest remains at the top with WIC. The intertwined patterns of corporate

ownership at Waterfall City resemble a kind a patrimonial network. The hierarchal

33 Interviews with Interviews with Kobus Potgieter (26 June 2012); Nkateko Shipalana

(26 June 2012); Willie Vos (12 July 2011, 14 June 2012); Werner Van Rhyn (14 June

2012, 8 July 2014).

34 Information in this and the following paragraphs is derived from interviews with Willie

Vos (12 July 2011,14 June 2012, 8 July 2014) ; Werner Van Rhyn (14 June 2012, 8 July

2014), and Morné Whitehead (7 July 2014).

29

arrangement of business entities – extending from WIC at the top through various

subsidiaries -- essentially functions as little more than an extended form of patronage

and reciprocity, where profit-seeking private enterprise has replaced conventional public

administration. With the exception of standard commercial establishments like

restaurants and mall outlets, business enterprises operating independently of WIC do

not exist at Waterfall City.35

WIC created an independent subsidiary, the Waterfall Management and

Operating Company (WMOC), to act as asset and operational managers for its current

and future projects. As the primary profit-making vehicle in charge of daily operations of

Waterfall City, WMOC is responsible for ensuring the uninterrupted provision of

essential services such as water, gas, electricity, fiber-optic telecommunications, petrol,

security and access control, waste management, sanitation, and traffic flow. 36 Through

its wholly-owned subsidiary, WIC has successfully bundled urban necessities -- water,

power, information services, and telecommunications technologies -- into a single

package, charging end-users a fee for the convenience. WIC has created a

whollyowned subsidiary, Waterfall Energy, which makes bulk purchases of petrol and

fuel oil, supplying its wholly-owned gas stations and servicing the on-site heliport (with

storage facilities for around forty private helicopters). WIC has negotiated purchase

agreements with state-owned corporations like Rand Water, ESCOM, and Sasol to buy

bulk services like water, electrical power, and natural gas (coming from Mozambique) at

35 Information in this and the following paragraphs is derived from interviews with Willie

Vos (12 July 2011,14 June 2012); and Werner Van Rhyn (14 June 2012).

36 See “The Waterfall Investment Company” [Promotional materials, n.d.].

30

discounted prices. Only power stations and large mines consume more energy

resources than

Waterfall City. In order to ensure the certainty of supply, WIC has created private

subsidiary companies that organize the distribution of these services to individual

endusers. Operating on an incentive system where reduced costs result in increased

profitability, these subsidiaries are responsible for maintaining the utilities infrastructure,

controlling the logistics, monitoring the usage, and collecting the levies from corporate

tenants and homeowners. Facing no competition, these privately-owned companies

are able to adjust their rates to guarantee profitable return.37

The WMOCD has also created close to a dozen private, profit-making

subsidiaries which specialize in providing specific services like water, electricity,

infrastructure maintenance, landscaping, cleaning, and real estate sales. WIC

maintains a controlling interest in these companies, thereby guaranteeing a profitable

revenue stream from below. WIC has identified three areas of business enterprise that

form the triangulated pillars of its profit-making growth model: health services,

telecommunications, and schools. Waterfall Access Networks (WAN) provides world

class communication network services to the residents, businesses, schools, and

hospitals within the entire Waterfall Estate. As a result, anyone who lives, works, or

visits Waterfall Estate is assured of reliable, quick, and efficient Internet access – via the

130 kilometers of “next-generation” fiber optic network cable that runs through the entire

Estate. The strategic placement of unobtrusive transmission towers (some disguised as

37 Interviews with Morné Whitehead, 7 July 2014), Willie Vos (12 July 2011, 14 June

2012, 8 July 2014); and Werner Van Rhyn (14 June 2012).

31

trees) provides wireless internet connections throughout Waterfall City. WIC has

established a fully-owned subsidiary called COMMCO Holdings as its fiber optic

telecommunications company. By prior agreement, COMMCO maintains exclusive

rights over telecommunications for all businesses and residents at Waterfall City. In line

with its Smart City initiative, COMMCO Holdings has developed what they call a

“Community Portal” -- an online platform which provides residents, business enterprises,

governing bodies, and management teams with a convenient means for estate-wide

communications and information sharing. The “Community Portal” involves residents in

the day-to-day life of the estate by conveying news and serving as an online notice

board for upcoming events and activities. For estate management, the “Community

Portal” operates as a storage facility for a wealth of the most up-to-date information

(including tax records, electrical billing, and water consumption for each parcel).38 In

the health field, WIC has established a business partnership with Netcare, an

investment holding company which operates the largest private hospital network in

South Africa and the United Kingdom, to construct a large, fully-serviced hospital

(already operating at 90 percent capacity, with a second hospital (specializing in

oncology) and the first private medical school in South Africa in the advanced stages of

planning. Finally, WIC has constructed six schools (in partnership with Reddam House

38 Interviews with Morné Whitehead (7 July 2014), Clive Weill (8 July 2014), and Werner

Van Rhyn (8 July 2014).

32

schools) catering for international clientele but with affordable options for lower-income

families.39

Maintaining control over the vast networks of pipes, cables, and power switches

has enabled WIC to position itself as the gatekeeper between the underlying physical

infrastructure and every service that depends upon it. WIC has established subsidies to

fill in the gaps between bulk infrastructure and end-users in exchange for a profit share

of every transaction. At the end of the day, WIC has sought its own autonomous

administrative authority – to become, in effect, its own mini-city council. Performing all of

these services enables WIC to play to role of a municipality, replacing public

administration of urban space with a host of private profit-making companies.40

Future Urbanism?

Like other “instant cities” that are the outcome of super-fast urbanism, Waterfall

City has condensed complex patterns of urban growth that ordinarily take place

incrementally over extended periods of time into a little more than a decade.

Waterfall City is, quite literally, an entirely new city without history. Not yet finished,

Waterfall City still feels almost as much as wishful fantasy as actual place. At present, it

is about equal parts an imagined city of tomorrow, and a gigantic, half-built construction

site. In projecting the future success of Waterfall City, the real estate developers who

are constructing this new ‘city-within-a-city’ dream of a virtually ‘frictionless utopia’

where the typical problems associated with chaotic urban life – traffic congestion, crime,

39 Interviews with Willie Vos (8 July 2014); Clive Weil (8 July 2014), and Werner Van Rhyn (8 July 2014). 40 Interviews with Willie Vos (12 July 2011, 14 June 2012); and Werner Van Rhyn (14

June 2012).

33

over-crowding, the presence of unwanted intruders – have been minimized if not totally

eliminated. It remains to be seen whether it blossoms into signature real estate

development or a flawed experiment in prepackaged design with centralized controls.

The challenge is how to satisfy demands for social belonging, choice, and individuality

without resorting to bland formulas and stylized formats (Klingmann, 2007, page 289).

As an exemplary expression of the ‘Corporate City', Waterfall City may indeed

represent a harbinger of twenty-first-century urbanism (Easterling, 2007b). The holistic,

master-planned model provides for a pre-packaged urbanity – instantly whole,

integrated, and connected. Operating outside conventional jurisdiction of municipal

administration, privatized urban enclaves like Waterfall City – with their repetitive

commercial formats that combine office complexes, mixed-use lifestyle centers,

exclusive residential components, and leisure activities -- aspire to be self-contained

worlds unto themselves, self-reflexive, and innocent of political entanglements

(Easterling, 200, page 3).

Waterfall City seeks to become a real metropolis, a recognizable destination that

is more than simply an assemblage of precincts or zones. If the enclave format enables

the corporate owners to banish the unwanted frictions of conventional urbanity, then its

holistic, master-planned environment seeks to offer a balanced, healthy lifestyle

captured in the uplifting slogan “live, work, and play.” The real estate developers who

conceived of Waterfall City have promoted their model of a private city as an alternative

to the unpredictable messiness of conventional urbanism. In a real sense, Waterfall

City resembles an all-encompassing corporate entity that both engages in profit-making

34

activities and functions as a pseudo-state agency with the administrative powers of a

municipality.

Internet Sources

Eprop Property News [available at: http:www.eprop.co.za.html.].

Engineering News [available at <http:/www.engineeringnews.co.za.html>].

Interviews

Inneke de Villiers-Engelbrecht, Senior Specialist: Strategic Urban Planning, Directorate

of City Transformation, Department of Development Planning, City of Johannesburg, 3

July 2014.

Paul Le Sueur, Executive Director, Strategic Project Development, Group Five,

Woodmead North Office Park, Jukskei View, 8 July 2014.

Jean-Luc Limacher, Director, Urban Dynamics Town & Regional Planners, Parktown, 29

June 2012, 9 July 2014.

Sue Parke, Atterbury Property Developments, Bryanston, 11 July 2011.

Kobus Potgieter, Specialist, Development Planning and Facilitation, City of

Johannesburg, Department of Development Planning and Urban Management, Metropolitan Centre, Braamfontein, 26 June 2012.

Nkateko Shipalana ,Specialist, Development Planning and Facilitation, City of

Johannesburg, Department of Development Planning and Urban Management,

Metropolitan Centre, Braamfontein, 26 June 2012.

Irving Steyn, Project Manager, Atterbury Property Developments, Waterfall City, 11 July

2011.

Werner Van Rhyn, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Waterfall Investment Company,

Woodmead North Office Park, Jukskei View, 14 June 2012; 8 July 2014.

Willie Vos, Waterfall Investment Company, Woodmead North Office Park, Jukskei View,

12 July 2011;14 June 2012; 8 July 2014.

Morné Whitehead, Atturbury Property Developments (Pty) Ltd, Maxwell Office Park,

Waterfall City, 7 July 2014.

Clive Weil, Waterfall Investment Company, Woodmead North Office Park, Jukskei View,

8 July 2014.

35

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