A Geo-Historical and Socio-Cultural Perspective Of COVID-19 Social Distancing Regulations in Townships and Informal Settlements in the City of Ekurhuleni, South Africa

The land question has been central to the development of the economy and politics of the South African state since the dawn of colonialism. The violent process of land dispossession has shaped class, race and political power relations - setting parameters for the polarisation that defines the democratic dispensation. Despite this, for a long time, the land question has largely been focused on reform in rural areas, where petty commodity production has been most pronounced. The limitation of this is the neglect of the urban land question that has become particularly important owing to the growing levels of urbanisation in the global South. This urbanisation, coupled with urban landlessness, has shaped urban settlement patterns and human settlements. This article explores the nature of urban land spatiality in the post-apartheid city, with a focus on the era of the COVID-19 global pandemic. Using secondary data, and with collective informal settlements and townships in the City of Ekurhuleni as a case study, it contends that the pandemic laid bare existing spatial inequities. It asks the question: Does the post-apartheid urban spatial form, punctuated by the urban sprawl, make allowance for physical distancing? From a socio-cultural perspective, it engages with the impact of social distancing on communities, contending that regulations fractured relations that are a bedrock of communal bonds and existence. The article concludes that the pandemic crystallised the spatial injustice that defines existence in informal settlements and argues for the reconstruction of urban space.