TOWNSHIP

In South Africa, the term township usually refers to the (often underdeveloped) urban residential areas that, under Apartheid, were reserved for non-whites (principally black Africans and Coloureds, but also working class Indians. Townships were usually built on the periphery of towns and cities.

During the Apartheid Era blacks were evicted from properties that were in areas designated as "white only" and forced to move into townships. Legislation that enabled the Apartheid government to do this included the Group Areas Act. Forced removal from city centres to townships has continued in post-apartheid South Africa. The difference is that under apartheid all black people faced forced removals to townships while now it is only the poor living in shack settlements that face eviction to townships on the peripheries of cities. In Cape Town and Durban this has given rise to mass resistance.[1]