Cosmo City

The story of the communities on the north-western outskirts of Johannesburg starts in the mid-1990s when thousands of people flocked to Johannesburg in search of work and the hope of a better future. Very quickly informal settlements developed when people failed to find work and began to build makeshift homes on unoccupied land. These settlements grew without any formal planning or social provision, resulting in vast communities of poor housing, inadequate health and education provision, rampant poverty, high crime rates and very low levels of trust and social capital.

In answer to this problem, the South African government initiated the development of a brand new community in this area – Cosmo City. The aim was to provide a combination of free, subsidised and private housing leading to an economically integrated and diverse community. The development is the first of its kind in South Africa and, if successful, will be used as model in the government’s ambitious plans to eliminate all informal settlements across South Africa.

Cosmo City is a place like nowhere else in South Africa. On the surface you’ll see a rapidly growing new neighbourhood with better housing than informal areas, but look closer and you’ll find a diverse community struggling to make sense of a new and strange environment and come to terms with its past.  Some of the same problems from the informal settlements are still present – unemployment, chronic health problems and poverty.  On top of this, essential services are in short supply in with no public health care services currently available at all. With so many people coming together from different backgrounds, the area presents a complex set of social and economic challenges that need urgent attention if mistakes of the past are not to be repeated.

Cosmo City, as the first fully integrated housing development in South Africa, will upon completion at the end of 2012 house around 70,000 people in 12,500 households and will incorporate the informal settlement of Itsoseng on its northern border.   It will also hold 10 public schools, of which 7 is already functioning.    Given that the majority of residents were relocated from informal settlements, the community faces many social and economic challenges – ranging from HIV to unemployment, but, it represents a hopeful fresh start for all its residents.

As the South African member of a global family of organisations strongly valuing inclusion and the dignity of all people, Cosmo City and Itsoseng was a natural choice of community to base ourselves in – given the unique promise of this new community to both overcome the physical structural separation entrenched by our country’s apartheid past, while also addressing the economic segregation currently present in our city.