View source for Soweto

====1948 to 1976====
Following the election of the new government, some 7,000 new houses were built in the first two or three years, but very little was done thereafter. In 1952, there was a breakthrough. Firstly, the [[Council for Scientific and Industrial Research]] came up with a standard design for low-cost, four-roomed, forty-square-metre houses. In 1951, the Parliament passed the [[Native Building Workers Act, 1951|Building Workers Act]], which permitted Blacks to be trained as artisans in the building trade. In 1952, it passed the Bantu Services Levy Act, which imposed a levy on employers of African workers and the levy was used to finance basic services in Black townships.<ref>Bonner & Segal, supra, p.28.</ref> In 1954, the City Council built 5,100 houses in Jabavu and 1,450 in Mofolo.<ref name="Stark, supra, p. 527">Stark, supra, p. 527.</ref>

The city council's pride and joy was its economic scheme known as Dube Village. It was intended "primarily for the thoroughly urbanised and economically advanced Native".<ref name="Stark, supra, p. 527"/> Stands, varying in size from fifty by hundred feet to forty by 70 feet, were made available on a thirty-year leasehold tenure. Tenants could erect their own dwellings in conformity with approved plans.

In June 1955, Kliptown was the home of an unprecedented [[Congress of the People (1955)|Congress of the People]], which adopted the [[Freedom Charter]].

From the onset, the Apartheid government purposed Soweto to house the bulk of the labour force which was needed by Johannesburg.{{Citation needed|date=October 2025}}<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Riches |first1=Christopher |title=A Dictionary of Contemporary World History |last2=Palmowski |first2=Jan |date=2021 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=9780191890949 |edition=6 |publication-date=2021 |chapter=Soweto (South Western Townships)}}</ref> Africans used to live in areas surrounding the city, so the authorities felt it would be more expedient to concentrate black workers in one district that could be easily controlled.<ref name="wiredspace">{{cite web |last1=Tshwane |first1=Anthony |title=An African Village |url=http://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/bitstream/handle/10539/15664/chapter2.pdf?sequence=3&isAllowed=y |url-status=dead |access-date=1 November 2018 |website=Wiredspace.wits.ac.za}}</ref>

The new sub-economic townships took off in 1956, when Tladi, Zondi, Dhlamini, Chiawelo and Senoane were laid out providing 28,888 people with accommodation. Jabulani, Phiri and Naledi followed the next year. Sir Ernest Oppenheimer arranged a loan of £3&nbsp;million from the mining industry, which allowed an additional 14,000 houses to be built.<ref>Bonner & Segal, supra, p. 29.</ref> It was decided to divide Soweto into various language groups. Naledi, Mapetla, Tladi, Moletsane and Phiri were for Sotho- and Tswana-speaking people. Chiawelo for Tsonga and Venda. Dlamini Senaoane, Zola, Zondi, Jabulani, Emdeni and White City were for Zulus and Xhosas.<ref>Bonner & Segal, supra, p. 41.</ref>

The central government was busy with its own agenda. The presence of Blacks with freehold title to land among Johannesburg's White suburbs irked them. In 1954, Parliament passed the [[Natives Resettlement Act, 1954|Native Resettlement Act]], which permitted the government to remove Blacks from suburbs like Sophiatown, Martindale, Newclare and Western Native Township. Between 1956 and 1960, they built 23,695 houses in Meadowlands and Diepkloof to accommodate the evicted persons. By 1960, the removals were more-or-less complete.<ref>Bonner & Segal, supra, p.30.</ref>

In 1959, the city council launched a competition to find a collective name for all the townships south-west of the city's centre. It was only in 1963 that the city council decided to adopt the name Soweto as the collective name. The name Soweto was officially endorsed by the municipalities' authorities only in 1963 after a special committee had considered various names.<ref name="wiredspace" /> The apartheid government's intention was for Soweto to house black people who were working for Johannesburg.<ref>Bonner & Segal, supra, p. 31.</ref> Other names considered included "apartheid Townships" and "Verwoerdstad".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Pohlandt-McCormick |first=Helena |title="I Saw a Nightmare...": Doing Violence to Memory: The Soweto Uprising, June 16, 1976 |publisher=[[Columbia University Press]] |language=en |chapter=Soweto: History, Geography, Society |chapter-url=http://www.gutenberg-e.org/pohlandt-mccormick/pmh02w.html}}</ref>

In 1971, Parliament passed the Black Affairs Administration Act, No. 45 of 1971. In terms of this Act, the central government appointed the West Rand Administration Board to take over the powers and obligations of the Johannesburg City Council in respect of Soweto.<ref>Mngomezulu & Others v City Council of Soweto, (1988) ZASCA 163.</ref> As chairman of the board it appointed Manie Mulder, a political appointment of a person who had no experience of the administration of native affairs.{{sfn|Grinker|2014|p=xii}}
Manie Mulder's most famous quote was given to the Rand Daily Mail in May 1976: "The broad masses of Soweto are perfectly content, perfectly happy. Black-White relationships at present are as healthy as can be. There is no danger whatever of a blow-up in Soweto."<ref>Bonner & Segal, supra, p. 56.</ref>

[[File:Soweto Housing, Johannesburg.jpg|thumb|Soweto housing (c. 2009)]]

[[File:Soweto1p.jpg|thumb|House in Soweto, December 1995]]