Mining and Community in South Africa: From Small Town to Iron Town

Mining has played a key role in the growth of many towns in South Africa. This growth has been accompanied by a proliferation of informal settlements, by pressure to provide basic services and by institutional pressures in local government to support mining. Fragile municipal finance, changing social attributes, the pressures of shift-work on mineworkers, the impact on the physical environment and perceived new inequalities between mineworkers, contract workers and original inhabitants have...