CHATSWORTH, DURBAN

'Chatsworth', is a large township in Durban, South Africa, which was created as a result of the Apartheid Government and the Group Areas Act. This area, created in the late 1960s and early 1970s, was designated for use by the Indian population only and by those who were removed from their initial areas of occupation due to racial segregation and the implications of the Group Areas Act. Because of this, Chatsworth is an area of extreme poverty separated from the developed resort areas of Durban.
In the 1940s, The Pegging Acts and the Ghetto Act were passed. These acts gave the government the right to remove and destroy shacks, small self-made shelters, with the intention of improving sanitary conditions. This led to the Group Areas Act of June 1950, which designated certain areas for the White and other areas for Indians, Coloreds and Africans. Indians were removed from areas such as Mayvile Cato Manor, the Clairwood and Magazine Barracks, and the Bluff, and were placed in areas like Riverside and Prospect Hall and at Duikerfontein and Sea Cow Lake.
During the later 1940s and early 1950s, there were advertisements in the papers of an exclusively Indian suburb, Umhlatuzana. Later Silverglen and Red Hill were also developed. Then in the early 1960s Chatsworth was planned, opening in 1964 and consisting of eleven neighborhood units. Modern day Chatsworth has 64 suburbs that fall within its region. Chatsworth was deliberately built to act as buffer between white residential areas and the large African township of Umlazi.
As a consequence of its history, Chatsworth is still a predominantly Indian population growing rigidly, with many economic interests in favor of Indians. It boasts many of the Indian cultures that were acquired from their ancestors from India, and holds the Temple of Understanding - South Africa's most spectacular Hindu temple.
This area is now a fully fledged suburb of Durban and boasts industrial development with strong infrastructure and has contributed to the growing intellectual capital and business environment of Durban, while at the same time housing evictions of "unwanted" residents and the disconnection of water and electrical utilities plagues those who cannot afford them due to the high unemployment rate.
Chatsworth is thus the center of a growing social movement opposed to neoliberalism known as "the poors," because the developing infrastructure has missed the poorest of the population, and the loss of manufacturing jobs due to the economic liberalization program of self-imposed Structural Adjustment Policies known as GEAR, has increased the economic problems of Chatsworth's poorest residents, despite intentions otherwise.

★ Chatsworth Live - A Local community website in Chatsworth, catch up with the latest news, events, pictures, and people in Chatsworth