Introduction. Spatial politics in the precarious city -- Part 1. Making space : City building and the production of the built environment -- The restless urban landscape : the evolving spatial geography of Johannesburg -- The flawed promise of the high-modernist city : city building at the apex of apartheid rule -- Part 2. Unraveling space : centrifugal urbanism and the convulsive city -- Hollowing out the center : Johannesburg turned inside out -- Worlds apart : the Johannesburg inner city and the making of the outcast ghetto -- The splintering metropolis : laissez-faire urbanism and unfettered suburban sprawl -- Part 3. Fortifying space : siege architecture and anxious urbanism -- Defensive urbanism after apartheid : spatial partitioning and the new fortification aesthetic -- Entrepreneurial urbanism and the private city -- Reconciling arcadia and utopia : gated residential estates at the metropolitan edge -- Epilogue. putting Johannesburg in its place : the ordinary city.