Recent reports of residents in one part of Joburg repainting street names and being allowed to actively manage their local swimming pool follow many reports of previous initiatives over the years.
In Tshwane, a group called “Betereinders” has been filling in potholes for years.
In Joburg, at least one insurance company still does this through an arrangement with the city.
And, from time to time, a smaller council will try to go to court (and has sometimes succeeded) to prevent ordinary citizens from fixing common infrastructure.
This is not confined to middle-class areas. In many places, community groups patrol informal settlements at night to protect people. Some might contend that almost every act of vigilante justice could be argued to be the community protecting itself, in the light of police failing to do so.
However, what might make this kind of activity in middle-class areas so significant is that it is an indication that services are failing even in areas which have been developed for many years and were once provided with services.
This trend is probably impossible to stop.
Morally, it would be hard to justify preventing residents from performing a service for other residents, especially if a council has simply failed.
One can hardly argue that a pool should remain closed when there are people with the resources to fix it and manage it for the good of everyone.
But it also shows that even Joburg, with a budget of more than R83-billion, is unable to provide simple services.
It begs the question, where does all of this money go? It does not appear to be properly spent anywhere, in any area, no matter how poor or rich its residents are.
The benefits
Of course, there are immediate positives to residents doing this.
First, they will now have some services. Some things will simply work when previously they were not.
Second, there will be a level of transfer here from richer people to poorer people.
While it may be middle-class people paying for or managing a council swimming pool, anyone will be able to use it. In other words, there will be no barrier to entry based on whether you are rich or poor (council pools in Joburg have generally had entry fees that were kept very low – often a fee of around R5 was common, particularly for children).
A pothole affects everyone and when it is repaired, everyone’s life is improved.
Also, it should mean that councils no longer have to pay for these services in richer areas and should, in theory, have more money to spend in poorer areas.
In other words, if richer people are looking after their own pool, then the council should be able to spend that money on building and managing a pool in a poorer area.
Something similar happens in education.
While the government provides some financial help for independent schools, the amount they spend per learner in these schools will be much lower than the amount per learner in government schools. Thus, there should be more money for government schools.
Of course, the fact that so many councils have mismanaged their money means this may not happen.
The challenges
However, that does not mean all consequences will be positive.
First, it may well deepen the divide between richer areas and poorer areas. While this divide is already stark, the current governance and services crises in places like Joburg are making this bigger still.
As this process gathers momentum, what begins with residents running a swimming pool can result in some areas having no potholes and others having no roads.
All in the same city.
Then there is the simple fact that a council, which is supposed to run a facility for the public good, must be losing some power over that facility.
While this is still a better outcome than simply keeping the facility closed, informal networks and hierarchies can result in some groups dominating a facility, leaving others excluded.
It may be important for groups that are doing this to ensure this does not happen and that the facilities they run are welcoming to all.
Unfortunately, there may also be another dynamic which can take a long time to be felt, but which has been seen elsewhere.
There are many examples of how, when middle-class people with a relatively powerful voice in society no longer use government services, there is no political incentive to fix them.
When it is only the poor who have to use certain facilities, politicians will never repair them.
The perfect example of this is our current government healthcare system, which is generally used only by those who have no other choice.
Interestingly, something similar may be about to happen in the UK, where the NHS appears increasingly underfunded and people who can are paying to use private healthcare.
In Joburg’s case, this may mean that those who run it no longer have any incentive to improve their services.
As a result, services will simply continue to decline and will never be repaired.
Of course, as our politics continues to fracture, there are other possibilities.
It is entirely feasible that in some areas, groups that manage certain facilities or functions eventually organise themselves politically and elect councillors in certain wards.
Our local politics has generally been reflective of our national politics. It is possible that, over time, this trend will be broken by people who reflect the governance concerns of certain local communities.
This is one of the reasons why these groups could turn out to be so important in the longer run.
It is not just what they are doing now, but what they may do in the future that could be hugely significant. DM