2. The Rule of Rent: The State, Employers and the Becoming Urban Dweller in Northern Rhodesia Acting Across a Societal Field of Force, c. 1948–1962

Abstract

Urbanization means that people come to town. Their houses, all too often representing a promise rather than a materially available choice, have long become a staple of urban politics. After Northern Rhodesia had become implicated in the metropolitan war effort in the 1940s, it experienced one of the highest urbanization rates throughout the African continent. Moreover, ever since the first step of public investment in the colonies, the 1940 Colonial Development and Welfare Act, made available metropolitan loans, standards, accessibility, and politics of African housing incurred recurring debate and regulation, not only with regard to the Copperbelt region but with regard to other rapidly growing towns as well. At this time, the colonial state was fully established in Northern Rhodesia – albeit the number of expat administrators at no stage exceeded 300 persons. Even though the majority of white residents, be they from Britain, Germany, Greece, South Africa, Southern Rhodesia or other countries, did not have sustained experience in living in cities, the urbanization of Africans was frowned upon with particular suspicion by planning authorities, town clerks, district commissioners, representatives of municipal ratepayers, and town councilors officially in charge of turning the towns into livable space. While the so-called stabilization of labor became a declared aim of the time, a fundamental reservation pertained against African people’s permanent residence in towns, let alone their entitlement to active social and political participation right there. The provision of social and infrastructural amenities was imaginable and, over time, consent emerged that it