Richard Ballard

Chief Researcher: Gauteng City-Region Observatory, Wits University and University of Johannesburg, University of the Witwatersrand
Richard Ballard trained in the field of geography at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and the University of Wales, Swansea.

One of his research themes is on the relationship between the ideals of spatial transformation and real world processes that produce urban space. Under this theme he has published on attempts by developers to secure permission to build major projects; the policy turn to mega projects within the public housing sector; the role of construction labour in producing walled suburbs and the production of space in Gauteng Province.

A second area of interest is the way in which residents of South Africa's cities form identities in relation to the places where they live and the people who share these spaces. Publications on this theme are on white responses to urban desegregation, gated communities, the place of plants and animals in cities, social cohesion and changing scales of identification.

A third area of interest is urban governance and politics, with publications on local government elections, participatory governance processes, social movements and everyday resistance.

Recent publications

Ballard, R., and Barnett, C. (eds) (2023). The Routledge Handbook of Social Change. Abingdon: Routledge.

Ballard, R., and Barnett, C. (2023). ‘Apprehensions of Social Change’. In Richard Ballard and Clive Barnett (eds) The Routledge Handbook of Social Change. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 1-16.

Ballard, R. (2023). ‘Everyday resistance: theorising ow the “weak” change the world’. In Richard Ballard and Clive Barnett (eds) The Routledge Handbook of Social Change. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 303-314.

Ballard, R., and Mapukata, C. (2022). South African Urban Imaginaries. GCRO Research Report 13. Johannesburg: Gauteng City-Region Observatory.

Ballard, R., Butcher, S., Joseph, K., de Kadt, J., Hamann, C., Mapukata, S., Mkhize, T., Mosiane, N., Parker, A., and Spiropoulos, L. (2021). ‘Scale of Belonging: Gauteng 30 Years After the Repeal of the Group Areas Act’. Urban Forum. 32(2), pp. 131-139.

Ballard, R., Jones, G.A., and Ngwenya, M. (2021). ‘Trickle-out urbanism: Are Johannesburg’s gated communities good for their poor neighbours?’ Urban Forum. 32(2), pp. 165-182.

Ballard, R., Hamann. C., and Mkhize., T. (2021). ‘Johannesburg: Repetitions and Disruptions of Spatial Patterns’. In Lemon, A., Donaldson, R. and Visser, G. (eds) South African urban change three decades after apartheid: Homes Still Apart? Cham, Switzerland: Springer, pp. 33-55.

Ballard, R., and Hamann, C. (2021). ‘Socio-Economic Segregation and Income Inequality in the City of Johannesburg’. In Maarten van Ham, Tiit Tammaru, Ruta Ubarevičienė and Heleen Janssen (eds) Urban Socio-Economic Segregation and Income Inequality. Cham, Switzerland: Springer. pp. 91-109.

Ballard, R., Hamann, C., and Mosiane, N. (2021) Spatial Trends in Gauteng. GCRO Occasional Paper 19.

Ballard, R., and Butcher, S. (2020). ‘Comparing the relational work of developers’. Editorial. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space. 52(2), pp. 266-276.

Ballard, R., and Harrison, P. (2020). ‘Transnational Urbanism Interrupted: A Chinese developer’s attempts to secure approval to build the “New York of Africa” at Modderfontein, Johannesburg’. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space. 52(2), pp. 383-402.

Ballard, R., (ed) (2019) Social Cohesion in Gauteng. GCRO Research Report # No 10. Johannesburg: Gauteng City-Region Observatory.

Ballard, R. and Harrison, P. (2019). 'Transnational urbanism interrupted: A Chinese developer’s attempts to secure approval to build the ‘New York of Africa’ at Modderfontein, Johannesburg.' Environment and Planning A. 52(2).

Ballard, R., Dittgen, R., Harrison, P. and Todes, A. (2017). ‘Megaprojects and urban visions: Johannesburg’s Corridors of Freedom and Modderfontein’. Transformation. 95.

Ballard, R. and Rubin, M. (2017). ‘A “Marshall Plan” for human settlements: how megaprojects became South Africa’s housing policy’. Transformation. 95.

Ballard, R. (2017). ‘Prefix as policy: megaprojects as South Africa’s big idea for human settlements’. Transformation. 95.

Ballard, R. (2017). ‘Governance and development’. In Douglas Richardson, Noel Castree, Michael F. Goodchild, Audrey L. Kobayashi, Weidong Liu Richard Marston (eds.) The International Encyclopaedia of Geography: People, the Earth, Environment, and Technology. London: Wiley-Blackwell.

Ballard, R. (2016). 'Whiteness and the end of apartheid - Review of Falkof, Nicky (2015) Satanism and Family Murder in Late Apartheid South Africa: Imagining the End of Whiteness. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan'. Journal of Southern African Studies. 42(5), 1021-1022.

Ballard, R., Nel, W., Hill, T. and Maharaj, B. (2016). 'South African Geography at 100'. South African Geographical Journal. 98(3), 403-404.

Ballard, R. (2016). Review of Daniel Conway and Pauline Leonard (2014). 'Migration, space and transnational identities: the British in South Africa', Ethnic and Racial Studies. 39(13), pp. 2427-2429.

Ballard, R. (2016). ‘Community and the balkanization of social membership’. Dialogues in Human Geography. 6(1), pp. 78–81

Ballard, R. (2015). ‘Geographies of development III: militancy, insurgency, encroachment, and development by the poor’. Progress in Human Geography. 39(2), pp. 214–224