Due to its speciality, Johannesburg has drawn wide attention from the international academia, which the existing urban theory cannot easily explain. This paper focuses on the spatial pattern of Johannesburg, and finds that it is highly fragmented: first North-South Division due to apartheid and gold mining, secondly, the continuous sprawl due to population densification, and thirdly formation of city-region due to the fill-in spatial policy. The fragmented spatial pattern undermines the social integration and weakens the potential economic sustainability, which make the balanced multi-core spatial pattern inevitable under the influence of the international planning thought. The Johannesburg’s spatial transformation comes not only from social integration, but also from the development vison of world-class status of an African city. In reality, since the collapse of apartheid, the municipal government has released series of strategic planning in different executive phase. These different plannings unanimously focus on the world class status although since 2008, the social inclusiveness is more emphasized. Thus, Johannesburg implements some spatial policies, as promoting the corridor of freedom, identifying the key nodes in the city then developing with high density, implementing the in-filling policy, managing the urban growth boundary, effectively preserving the natural system. However, the industrial structure in Johannesburg is already quite high-ended which cannot produce many jobs and also require much investment in advanced infrastructure.
Thus, the strategic goals of world-class status of an African city and social inclusiveness which really need widely shared public services to some extent are in tension. After evaluation, we can see that spatial transformation is quite limited. Obviously spatial transformation largely depends on the social-economy. The population is still in flow. In this sense Johannesburg must energetically support the employment-based industry, effectively control the spatial sprawl and carry out institutional innovation which further incentive investment, gradually build an integrated regional governance. In general, how Johannesburg combines globalization and its own condition is still worth thinking in both theory and practice.