Editing Soweto (section)

====Aftermath====
[[File:Diepmeadow Council, 1982.jpg|thumb|Diepmeadow Town Council, Greater Soweto]]
In response, the apartheid state started providing electricity to more Soweto homes, yet phased out financial support for building additional housing.<ref name="UNU-II-5">{{cite book|title=The Urban Challenge in Africa: Growth and Management of Its Large Cities|last1=Beavon |first1=Keith S. O. |editor1-last=Rakodi |editor1-first=Carole|publisher=[[United Nations University Press]]|year=1997|location=Tokyo |chapter=Part II: The "mega-cities" of Africa; Chapter 5, Johannesburg: A city and metropolitan area in transformation |pages= 150–191 |isbn=92-808-0952-0|url=https://archive.org/details/urbanchallengein0000unse|access-date=16 November 2009|url-access=registration}}</ref> Soweto became an independent municipality with elected black councilors in 1983, in line with the Black Local Authorities Act.{{sfn|Grinker|2014}}{{Page needed|date=July 2021}} Previously, the townships were governed by the Johannesburg council, but from the 1970s, the state took control.<ref name="UNU-II-5"/>

[[File:SowetoNewRevolution.png|thumb|A man takes a nap while riding in the bed of a pickup truck in Soweto, South Africa, Freedom Day, 2006.]]
Black African councilors were not provided by the apartheid state with the finances to address housing and infrastructural problems. Township residents opposed the black councilors as puppet collaborators who personally benefited financially from an oppressive regime. Resistance was spurred by the exclusion of blacks from the newly formed tricameral Parliament (which did include Whites, Indians and Coloreds). Municipal elections in black, coloured, and Indian areas were subsequently widely boycotted, returning extremely low voting figures for years. Popular resistance to state structures dates back to the Advisory Boards (1950) that co-opted black residents to advise whites who managed the townships.