Johannesburg! First Impressions of Southern Africa's Biggest City

Johannesburg, Jo'burg, Jozi.... the largest city, commercial capital and the place to be in South Africa. I was on assignment as an independent consultant in a suburb of Johannesburg for a three month stint. I was very excited to get the opportunity to have an extended stay in the this beating heart of Southern Africa. As with any new place visit, I started reading about Jo'burg and got a varied picture that was exciting, intimidating and confusing at the same time.

Exciting - I was going to back Africa after 29 years. I spent my childhood in a small university town in Zaria, Nigeria. A lot of fond memories had me all nostalgic. I also was going to the haloed ground of two of the greatest leaders of the 20th century - Mahatma Gandhi and (Mahatma) Nelson Mandela. All the songs, skits, plays I participated in my middle school (Blue Bells International) showing Indian solidarity for the Apartheid struggles of South Africans, had me pumped up. and, of course the wild life had the photographer in me almost  expose all my film roles (metaphorically) in glee.

Intimidating - The first thing that pops up when you start researching staying in Johannesburg and South Africa is crime. The crime rates in South Africa are scarily high. Despite precipitous drops in crime rates, its still quite high. It doesn't bode well when an airport website cautions you of no go areas and, not to take public transit beyond the airport connector. An lets not forget the mass hysteria of lumping Africa and Ebola together. But then I live in Oakland CA, which going by some Bay Area residents might as well be another crime infested country. 

Confusing -  A combination of the above two with reading tourism books and individual expat experiences that said South African's are very friendly had me confused about what to expect. Will I be robbed blind with a smile - "Would be kind enough to please part with your money in-lieu of not getting stabbed".

A bit of history

Johannesburg's beginning has its roots in the Anglo-Boer conflict in the late 1800s-early 1900s. With the British trying to rest control of the coast and lucrative diamond mines from the Afrikaners. With the Boer's pushed inland they took up farming on the High-veld areas in the east and around Johannesburg. One day a farmer struck gold which led to a discovery of a very rich and extensive vein of gold. the onset gold rush is the genesis of Johannesburg - the City of Gold. Because of the discovery of gold, and the ensuing economic activity to support the miners, the city was established in the most unlikely of places, leading it to become the only large metropolitan area in the world not near a large body of water. Much of Jo'burg's water comes from the mountains of Lesotho, a few hundred miles to the south. Today it is the commercial capital of much of southern Africa with many financial and banking establishments headquartered in Jo'burg.  

First Impressions

As one experiences any new place, one always tries to contextualize it by comparing it to place one has experiences before. Hence, I've provided my impressions of Johannesburg in the same fashion, through its similarity in feel to places I've experienced before...

It's Los Angeles......Sprawl

Dang its expansive. Freeways, sub-divisions, and cars. the metropolitan area of Joburg gives you that similar feel you get in LA county of massive sprawl. The metro area has a population of 4,434,827 and is spread over 635.12 sq miles (6,982 person/sq. mile. Greater LA is 7,500 persons/per sq. mile). It has several CBDs within its boundaries. The freeways though not as wide as LA, they are extensive. Life without a car is unfathomable. Transportation, it seems, as the primary issue for day to day living of Jozi's citizens. The fragmented sub-divisions of single purpose uses, and preponderances of  malls had my heart sink a little as I was expecting to be in another urbanscape. Unexpectedly, Jozi is also similar in terms of water with LA, with most of the water brought in from hundreds of mile away.

It's Delhi.....Informality and Shanties

Boundary walls and stratified economic classes. If Delhi-ites love to live behind the walls, suburban Joburg residents seem to be hyper-obsessed with security. The high crime rate may justify that, but the site of high walls, razor wire, electrified fences and repeated notices of armed response services, all on the same piece of land is quite intimidating and saddening. Where quaint neighborhoods and active street environments would have meshed perfectly with the Jacaranda trees and honking ibis, one gets a feeling of intimidation as soon as one see another singular soul walking on the same road. The economic stratification though is subdued in sub-urban areas due to the low population, it does unabashedly overflows in the CBD area with loud, noisy and chaotic street vendors, minibus vans and small shops, where the folks are overwhelmingly African and on the lower rungs of the economy. These are the places Western-oriented media indicate has 'intense' and 'unsafe', but for an Indian used to crowd, eerily similar , but different - the people, language and smells are not quite one would experience in Karol Bagh. Although there is a place where that to is exactly the same - the Neighborhood of Fordsburg west of the Jo'burg CBD is where the diaspora from the Indian subcontinent traditionally have resided. There one get pan vendors, bootlegged Bollywood DVDs and Indian groceries like one would in India. Even the beggars were of Indian decent.

The other aspect of being similar to Delhi are its huge townships that give a familiar vibe of illegal or unauthorized colonies of Delhi. While townships are legal, they aren't very well planned or regulated, making them abuzz with informal activity. Soweto with it's storied past, is much more organized as compared to Alexandra (Alex), one of the oldest townships around Jo'burg. Older parts of Alexandra are dominated by shanties that came about when original residents rented out small patches of land on their already small lot to migrants. With the erstwhile Apartheid not wanting to allow any means of self reliance for black South Africans, these townships did not have any provisions of formal neighborhood businesses or transportation. This lead to several residents relying on opening up tuck shops, hair saloons and local bars called shebeens to serve needs of township residents. This also is the reason for the popularity and much maligned ubiquitous mini-bus taxis that ferry a majority of Jozi's population to and from such townships. I will write about them in detail in a follow up post.

It'a Buffalo NY .....Inner city urban decay

On the first weekend, I stepped out to visit the CBD of Jo'burg, where I had scheduled  to a walk tour designed for locals (Pastexperiences.co.za - highly recommended), particularly those who were rediscovering downtown neighborhoods post Apartheid (read gentrify-ers). I took the Gautrain, a people mover planned for the World Cup, but as it happens in many of the Global South cities, was delayed in opening till after. I got off at the Park Street Station and checked my phone map to see how far I had to walk, and proceeded to walk in the given direction. The Park Street Gautrain Station is north of the CBD and is separated by a massive rail yard that services the main regional rail station for Joburg. From across one can see the iconic skyline of Joburg, with various old ornate buildings standing side by side with newer glass and steel skyscrapers. It seemed exciting in the morning light and I began walking towards it only to realize that almost all the buildings in the foreground were distressed. One 20 story building had no windows; the one next to it blacken due to fire. 

The broken window panes and boarded upper floors high above reminded me of my first trip to downtown Buffalo in 2000, with one very jarring exception - the street was hopping mad with activity. This contradicting mix of abandoned buildings with hyper street life was like a scene from a post-apocalyptic Hollywood movie. The mismatch has its roots in the brutal apartheid regime that kept most of the CBD exclusively for white South Africans. Much like the white flight from American cities in the 60s-70s, many of the businesses owned and operated by whites moved out. The flight seems to be far more rapid than american cities, which may have been due to a massive influx of natives from the  hinterlands as well as refugees from the rest of Africa. It is astonishing to find out that almost all the shiny steel and glass buildings in the CBD are either partially or fully vacant. Many of these buildings have been taken over by  refugees, making some of the old tony neighborhoods of Yeoville and Hillbrow a no-go after dusk. the city of Jo'burg even classifies such buildings with a 'Hijacked' use category. Many building owners in downtown jozi have taken to bricking up all lower level doors and windows to avoid being highjacked. Many others are alleged to have started fires in their buildings simply to either claim insurance or drive out squatters.

It's Oakland CA.....Gentrifying

Parts of inner Jozi have been experiencing a revival through a very vibrant art scene, two national universities and the influx of young, energetic Africans. I suspect the world cup in 2010 gave the city government a much needed boost of public investment in mass transit and pedestrian infrastructure that now is fueling the revival of inner city neighborhoods. The heart of Johannesburg, is what most of the guidebooks and travel websites warn about with respect to crime, however, I found it most vibrant and thronging with activity. Sure, if you stuck out like a tourist, you maybe subjected to some harassment or be targeted to be robbed, but me of brown skin, and deliberate non-touristy demeanor found it relatively safe, much the same way I negotiated the big bad streets of Oakland.

Like Oakland, Jozi, is also seeing a lot of revival and revitalization, particularly with a lot of patronage of artists and creative types. The one difference being that Johanesburg probably has a lot spaces for expression due to the fact of high vacancy rates in the inner city, as a result of white flight. With spectacular food joints and stunning street art in Maboneng and Newtown, ethnic quarters, and full of hipster crowds, it felt much like home. Just as my Jingletown neighborhood is filled with a juxtaposition of old, refurbished and new buildings, much of inner Johannesburg has the same vibe of change. Similarly, the brilliance of streetart in both cities made it feel very familial. I felt very comfortable hanging in Maboneng and Newtown.

And just like Oakland, I also heard of the murmurs of gentrification among the inner city residents and artist, stating that developers are new taking over abandoned buildings, and either demolishing and re-purposing them to serve the new rich clientele and moneys coming from the west. It was interesting that where ever I found large, fantastically painted murals, it was right next to some construction or demolition site. It make me ponder that could the formalization of street and graffiti art be the result of land speculators jumping the gentrification gun, by inviting artist to do such works to increase the hip quotient of neighborhoods they want to redevelop.


In the end, if one layers the brutality of Apartheid's impact on urban development, legacies of residents past, and the hope of the post apartheid generation coming into its own, one gets a very unique urban experience. It's layers make it feel familiar as well as unfamiliar at the same time. I love my two months there, and hope I get a chance in the future to experience it again.