Johannesburg Inner-City: The Reality

Joburg shakes off dodgy reputation
2010-09-28 23:02

Johannesburg - It seems Johannesburg is slowly but surely shaking off its reputation as a city which should rather be avoided by tourists.

Andrew Harding, the BBC's Africa correspondent who has been living in Johannesburg for nearly two years, wrote in his blog on Monday: "South Africa's biggest city may well deserve its rough reputation. But it's changing, and trying to shake off some myths."

One of these, according to him, is that people don't walk in the city.

"But the truth is that every day half the people leaving their tiny apartments in central Johannesburg to commute to work make the entire journey, both ways, on foot."

According to Harding, he has been exploring the city for two years "without incident, touch wood".

He told Beeld on Tuesday that the development in Newtown is quite obvious, since there are more people living in the CBD these days and many office buildings are being restored.

Harding said the coverage of Johannesburg during the 2010 SWC definitely helped cast the city in a more positive light, "but it's a very slow process".

When Harding was in Europe after the SWC, people often asked him about crime levels in Johannesburg.

Dawn Robertson, chief executive of the Gauteng Tourism Authority (GTA), agrees with Harding.

According to her, the international media invited to the SWC by the GTA were satisfied with their stay in the CBD.

She feels the social cohesion brought about by the SWC has made people braver.

Jo'burg Renewal Pix

briker said:

Jo'burg shakes off dodgy reputation
2010-09-28 23:02

Johannesburg - It seems Johannesburg is slowly but surely shaking off its reputation as a city which should rather be avoided by tourists.

Andrew Harding, the BBC's Africa correspondent who has been living in Johannesburg for nearly two years, wrote in his blog on Monday: "South Africa's biggest city may well deserve its rough reputation. But it's changing, and trying to shake off some myths."

One of these, according to him, is that people don't walk in the city.

"But the truth is that every day half the people leaving their tiny apartments in central Johannesburg to commute to work make the entire journey, both ways, on foot."

According to Harding, he has been exploring the city for two years "without incident, touch wood".

Click to expand...

An interesting collection of pictures charting Johannesburg's ongoing process of urban renewal. All good stuff!

More can be viewed at:
http://openforum.mweb.co.za/showflat.php?Number=1802460974 :banana:

Explore downtown Joburg on foot!

April 2nd, 2012

Once feared as a gangster's paradise, downtown Johannesburg's restored buildings, flowing fountains and sidewalk art are attracting an unusual breed of tourist - local pedestrians.

"I was born in Johannesburg, but I had never been to the city centre," said student James van Biljon on a guided Saturday stroll with his family.

Johannesburg's city centre was once the heart of apartheid South Africa. During the 1990s, the central banking district became a no-go area as crime soared and companies fled to safer neighbourhoods.

They left behind empty buildings, sometimes occupied by squatters, falling into ruin.

But massive public and private investment -- as well as an army of private security guards -- have reversed the trend over the past decade. Old office buildings have been transformed into lofts, facades have been restored, once dry fountains flow again and scultptures now dot the sidewalks.

While big tour companies avoid the Central Business District to shield their guests from crime, smaller operators are springing up and offering walking tours which are catching on with locals looking to rediscover their own city.

"We decided that on a Saturday we would do a tour in the CBD. We hardly advertised and we had 28 people," said Jo Buitendach, who studied archeology but is now a full-time guide.

"Originally, (it was) mainly young people, from here. Young people of the suburbs have never seen their city, the city their parents talked about. But they have never been to it because they were told it's too dangerous."
Word of mouth piqued the interest of the older generation, and then foreign visitors. Companies have also started booking private tours.

"We have lived in Johannesburg for 22 years. We always drive through the centre, but we never had the chance to walk around," said Hester van Biljon, James's mother.

"And then I read an article on those tours in the newspaper, and I said 'let's do it!' We decided to bring the kids along."

Buitendach knows that her clients, especially from white suburbs, feel like intrepid pioneers.

"It's particularly difficult to sell a tour which is a walking tour, where people are actually walking. It is so unusual here," she said.

Most people who can afford a car drive everywhere, to avoid crime and the spotty public transport.

But the city's fearsome reputation is slowly changing.

"When you come to Johannesburg for the first time, you are told: 'don't go, it's too dangerous!' But we wanted to see more," said Gavin Turner, a tourist from London.

Many typical tour companies simply drive through the CBD as they ferry guests to the Apartheid Museum, said Gerald Garner, who also runs walking tours.

"Walking... is the only way to experience the city," he said. "A lot of my clients come and rediscover their own city."

Many are surprised to find pedestrian streets, sidewalk cafes, stunning renovated buildings and art deco facades. There are some potholes in the pavements, and the homeless are still there.

But there's also a strong African flavour in the city's street commerce, making it feel like one of the continent's vibrant cities.

"It is an incredible adventure for local people. It is as exciting as going overseas, since it is a totally other world at your doorstep," Garner said.

"Before starting my tours, I always ask if people have questions. At first, everybody was asking about security issues. And now it's less and less," he said.

The guides say they haven't had any problems, but they also steer clear of pockets where the city's regeneration hasn't yet taken hold.

Have you ever noticed how some people seem to expect a certain degree of approval when they tell you where they come from? The conversation goes like this: You: Where are you based nowadays? Friend [with self-congratulatory smirk]: Oh, you know, Paris/California/Rio de Janeiro/Rome/New York. You [sighing]: How wonderful. I know, because I’m a part-time inhabitant of Chelsea and Paris and I’ve done it to people myself. The Chelseaite or Parisian expects, perhaps even demands, a faint but definite hint of envy and praise. Other places elicit a different response: You: Where are you based nowadays? Friend [defensively]: Oh, you know, Brussels/New Jersey/São Paulo/Lagos/Turin/Frankfurt. You [patronisingly]: Ha – well, I suppose someone has to live there. Now here’s another pair of examples: You: So where do you live? Friend [smirking]: Cape Town. You [sighing]: Ahhh, how wonderful. Alternatively: You: You live where? Friend [defensively]: Johannesburg. You: [fill in the gap]. In South Africa, foreigners regard Cape Town as the gold standard. It means Table Mountain, the Bo-Kaap, the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront, tea at the Mount Nelson Hotel, antiques shopping in Long Street, dinner in Camps Bay. And because we like to play good city/bad city, we put Jo’burg on the Lagos side of the ledger. Absolute tosh. Over the years, I’ve lived in Johannesburg and spent lots of time in Cape Town, and although I love the Cape, Johannesburg is the place I’d settle in with pleasure. After a couple of weeks in Cape Town, I find myself getting restless and slightly bored. Maybe it’s just a bit too beautiful. Maybe it’s the way people drive: dozily, down the middle of the road, signalling left and going straight ahead. In Johannesburg the cars swarm past on both sides, like white-tip sharks along a reef. The shops open earlier and stay open later, there are more of them and they have a wider range of goods. People come to your house at the time they say they will. Restaurants are more varied and better designed, and even the fish often seems better, though it’s a thousand miles inland. To me, Cape Town feels like a really lovely retirement home, while Jozi, as people tend to call it nowadays (Jo’burg apparently has a faintly colonial whiff to it, even though that’s the name that has been used by everyone from President Zuma to Nelson Mandela) is noisy and challenging and full of life. Above all, the Johannesburg weather is absolutely superb. No nasty winds blowing for days on end, no driving rain, just clear skies and lovely temperatures. But what about the crime? That is what people immediately ask. Well, it’s true that it’s really high in Johannesburg, which takes in Soweto, Alexandra and Hillbrow; but it’s also a problem in Cape Town, which has the Cape Flats. You have to be careful there; in the general atmosphere of pleasantness and relaxation, you forget the pickpockets, the knives and the guns. I’ve not been robbed in Johannesburg; but a gang of tough teenagers once gathered round me like wasps in Cape Town, and I only escaped by jumping into the traffic and running away. Agreed, the murder rate is still far too high in both cities, but it is unquestionably dropping. And you aren’t aware of it in either. Johannesburg isn’t like Kinshasa, where you congratulate yourself every time you get back to your hotel in safety; it’s a lovely, open, green garden city, where everyone smiles and treats you nicely. Sure, there is hijacking and there are stabbings and shootings, but a visitor seldom sees them. And although everyone has heard about the security guards and the electronic alarms in Johannesburg, they have them in Cape Town too. It doesn’t stop the tourists flocking there. I don’t want to put you off Cape Town; I just want you to branch out and see Johannesburg as well. Visit the grand old imperial centre of the city, much more relaxed and pleasant these days. I filmed there solidly for two days recently, and no one so much as spoke to us. Sample the restaurants around the Market Theatre. Drive to Melrose Arch and watch the glitterati hanging out in the bars and cafes. Head for a delightful old colonial place like Melville – less fashionable now, but still full of charming little shops, including one of South Africa’s best antiquarian bookshops. Wander down the tree-lined avenues, with the brilliant flowers bursting out from every garden, thriving in the finest climate the entire planet can boast. Then tell me if you think Cape Town, for all its glories, can match the buzz and glamour of Egoli, Jozi, the golden city of Johannesburg.


www.telegraph.co.uk


Stick that in your pipe Kaap Staad.

I have lived in a city with a murder rate of more than one a day but would never have concluded from my personal experience that it was that high. Statistics mean little to an individual in real terms. I have travelled to many cities around the world, some considered dangerous but was never a victim of any crime except in the city where I grew up and spent the first 22 years of my life. Whether you become s statistic or not depends on a lot of thing, including your own behaviour. I let my guard down in ,y own city and boom, got hit.

I have been to Capetown and walked around at all times of the day, never had anything happen to me. I was but worried because of what I had heard and read. Then I heard, Capetown is not as bad as Johannesburg. I met a fellow in George, who showed me the scar on his arm and his abdomen, thanks to Durban.

'I have heard that you don't hang/walk around the Park Station Johannesburg and never walk alone in CBD after dark/ The same city could be safe for one and not for another. I have also been warned to avoid the Jo'burg Pretoria Train (Not the Gautrain).

I am going to be in Johannesburg on Monday. I try to use public transport as much as possible. I used the suburban mertorail in Capetown a lot. Here is My question. Is it advisable to arrive in Jo'burg on the Pretoria - Leralla - Johannesburg train and walk to my hotel Near Gandhi Square? I know it's a silly question, but I do need some opinions from those who know the city well.

Thanks in advance