Richard Tomlinson outlines a truly African scenario for Johannesburg in the 21st century
Mayivuke, an inner-city vision and development strategy for Johannesburg, was launched with fanfare and great expectations a year ago. But its vision was vague and unrealistic, probably because it was not underpinned by an examination of economic and social trends.
Business leaders point to the turnaround of some American inner cities and predict a similar turn-around in Johannesburg; but a turn-around to what? The orderly, well- managed Johannesburg that many mourn was premised on apartheid and exclusion.
Many of the changes we have seen in the inner city are irrevocable. The shift of leading business and financial services to the northern suburbs cannot be reversed. The growth of major suburban retail malls is here to stay; shopping downtown, a fond memory for older northern-suburban residents, is a current reality for Sowetans.
Business leaders sometimes show a peculiarly static view of the world, as if change would not have occurred if integration had not come about. But the exodus from the inner city was occurring at scale before it began to change; it was prompted by the desire for prestige, low-rise space in a garden environment.
The visioning process that led to Mayivuke concluded that Johannesburg was a city without pride. Worried by many of the changes in the inner city and uncertain about the future, participants united behind what they disliked: crime and grime and poor service delivery.
We need to find our own future in the economic, political and social changes that have occurred in the inner city. This optimistic, African scenario for the Johannesburg CBD in the year 2010 takes the high road because it assumes certain public interventions and private investments. But this is possible if there is shared perception of the future and a sense of common purpose in the public and private sectors and in the community.
There are 15 key trends that will shape the future. In a number of cases, public-sector intervention, premised on the principle of economic and social inclusion, will help make it happen.
Trend 1: Reporting as if from 2010, the first key trend is that the old CBD has shrunk. Many of the traditional economic functions – advertising, legal offices, diverse financial services – left for the northern suburbs and the inner city became just another business centre, albeit a large one.
It also became increasingly clear that some of the large property companies invested unwisely in large office buildings outside the CBD’s real commercial core and these are being used for non-commercial purposes.
Trend 2: Many of the buildings are now decidedly mixed-use. Although many C- and D- grade buildings are being used by small businesses for clothing manufacture, wholesaling and so on, without conversion taking place, offices and some manufacturing and municipal premises have been adapted to new uses.
Trend 3: Rather than simply fading away, the CBD is consolidating and, in the commercial core new office buildings are going up.
The environment in the inner city became much more attractive and the large property- owning companies sold many of their buildings to small and medium entrepreneurs, unions and empowerment groups.
And the inner city acquired a reputation for style and appealed to a certain market niche.
Trend 4: Spurred by the conversion of the Carlton Centre and hotel, conversions were successfully targeted at the middle class.
Trend 5: Considerably enhancing the middle- income residential market was the provision of quality inner-city education for the children of residents.
The schools were the brainchild of a private investor who saw the opportunity of a poorly serviced, two million-strong market living south of the inner city, along with the availability of cheap premises in the inner city, and matched need to the market. This service helped to stabilise the better- off population which would otherwise choose to leave the inner city in search of schools in the suburbs.
Trend 6: The restructuring, once again, of the retail sector. During the 1980s and early 1990s, certain major retailers and nearly all speciality stores relocated to malls in the suburbs, while other major retailers reoriented their operations to serve the black market.
To the rescue came the “tourist shoppers”, half-a-million of whom cross the border monthly, mostly heading for the Johannesburg inner city to sell goods, and then to stock up on goods to sell back home. The tourist shoppers use the wholesalers whose stores open on to the streets, rather than the major chains; and, together with shoppers from the townships, they have helped to change the feel of the retail environment.
The goods brought south by the tourist shoppers and the “bazaar” atmosphere started to attract tourists.
Trend 7: There was a phenomenal growth of black-owned small and medium manufacturing businesses, with close links to Indian businesses, to serve the new inner-city market. The inner city served the two critical constraints facing small business: access to a growing market and access to capital.
The initial location of black small business in the inner city was a response to violence in the townships and the decline in apartheid controls, but finding so lucrative a market, the businesses took off. Access to capital only started when development finance moved into the inner city with new small- and medium-enterprise financing vehicles.
Trend 8: The eighth key trend was the increasing popularity of South African jazz and rock bands and, in the case of the inner city, the emergence of a particular musical style. South African bands have, for example, been developing crossover music incorporating township, Western and other African influences. With the increasing popularity of South African bands, the clubs at which they play became ever more attractive.
The inner city acquired a street chic, so the best-selling T-shirt label in Sandton City isn’t Billabong or Quicksilver, but carries the name of an inner-city club, and is produced in the inner city. The preferred location for a fashion show nowadays is a converted inner-city factory.
Trend 9: Along with this street chic came mass entertainment in the inner city. In the past, with all its symbolic value, Johannesburg was the preferred venue for labour protests and taxi blockades.
Nowadays, the activities most likely to block the streets are weekend rock concerts, athletic events, street theatre and craft markets. Retailers set out to compete with malls by creating events that would retain inner-city workers.
Trend 10: Housing remained an issue until people realised the inner-city population, by and large, was not that poor. The residential population had largely switched from white to black – except for pockets of Indians and Chinese who successfully resisted forced removals – but most black inner-city residents were relatively skilled and well-off with exceptionally low levels of unemployment.
They were able to pay for services and for rent. Many households were able to buy the flat they lived in. A few private property owners in Joubert Park and Hillbrow showed it was possible, with strong management, to maintain blocks of flats and make a profit, and this set the example.
Trend 11: Not seeing a positive future for the inner city, the corporates sold their inner-city assets, or used them in black empowerment deals. Instead of six or so companies owning 70% to 80% of the commercial property market, the number went down to 40%. There are now many more small property owners and a number of unions own property, often in partnership with the former property company.
Trend 12: Despite these positive trends, a certain number of buildings were abandoned. Due to lack of maintenance, the high cost of converting the buildings to an alternative use and the limited demand for that use, some of these buildings had to be imploded.
The city took ownership of buildings where rates and services payments were outstanding and used them to reshape the inner-city environment, creating two much- needed inner-city parks, making land available for housing and moving a taxi rank off the street.
Trend 13: The re-regulation of the taxi industry, resolved at national and provincial level, brought considerable benefit to the city. Taxi violence disappeared and taxi stands were introduced.
Trend 14: Along with the regulation of the taxi industry went a degree of formalisation of informal trading around taxi stands and train stations, and regulation of informal trading elsewhere.
Trend 15: The streets are immeasurably cleaner and safer. With the businesses and residences that inner-city residents own being affected by dirt and by the convenience and safety of visitors, citizens and businesses work with the government to maintain the city.
Looking back on these changes, the surprise is how much they matter. Many decision- makers were prepared to abandon the city centre. Sandton was to be the new city centre and the old CBD would become a wasteland, mute testimony to the point where the rich (mostly white) north and poor (mostly black) south met.
Nowadays people boast about Johannesburg, about the style it has developed and the fact that it is at the cutting edge of South African culture.
Richard Tomlinson is a consultant in urban economic development and visiting professor at the Graduate School of Public and Development Management at Wits University