All that is gold does not glitter: The Johannesburg CBD has fallen to rack and ruin, with broken infrastructure and decaying, neglected buildings. The Jozi My Jozi initiative aims to rebuild and reinstil pride in the inner city area. (Marco Longari/AFP via Getty Images)
Not long ago, downtown Johannesburg was a glowing comeback area, a bastion of regenerated urban success.
In the run up to the World Cup in 2010, the CBD seemed to rediscover its stride, retaining established and attracting new corporate investment, enticing young professionals and artists to vibrant downtown districts and delivering successful public infrastructure projects.
Joburg is making global headlines again — but not for the right reasons.
On 19 July, a blast rocked the CBD, ripping apart Bree/Lilian Ngoyi Street for five blocks. The explosion injured dozens of people and claimed at least one life.
Details of the exact cause are still sketchy but one thing seems clear — the disaster was a symptom of infrastructural neglect.
Before the dust could settle over the disintegrating city, a second tragedy unfolded. Just over a month later, on 31 August, a fire engulfed the building at 80 Albert Street.
After 1994, this building, a former apartheid pass office, was converted by the city to accommodate a community clinic and women’s shelter. Neglect of the facility, by the same city that had repurposed it for civic good, led to its closure and dereliction.
By the time of the fire, the structure had been illegally occupied by destitute and vulnerable people — desperate people seeking a better life and opportunities.
The blaze spread rapidly between the makeshift living spaces, and with emergency exits locked, 77 people lost their lives in the flames.
Both tragedies would seem to have been preventable.
According to the 2023 World’s Wealthiest Cities Report, Joburg remains the richest city in Africa, and the metro’s own slogan still declares, proudly, that it is “a world-class African city”.
Would a functional, let alone “world-class”, city fail to maintain basic public infrastructure or disregard the well-being of its most vulnerable citizens?
How did Joburg end up here?
The CBD, the heart of the city, founded in 1886 on some of the world’s richest gold deposits, has witnessed its fair share of change and upheaval in its short lifetime.
Johannesburg grew rapidly from a mining camp of makeshift tents and tin shacks in the 1880s to an Art Deco metropolis by the mid-20th century.
Within less than a century, a city of imposing modern skyscrapers towered atop the dusty mining claims. Joburg’s surface was gilded, but the Golden City, and the economy that supported it, was built on the back of cheap labour and artificially boosted by oppressive apartheid segregation and restrictive exchange-control laws.
The reasons for the CBD’s decline are nuanced.
Trends towards decentralisation and the rise of motorcar culture lead to the demise of many American inner cities in the late 20th century. These factors, coupled with unsustainable property rates and taxes; a shortage of parking and poor planning policy, certainly played a role in the Joburg CBD’s descent.
However successive states of disaster, political instability, shaky economic conditions, rising crime and a heightened climate of fear as the apartheid state began to crumble in the 1980s accelerated the initial wave of corporate flight.
The fortunes of the CBD seem to track South Africa’s political climate.
The 1980s exodus came at a time of political tension and uncertainty. With the peaceful transition to democracy in 1994, the tide of decline seemed to ebb. Many large institutions, notably key banks and mining houses — the bedrock of South Africa’s economy — remained downtown.
The relative economic and political stability of president Thabo Mbeki’s administration in the early to mid- 2000s heralded a period of renewed growth. Public infrastructure projects, such as the Nelson Mandela Bridge and Constitution Hill, as well as transport, green space and affordable housing projects, were successfully rolled out and private investment began to return.
The derelict turbine hall in Newtown was repurposed as a Blue Chip mining head office. New insurance offices were constructed in Ferreirastown.
Main Street was reimagined, with wider pavements, urban greenery and alfresco cafes.
Corporate anchors, such as Anglo American, FNB, Absa and Standard Bank, invested in beautifying and upgrading their city precincts.
Trendy nodes began emerging in areas such as Braamfontein and Maboneng, attracting creatives and young professionals back to town.
Mixed-use cities are sustainable cities and a successful CBD is a place where people can access work, entertainment, healthcare, education and housing — a “15-minute city” — despite lingering issues including hijacked buildings, negative perceptions of crime and patchy urban management.
For a moment it seemed Joburg could become a sustainable, vibrant, 24-hour node again— a live, work, play city. But, urban areas are living organisms and change is constant.
Post 2017, the inability of the national government to self-correct after years of state capture, coupled with load-shedding, low economic growth, a pandemic and lack of visible or competent civic-level leadership, have hammered the CBD.
In 2020, the last remaining mining house announced its exit from Marshallstown. Although the four big banks still maintain a presence in the CBD, and apparently remain committed to their downtown locations, rumours persist that they too might follow suit.
The city administration seems oblivious to the new wave of corporate flight or, worse, they simply don’t care.
While private capital has underpinned Johannesburg since its inception, the responsibility for enabling and sustaining an attractive city environment, conducive to private sector confidence and investment, rests with the elected administration.
The city’s decline is a symptom of a floundering public sector.
Joburg has become a city where urban management and service delivery exist only as empty promises, made by public officials who are seemingly more concerned with the correct pronunciation of Moët than addressing urban decay.
It’s not over, though.
From the beginning, Joburg has had a can-do spirit. Now, a private sector coalition of key stakeholders, including Anglo American, Nando’s, FNB, Standard Bank, Investec, Absa and Microsoft, is determined to rekindle the city’s golden glow.
Called Jozi My Jozi, the initiative, which aims to create hope and instil pride in Johannesburg, draws inspiration from the Love NY Campaign, launched in 1977, to reverse blight in the Big Apple.
Last month, Anglo American donated its 45 Main Street Building to the Maharishi Invincibility Institute. This first phase of Jozi My Jozi will see an education hub established in Marshallstown and plans are already underway for Wits Business School to join the precinct.
Jozi My Jozi is not just about big business’s interests and it is clear the campaign needs to unite both corporates and everyday Joburgers in working together for good.
Bold action is required to revitalise the city. It’s unlikely that large corporates will return but Joburg must look forward. The city must focus on attracting the next wave of entrepreneurs and startups.
The CBD is ideally positioned to provide repurposed, connected, hybrid office, retail and living spaces.
The creation of new urban plug-and-play environments could attract 21st century urbanites and must provide convenient access to good quality, affordable housing; educational facilities; health services; specialist and convenience stores; places of recreation and tech-enabled, shared work and business incubation spaces.
Bad buildings could be cleared to create much-needed urban green lungs — food gardens, spaces for relaxation and recreation.
Cities such as New York and even Detroit in the US provide excellent case studies — urban areas that suffered similar dereliction and capital flight, but bounced back, developing on new paths. Joburg’s sclerosis is not unique and can be overcome; the city can still live up to its “world-class African city” aspirations.
But the private sector can’t succeed without an active and engaged city government and initiatives to rescue the city desperately need the support of a professional, competent and engaged public sector.
Let’s hope change is finally on the horizon and that Joburg can again claim her title as the ultimate comeback kid!
Brian McKechnie is an architect, heritage consultant and inner-city property owner. His work focuses on Johannesburg heritage and inner-city projects.