On the drive to the North West, having left behind the chaotic city of Johannesburg, plain landscape line up along the road until the landscape falls out of sight and blends into a blur. The stark difference of the makeup of the countryside, its undulating and picturesque mountains and hills, and the busyness of the city of Johannesburg is striking.
The story of industrial development of land is at the center of the difference between the two spaces. The land theme, especially the topic of land expropriation, which is having others by the tenterhooks, whilst others are frothing at the mouth and in certain instances turning erstwhile friends into arch nemesis.
To expand the scope of thinking on the issue of land expropriation, it has to turn into structures with a historic burden. These structures occupy large amounts of land within the city, land that can be turned into residential buildings.
The Johannesburg Municipality, under The Joburg Property Company, manages an estimated 64 000 properties which in total cover 39 000 hectares. Essentially then the capacity of the city is a non-factor because the city has proven that it has the infrastructure-that is inadequately used. Whilst there have been collaborative projects done, commendably so, between the municipality and private entities, where derelict buildings have been turned into residential dwellings, alleviating the scourge of squalor living, these in broader terms have not addressed the issue in its core.
The vicinity in the Ellis Park Stadium and its industrialised precinct as well as the adjoining Johannesburg Stadium being a prime example. How many residential buildings could this precinct accommodate? Turning it to homes for the thousands of people that live on the outskirts of the city and have to commute to the city on a daily basis for work. In addition to the commuters, there are many other people that live in dilapidated buildings within the city.
Johannesburg has not escaped the manifestations of urbanisation and there has seemingly been inadequate planning to counter the migration of people from peri urban and rural areas as well the rest of the world to the Jozi City. Considering that it ranks as one of the continent’s prime economic hubs and claiming to be amongst the 50 largest cities globally, it is easy to grasp why people would want to flock to Jozi’s inner city and its surroundings. The euphoric hope of and/or post ’94, although carrying with it an air of vacillation, was quite telling in Jozi being seen as the promised land.
The United Nation’s statistics collated on urbanisation, coupled with those of the censuses by the government give sufficient heed call on what would be in store for the city in the past couple of years and indeed for the years hence. Indication from the projected numbers show that by 2050, 6 out of 10 people in the world’s developing countries would have made it to the cities. And there is no doubt that Johannesburg, with its duality of a developing and developed city moniker, would see a lot of those people.
There are other occupiers of large amounts of land in the inner city or within the city’s periphery. There are golf courses and bowling clubs too. These land fillers, with their exclusionary elements are not to the benefit of all residents of the city. It is time gentrification begins to spread itself across to white owned and populated spaces too. That in the same way that black owned and populated spaces get turned into spaces of comfort for white people, driving rent and living costs, spaces like the Ellis Park stadium can be turned from being sanctuaries of the white community into a residential area for the working class.
Nestled amongst the Ellis Park Precinct is the Doornfontein Station. Johannesburg train station areas are notorious for breeding criminal activity, from pickpocketing, muggings and robberies. With the construction or rather the revamping of the area into a residential one, such insidious acts will decrease. There are indeed positives that emanate from such wholesome projects, with the University of Johannesburg too, coming to the party with a fully-fledged campus within Doornfontein.
It is critical that the city’s administration, private individuals and entities that own property and land see the unique inner city and surrounding with a different lens, that the most important components of the place at heart, are the people that are in the majority. Therefore, structures that consume a large portion of the city yet serve the minority in that city need to be reimagined.
