Gerhard's Reviews > Great Johannesburg: What happened? How to save an African economic giant

No Joburger takes kindly to Cape Town being portrayed as a ‘model city’, especially when it is probably even more racially and spatially segregated than Jozi. This is a good primer, especially if you have international friends who think we live in the jungle, but it is quite repetitive, despite its short length.

I am still scratching my head at Nickolaus Bauer’s main argument: that Joburg started out as a mining camp due to the Gold Rush, which did not even have a proper water source, and quickly turned into a pit of iniquity, criminality, and general dodginess that continues to contribute to, and aggravate, the city’s woes to this very day.

So, Joburgers must be ‘hustlers’ to survive, especially those nimby (not in my back yard) whites who balk against densification, live with a false (and damned) sense of self-security, refuse to walk the streets of this great city, and vote DA by rote in the hope that the urban renewal fairy will wave their magic wand. The rest of the time? They just moan and complain while the city crumbles around their ears.

While that is partially true – we are great complainers – South Africans are also resilient and resourceful. I personally have been mugged twice, and everyone in my close circle has similar stories, including a hijacking/kidnapping (where they steal you and your car, drive you around for hours, and get you to phone your family for money or they threaten to kill you.)

We moved out of a neighbourhood we loved after coming home one evening (yes, we slowed down to check if we were being followed, and if there were any loiterers [or walkers] about) and still someone popped out of the shadows and put four bullets into the garage door after we had just closed it.

This was the last straw. We had lived through someone opening a shebeen in their backyard in the next street, which ran 24/7 with impunity during the lockdown. A brothel opened right across from us (with Mercedes Benzes and the occasional Porsche dropping by at God knows what time at night).

A dodgy German property owner sublet the beautiful old house next to us, and the tenants themselves promptly sub-sub-let the property, which turned into a commune with numerous babies squalling night and day. They kept on flushing nappies down the toilet and blocking the sewerage system, which caused raw sewage to seep out of the manhole in the street.

Oh, and a water pipe burst on the other side of the road, causing the pavement and part of the road to collapse (the brothel was literally teetering on the edge of disaster). It took months to bring this to the attention of the correct city officials, as apparently the middle of our street was the demarcation between two wards, and neither councillor would assume responsibility.

I still have close friends in the area who are hanging on by tooth and nail and I am part of two neighbourhood groups. In my new area, we got into trouble for contributing to a residents’ fund to hire a local contractor to fix potholes. Apparently, the nimby whites are not allowed to be proactive.

More people are going beyond the usual ‘Boer maak ’n plan’ attitude (white nimbys always have a plan) and are becoming involved in local activism and neighbourhood social responsibility. This extends beyond policing substations to prevent cable and transformer theft to genuinely caring for the people in the neighbourhood. And dogs and cats.

The GNU (government of national unity) which resulted from the last national election has yet to filter down to a municipal level. Joburg’s latest mayor had to retract his statement post haste that the Joburg Metro Police Dept would be happy to employ foreigners to fight crime, when he knows that Joburgers are both nimby and xenophobic. Poepol.

The nimby whites did recently venture into the decaying heart of the city to protest against the ongoing closure of the Joburg Library. I think it’s been four years now while the city is apparently fixing the fire protection system.

Bauer does not mention the Great Joburg Library Saga, which is part of a broader debate about the government’s disdain for ‘culture’ as either appropriation, a Western import, or both. Neither are the Great Healthcare or Universal Living Wage debates mentioned, which have all the nimbys clutching their pearls and medical aid cards.

My main problem with the book is that it is heavy on the Sturm und Drang of Joburg’s self-implosion, while the supposed advice and quick-fix tips are either so obvious they are useless, trite, annoying, or all three. Like:

The misconception that the city is not suitable for walkers is irrational and largely down to ignorance.
Here Bauer quotes French philosopher Michel de Certeau, who declares that “walking within any urban environment leads to a profound impact on all human experiences and connections.” I get the point, but that ‘profound impact’ is more than likely being bliksemed with a gun or any object at hand in Jozi.

Or:
Crime is just a reality you have to contend with…
The fact that “almost 50% of Joburgers love on less than R2 000 a month [$112] and spend up to 40% of their income on transport” is, sadly, indicative of South Africa as a whole, and not just Jozi.

Or:
The biggest fraud in South African history was committed by a whiteowned business that sat at the heart of the Afrikaner establishment and rivals Enron – America’s biggest fraud in history.
What about State capture, mmm? And speaking about America, they can take their hegemony and voetsek.

Or:
The apathy from Johannesburg’s citizens is the main issue that got the city into the political mess it finds itself in the first place.
A resounding ‘No’ to that last one; it was the DA being hardegat and refusing to play nice in the coalition sandpit.

Also, ‘redlining’ is not necessarily a racial or private sector practice that is dooming such neighbourhoods to return to their lawless mining camp roots, as Bauer insists (like a diehard nimby himself.) It is endemic to global capitalism. As Fanon wrote in ‘The Wretched of the Earth’, there will never be proper decoloniality without violence.

And a bunch of gatvol nimbys will be a force to be reckoned with.