Hillbrow, Johannesburg

The following post is based on the above Aljazeera video about life in contemporary Hillbrow, accounts from a friend of a friend who visited Hillbrow a few years ago and an article by a South African white sociologist. Check out "Race Relations and Racism in a Racially Diverse Inner City Neighbourhood: A Case Study of Hillbrow, Johannesburg" by Alan Morris. My friend of a friend visited Hillbrow with an Indian Muslim from Botswana and their car was apparently stolen, although it was not parked in Hillbrow. My friend told me the following about his friend and the Indian Muslim's adventures in Hillbrow via google chat:

My friend was there

  said it was interesting

  but akin to hell

  beggars

  crowded and teeming

  prostitutes everywhere

  lots of abortion stores

  churches

  street foodit was active and really cool

  but evidently a very dangerous place

  saw people simply laying on the ground

  passed out drunk

  or high

From the little research I've done into the history of this fascinating Joburg neighborhood, its transition from whites-only to black slum parallels the transformation of many cities in the US. By 1986, the apartheid government abandoned any attempts to prevent black migration into white-only parts of the city as defined under the Group Areas Act. Black townships were already overpopulated and Hillbrow had excessive available housing for squatters and tenants. During the economic upsurge of the 1960s, the trendy white neighborhood of Hillbrow experienced excessive housing development, including high rises, so it was inevitable that colored, Indians, and blacks would defy the Group Areas Act in search of better housing. Facing economic recession in the 1980s and 90s, the South African government was unable to invest in housing for black South Africans so the movement toward Hillbrow accelerated in 1982 when the Supreme Court banned prosecution and eviction of non-whites living in white neighborhoods unless housing could be found in that person's own racial group's defined areas. Indeed, conditions were so horrible in black townships and "Bantustans" that black flight to the inner-city led to blacks living in squalid conditions in rooftop domiciles in places like Hillbrow before the apartheid government gave up on preventing interracial neighborhoods in Johannesburg. However, the article I read focuses on the brief period in the early 1990s before massive white, colored and Indian flight, when whites were still almost 20% of Hillbrow's population in the early 1990s.

Relying on survey data from residents in the neighborhood, it becomes clear that income, race, age, and the amount of time individuals lived in the area impacted their attitudes towards racial difference. Since apartheid South Africa defined cities and urban spaces as white and civilized, blacks were only accepted in the city proper to provide servile roles, such as domestics or maids for white families. However, with the collapse of enforcement of the Group Areas Act, white South Africans who grew up or spent the majority of their lives in neighborhoods such as Hillbrow, living in a world where the only blacks they saw in the neighborhood were domestics and servile, the shift to majority-black by the end of the 1980s shattered their definition of public space. These hordes of Africans were perceived as harbingers of urban decay, uncivilized, criminals, and their racial pride or references to the ruling ANC party, threatened the comfortable worldview of white South Africans. The elderly, especially those too poor to move out, displayed the most overt racism. Indians and Colored also voiced anti-black prejudice and stereotypes, which is to be expected given their intermediate status between blacks and whites in the apartheid racial hierarchy. In fact, Indians, colored, and whites mostly accepted the negative stereotypes of Africans as dismantling urban, civilized respectability and maintenance of public spaces. Thus, ALL Africans are blamed for unorthodox uses of doors, poor upkeep of property, using one-bedroom flats for entire families, and hosting parties late into the night.

Regardless of the plethora of stereotyping and perceived threats whites and others felt about the African majority in Hillbrow, most races lived in apartment buildings that were monoracial or mostly occupied by the same race, so social interactions and friendships were often limited to people belonging to the same race. As mentioned previously, however, class dynamics come into play since whites and others were more tolerant of racial difference if their neighbors were more educated or seemingly close to dominant notions of proper city living. Younger whites, especially those moved to Hillbrow more recently, tended to be more liberal and often enjoyed civil if not friendly relations with black residents. Indeed, some whites described blacks as being kinder or more well-mannered. Whites terrified by black rule and the militant attitudes of black South Africans describe the situations in the street as being the most dangerous, not interactions in apartments. For instance, whites sometimes felt forced into showing deference for the blacks who, under apartheid, were once forced to move out of the way of whites on the street. Of course, one must also keep in mind that the white South Africans, who reported racial incidents occurring far more frequently than other races in Hillbrow, were likely exaggerating some of their interactions with blacks due to stereotype threat. According to the study, Africans reported racial incidences at the lowest frequency, but given their position as the majority in Hillbrow in the 1990s, whites, colored, and Indians were likely compelled to show some semblance of respect or acceptance for blacks on the streets or risk actual violence, physical or verbal.

One of the major limits of Morris's study, however, is the lack of attention given to immigrant communities established in Hillbrow. He mentions Nigerians and Francophone Africans, who appear in the documentary, actually, but their interactions with black South Africans is not analyzed. Neither are the details of the Indian and colored flight from Hillbrow analyzed, although given their position in the racial hierarchy, most were able to escape to suburbs, like whites. Morris actually concludes the study by showing how, just as in the US, the inner-city became equated with crime and blackness, leading to suburbanization becoming the symbolic space of whiteness and middle-class respectability. Although the reverse seems to be the trend now in the US, South African cities like Johannesburg are experiencing the same type of urban-suburban migration once idolized in the US. Given the horrendous and corrupt management of the ANC, it's no surprise people of all races would want to escape the muggings, homelessness, rape, vacant buildings, and frequent blackouts that plague life for inner-city Johannesburg. Yet Hillbrow continues to be a center for African immigrants and refugees working in South Africa. The Aljazeera feature includes interviews with Nigerian and other immigrants, some escaping war, others poverty, who find a way to survive in Johannesburg despite the frequent problems. Police corruption and targeting of immigrants, as well as xenophobic attacks from other black South Africans, hardly contribute to Hillbrow as an ideal place of escape either. Either way, these immigrant communities find a way to survive in the once beautiful Hillbrow neighborhood, which may experience revitalization in the near future, although that is likely wishful thinking on the part of some.

In the future I will have to conduct some research into the immigrant communities in Johannesburg, South African suburbanization, and race relations between and among Indians, colored, and blacks. Who knows, perhaps I'll make it there myself one day to see the wondrous ruins of inner Joburg, which is reminiscent of Detroit in some ways (white flight, disinvestment, poor governing, and blight). The numerous examples of ailing infrastructure, barred former businesses, and inferior services is hardly new to South Africa, or the US, for that matter. The National Party clearly showed they were not investing in housing for black South Africans while simultaneously ensuring widespread rural poverty that triggered urban migration. For racists and conservative whites, the example of Hillbrow, once one of Johannesburg's best neighborhoods, reduced to a site of crime, undocumented immigrants, substandard housing and services, is irrefutable evidence of the inevitable consequence of racial integration or black rule. The same can be seen in the US, where the presence of blacks in majority white neighborhoods is a sign of declining property values and criminality. Redlining and racism are not considered as likely factors in the aftermath of white flight, but clearly parallels between the Johannesburg and US cities reveal entwined racist institutional structures.

The following link is a great example of the collapse of one of the best examples of high rise apartment complexes, Ponte.