Hillbrow is a central suburb of Johannesburg where you don’t want to linger at any time in the day. “It’s notorious for violent crime,” said my guide as we drove along the streets with the windows closed and doors locked. He remembers the joy of coming here as a boy to a video game shop, but now wants to get away as quickly as possible.

Even the private security firms that have sprung up in Johannesburg to defend people and their property apparently don’t want to accept contracts here because they don’t want to ruin their good reputations. Drugs are openly dealt on the streets, there are seedy strip joints aplenty and residential buildings are seized and occupied at will.

On another side of the city it’s a different story. In Maboneng – just to the east of the Central Business District (CBD) – you feel like you are in London’s Shoreditch district. Artists have reclaimed former warehouse buildings which had been left abandoned and turned them into trendy galleries, attracting both tourists and locals wanting somewhere to chill out. The walls of buildings are treated like giant canvases and are covered in colourful graffiti.  

Visiting early this afternoon, I stopped in a lively courtyard set back from the main street where people were enjoying lunch at the trestle tables. As some enjoyed a salsa dance class on a raised terrace, the area around me was packed with people drinking coffees and eating tasty burgers – and being Sunday, roast dinners were also flying out of the kitchen (I feel a bit of a traitor to my country for not having one).  

On the stretch outside, where artists sold their colourful wares on the pavement, I found more trendy coffee shops, as well as pizza restaurants and bars boasting craft beers. A little further along, there was also the 12 Decades Art Hotel with eye catching art works in the foyer.

 
What I found here was urban rejuvenation at its best. While crime is falling in the CBD – where Johannesburg first sprang up as a mining town little more than a century ago – it still exists, to the extent that huge hotels stand as empty shells because security is still considered inadequate and many businesses still see it as a no go area.
Many international visitors confine themselves to Johannesburg’s plush northern suburbs with modern shopping malls, like Rosebank and Sandton, but it’s nice to see determined people wanting to make a difference closer to the CBD.

For me finding Maboneng was a real treat and a perfect spot to take a break during a busy day of sightseeing (where I discovered much history, which I’ll chart in detail at Pastinthepresent.net in the coming weeks). My hope is that what has occurred here can be replicated elsewhere in the city and Johannesburg can shake off its reputation as a place of crime.