I'm glad I found this. I recently returned to my native city after a stint overseas, and like letheomaniac, find it interesting to see how Jburg is perceived by foreigners. I was particularly interested to read JK's opinion, as I've reading reading his blog for several months and find it interesting.
However this column I found hugely disappointing, to the point of almost disregarding anything I now read from him. It was just plain wrong. Glaring factual inaccuracies, and a clearly jaded bias in many respects - but apart from all that, just a massive self-exposure of JK as a fraud and a hypocrite, no better than those he spends so much time criticizing. It is this hypocrisy that bothers me the most. I will probably continue to read his articles because I do enjoy his writing, particular his metaphors and analogies of the current financial mess, and I also strongly agree with his sentiments regarding motoring and private transport in general.
When I first read the column I was almost annoyed enough to write him an email about it, but figured what's the point - he'll just delete and forget. Now, here, 1-2 other people might read it too!
I was disturbed enough by his comments that I went for a ride (by bicycle) in and around Melrose Arch to see for myself what he found so impressive - also I hadn't been there since since some years ago and was curious to see how it had changed. The pictures supplied are clickable for the originals, for which I apologize about the quality, they were taken on an aging camera-cell phone.


    I was in Johannesburg to give some talks at the invitation of an architecture firm, Osmand Lange, who had designed an outstanding New Urbanist project of some 35 acres in the otherwise Los Angeles-style illegible suburban sprawl north of the old central business district. The project, called Melrose Arch, was an ensemble of five-story buildings in a set of mixed-use, dense blocks rich with good public space -- a rare thing
[Swoop] It is not rare, it is just more of the same "illegible suburban sprawl". I had a good look around for all this public space. I'm not sure what he meant precisely, I would've thought some greenery or benched areas (besides bus stops) people can gather as they wish. Below are some photos of the situation. There is no greenery at all within the Arch itself, only around it, and it's not exactly user-friendly space. The most obvious empty public space is the nicely tended (on MA budget?) park across the road, part of a natural hunk of land that used to also be made up of the land MA now takes up. I think it may have been part of the golf course which is further south.

in this otherwise ultra-fortified security state of gated estate houses, malls, business "parks," and freeways.
    In fact, in the car coming off the very long flight from North America, with what felt like a brain-pan full of screaming weevils produced by jet-lag, I kept on wondering if I had somehow landed in LA by mistake, so similar was the palm-studded terrain and most of the objects deployed on it. [Swoop] Like letheomaniac, I'm not sure what Joburg he was seeing here. Trees aplenty, but not a whole lot of palm.
After a day or so of brain rehab, the differences became more apparent.
    I spent virtually all my time there in and around Johannesburg ("Joburg") a world-class-sized city of nearly four million (in a sprawling metro area of over seven million). The official race segregation called "apartheid" was dismantled starting in 1990 by then-President F.W. de Klerk after several decades of struggle and resistance. With the population of about 50 million [Swoop]  40 mil in 94 at roughly 80 percent black African, nine percent white, and the rest mostly Indian and Malay, South Africa's first full-suffrage national election in 1994 yielded government to the African National Congress party (ANC) led by the long-time political prisoner Nelson Mandela. The casual observer must assume that the choice for white South Africa at that time was between accommodation and suicide.
    A state of rather tense provisional accommodation has reigned since then. The most conspicuous feature visible to someone from the US was the huge numbers of black Africans everywhere, but especially those traipsing or waiting along the the secondary highways in a country with very poor public transit. It looked like some kind of refugee stream from a distant war zone, but I was assured that it was just the normal flow of daily life.
[Swoop]This is one rather large area the government completely failed its people - providing adequate and affordable public transport.
      Along the same lines, the numbers of black Africans employed in service jobs absolutely everywhere is also impressive. Every cafe, restaurant, and commercial venue was bursting with redundant labor. Where in the US, you might see ten employees in a given bistro, in South Africa there were thirty. Caretakers, maids, yard-men, pool-men, door-men, parking valets, waiters, cooks, attendants of every kind worked constantly in the background of the still-economically dominant white culture. Laws require the redundant hiring, and it must function as a safety valve of income. Among these black service workers were huge numbers of security guards posted everywhere, overseeing the non-human security apparatus of gates, checkpoints, and electronic entry portals that define the fortified white world.
[Swoop] white world? Very, very wrong. In some of the most exclusive suburbs, especially near Melrose Arch, you're just as likely to find a black resident as a white.
      After apartheid fell, white business fled the large central business district of Joburg for the northern suburbs[Swoop]Wrong again, the flee from Jhb's central decay began in the early 80s. My family had a house in Berea, a suburb just on the outskirts of Jhb central, and we moved house in 1983. Within a few years, that area plus the adjacent one (Yeoville) were overrun with drug dealers and prostitutes. Businesses fled from the CBD all through the 80s, and it largely culminated with the Johannesburg Stock Exchange moving north in the late 90s , establishing an alternative universe of drive-in offices, malls, and gated housing "estates" (what we call tract housing). Meanwhile, the skyscraper district -- about the size of Denver's -- was abandoned for a while. It was never abandoned, squallor and crime settled in as soon before the dust of the previous tenants even settled. Squatters moved into forty story towers, even after the elevators stopped working. Other buildings were just stripped of valuables like copper wire and fixtures. Now the downtown has been officially reinhabited and many of the former office towers have been refitted for apartments. But the elevators are still often broken and in 2007 a series of rolling electric blackouts [Swoop]Another failure by government to act - no new power stations built since late 80s, but demand rose (predictably) hugelymade life miserable there. I had to wonder what the future of that place was, given how much it costs to really maintain a skyscraper over the long haul. My guess is that the decay must necessarily outpace the attempts at upkeep when these places are owned, in essence, by slumlords.
    On-the-ground downtown, the streets were so clogged with people hurrying in chaotic flows along the sidewalks that the place took on the character of an immense termite mound. I was in a car -- what else? -- and was told it was not a good idea to go exploring on foot there. Much of South Africa's notorious crime -- number one worldwide in rapes and assaults per capita and second in murders -- takes place in the center city. There is plenty of friction, too, between South African black nationals and black refugees from places in crisis like Zimbabwe who sift down there by the millions and compete for income. But in the social hierarchy, the center-city dwellers enjoy advantages less available to the dusty township slumdwellers of distant Soweto, southwest of the city.
    Soweto was established first as a kind of barracks area for workers in the gold and diamond mines that run in a straight line for several hundred kilometers east-west across a geographic rift south of the city center. The topography is visible even from a car on the freeway, where the old gold-mine tailing heaps bigger than the pyramids of Egypt glisten in the sun along the rift line. Another feature that kind of defines the ambience of Soweto is the remains of the old cyanide factory -- a chemical used in processing gold ore.
    Today, Soweto has grown to an aggregation of about one million people living in various low-rise conditions ranging from vast districts of cardboard shacks and tin-roof shanties to what have evolved into streets of middle-class houses and even a few mansions. Up until the fall of apartheid, the government severely limited the amount of retail amenities that could be established in Soweto, so the inhabitants had to travel ten miles at time to buy household goods. Probably the weirdest thing about the life of Johannesburg and its companion Soweto revolves around the abysmal lack of public transit. [Swoop]This is not just a Jhb/Soweto problem.
      Every day the denizens of Soweto fan out northward to work by means of taxi-cab. A gigantic system of metered cabs um, what? Taxi-vans are not metered at alland mini-vans, many in desperate disrepair, driven with infamous recklessness, serves the metro area's poorest citizens. A colossal taxi "park" (parking lot in our lingo) near the freeway entrance to Soweto's closest-in township dispatches all these vehicles to another massive taxi park in downtown Joburg, with van or taxi connections at each end to take commuters further. This exercise consumes around four hours of misery every day, in traffic that almost always turns Joburg's freeways into yet another a taxi park twice a day. Returning to Soweto after a day's work, some people have to make two or three additional taxi connections to get home through the sprawling townships. Many cannot afford this and the shoulders of the connector highways off the freeway in Soweto were filled in late afternoon with streams of people heading home on foot, some burdened with bundles, some carrying things on their heads.
[Swoop]Actually the problem of affordability has become such that day labourers often will spend the week sleeping in parks or near small rivers to save daily transport costs when their income is not fixed
    The sheer monetary expense of doing all this must be out of this world for people with not much to begin with. Somehow, the insanity of it has been established as "normal," and there were few signs that the government -- now black-majority, after all -- was planning to rectify the situation. There are plans to run a new subway line across town[Swoop]The Gautrain will be neither affordable nor practical for most Sowetans - it's a fix-up for the FIFA circus, but at this point it is conceived mainly as a connector to the main airport. The South African rail system -- like America's -- is completely inadequate, and the mandatory motoring program so deeply ingrained -- and associated with the extremes of security and fortification -- that no workable consensus for getting beyond the current situation can be formed [Swoop]One would think that the fear of car-jackings and whatnot might inspire people to consider other transport means.. but no. Otherwise, the government was getting ready to host the World Cup of Soccer this summer and was preoccupied with directing its planning resources to that. [Swoop]Pointed out I think, but the World Cup is 2010
      The casual visitor can see a pretty clear gradient of social and economic hierarchy in the two parallel worlds of white and black South Africa[Swoop]No, twenty years ago that was the case, but now it is a clear gradient between haves and have-nots - those "rich white" areas are highly populated by blacks and Indians. There is a cohort of educated urban blacks now established in business [Swoop]Yes, the Boardroom Revolution alumniand the bureaucracy that obviously stand above those working in service jobs and those who are essentially bumpkins coming in from the countryside or the "bush" or from the failing nations to the north. Like any upper crust, the educated blacks in good jobs seal themselves off from the lower ranks -- though politically, there is a pretense to identify with them[Swoop]False, they don't want to identify with poor blacks any more than residents of Hollywood want to identify with residents of trailer-parks in Arkansas. This black upper crust has only been in charge of things for a decade and a half.[Swoop]Only 15 years? Obviously they have not yet been able to address problems like public transit yet[Swoop]So explain what it is you expect the Obamasiah to do in his maximum of 8... , but it was unclear to me whether all the other categories of things there, from electric power to health services, were being managed capably. [Swoop]See letheomaniac's succinct summary
    There are as many political factions among the black majority as there might be in any sizable nation. Friction between them sometimes leads to violence[Swoop]Every election so far... . Corruption is not on the level of the infamous "kleptocracies" straddling the equator[Swoop]yet, but it is far from unknown. Right now, the nation awaits a national election coming up in April and the near-certainty that Jacob Zuma will be elected the new president. His ascent is widely dreaded by the white minority [Swoop]False again, there are MANY people of all colours and creeds who feel he is a terrible choice for a president, who broadly regard him as a thug.
    This white minority appears to carry on with the "normal" tasks of daily life [Swoop]And everybody else does what?not unlike what you would see in Europe and North America. But close to the surface you detect a resigned fatalism. Their old center has not held and things for them could fall apart at any time[Swoop]It's not just their centre... it's the entire de'mock'racy system. The evacuations of whites that occurred with the shift to black-majority government in the 1990s have tailed down[Swoop]You know what's gone up, despite not being talked about much? The black evacuation. I'm not even sure how conscious the whites are of their own base-line nervousness, though the multi-layered apparatus of security, with all the locks, gates, and video cameras speaks for itself. I find it a little hard to understand that you felt this is all some fear of.. what, a black rebellion. All this security is not race-related (race of the criminals notwithstanding); it's a result of an arms race. Up to a point criminals deal with alarm systems and immobilizers and whatnot, but after a point it's not worth their time and effort and it's a lot easier to just stick a gun in front of a family as they're driving into their home, follow them in, let them unlock doors and safes and disarm alarm systems, tie them up, load their car full of jewellery and electronics, and be off. If shooting the gun becomes warranted, so be it.
    The combination of the fortification mentality with compulsory motoring has left Johannesburg with a conspicuous scarcity of shared civic space. It's hard to beat the USA for this, but South Africa has managed to. The architects and developers who designed the Melrose Arch project tried to supply something that was otherwise non-existent in the country [Swoop]First drive-thru mall, complete with cameras all over the brick-paved streets, yes wonderfuland they did a very good job. All the classes of the various races were present there -- whites, blacks, and Asians -- sitting in the outdoor cafes, often at mixed tables [Swoop]Christ man, in 1995 this was something to comment on but come on, we're way past this already, while the virtually all-black service class puttered and watched in the background. The nicely-scaled main square felt like the only tranquil, open, safe public gathering place in the entire metroplex. The health club down the street where I dropped in three times in a week reflected the mix of races, too, as did the offices and business establishments.



Melrose Arch was a brave experiment.[Swoop]Bollocks. It's an office park/drive-thru mall, all the yuppies have to do is drive from one parking lot straight into another and do their shopping at the high-end stores, sit at the over-priced bistro etc.. The best part of its design is that it's in a valley and thus invisible from any hilltops.  Its development coincided time-wise with the more-or-less peaceful [Swoop]boardroomrevolution out of minority rule starting in the 1990s[Swoop]The real war which has been going on for some time is the one between criminals and their victims. The murder rate in SA hovers around 50 per day; multiply that over 10 years and suddenly calling it a war doesn't seem such an overstatement. There have been some copycat wannabe spin-offs of it in other parts of the city[Swoop]No, actually IT is the copycat, of the office park shopping centre marriages that occurred more by chance than design, but nothing nearly as successful either as an economic venture or a civic amenity. [Swoop] I think it's a touch early to be calling it an economic success.
    On the whole, you got the feeling that all the multicolored upper crusts of South Africa were largely tuned-out to some larger forces gathering to shake up their world -- in particular the energy crisis that has moved off center-stage temporarily while banks and national economies flounder everywhere[Swoop]Not really, but then we're used to foundering and unstable economies, crazy inflation, huge fuel price hikes and of course, the resultant crime, all of which the first/western world is likely to see in spades. The energy crisis will return. South Africa has coal and nuclear power, but not enough generating capacity to stay very far ahead of an ongoing shortage of electric power. They have a pretty robust coal-to-liquids program for helping to fuel all the cars [Swoop]On this I am unsure, but highly interested to know what the real deal is. I know in the apartheid years Sasol was our main fuel supplier, but since then our fuel price has been extremely dependent on Rand vs US$ and crude oil prices... can't help wondering if Sasol has been making out like a bandit the whole time.-- but they also import a lot of regular oil and are at the mercy of oil states elsewhere in Africa who resent them. The white majority [Swoop]For the last time, this is NOT just a threat to whites... Out of curiousity, are you aware of the ANC's strong sympathies toward Hamas?
seems to ignore the fact that their future hangs by the rather flimsy threads that hold together the combined motoring-and-security systems that protect them. The story there is hardly over.
    On the way out, I had one of those experiences that bizarrely defines a place. I checked into the business-class lounge at the airport only to find that no toilet was available there. They just didn't have any. I was sent outside down the concourse to find one. "It's Africa," the old expression goes.


Business class eh... no wonder the gush factor was so ridiculously high. And looking at all the mistakes made, I can't help wondering how error-prone and prejudiced all his columns are, and if maybe his entire outlook is just... wrong.


Sorry about that, mucked that post right up! I'm pretty sure I hit preview but instead it submitted the post - long before it was ready! I hadn't finished uploading the pics even.  AND I can only post once per 24 hrs, and didn't realize editing remained open - Thanks Hermit - so I thought I had to wait until today. Anyway, here are the pics:


Beautiful palm trees everywhere! That's the east-facing side of Melrose Arch. That is a central north/south highway (the M1). (Ponte tower just behind the pylon for anyone who knows JHB.)


Some open space I did find within MA...



Even if they green it... "Here we are kids, let's sit and watch everyone in the underground parking! Yaaay!"



The central road of MA... I don't see what the big deal is architecturally. It's not particularly aesthetic IMO.



A rather ugly building at the one end of MA. Looks like a possible prison, no? From home to home for Dear Yuppie.



Some more green public space! If the traffic ever quietens down, there's the comforting crackle of the high tension cable. That's the view of MA from the south. The road running along the left side forms the left border, and that's the highway again on the right. The north side is also framed by road, no greenery or open spaces there.
I think the pic shown in the JK column was the most photogenic angle of the most photogenic place in the area.

One of the reasons I found this article annoying was I'd recently read a very similar one from almost JK's journalist-equivalent nemesis - Jeremy Clarkson of Top Gear.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/jeremy_clarkson/article5821586.ece
I think what Hermit said about visitor's visits being somewhat blinkered by personal guides and all would apply quite strongly to that one. And I guess part of my disappointment in the JK column was that he didn't see through it. Like Letheo said, it makes me somewhat doubt what I read of other people's experiences, even supposedly credible ones.

Hopefully this is formatted properly now and all works fine. Thank you for your time.