Johannesburg in decline—an urban tragedy unfolds

SA has since 1994 been in slow but steady decline, aside from a sunny interlude of brisk economic growth under former president Thabo Mbeki. It is not contested, even by ANC supporters, that by virtually every important political, social and economic statistical measure we have gone backwards.

But a series of snapshots, capturing change over time can be a more vivid way to comprehend the scale of the loss. This might explain why a series of posts on X has, over the past few weeks, captured public attention.

The Jozi vs Jozi (@jozivsjozi) account, using the Street View function of Google Maps, each day juxtaposes then and now pictures of the same slice of Joburg roadside real estate.

TimesLive, which tracked down the account holder, who chose to remain anonymous, reports he was motivated by disappointment at how SA’s economically most important city had “devolved” in provision of basic services and crumbling infrastructure.

The “then” pictures, mostly from 2010-2013, and the “now” pictures, a year or two ago, have geotags that identify the exact spot where they were taken. It’s not a pretty picture.

What an optimist might describe as “bursting with life”, the Google cameras record as impoverishment and despair. Magnificent public parks are now colonised by the homeless.

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In some frames, Joburg looks like a war zone. Shelled buildings and cratered streets, war-weary refugees sheltering under improvised bivouacs in the lee of crumbling edifices.

Rubbish is heaped on corners. Water – or sewage? – seeps down the street. Massive potholes, broken gutters, upended kerbstones and random boulders are impromptu road hazards.

Reality is more mundane. Jozi is not at war, except perhaps with itself. The wounds are self-inflicted, the result of decades of civic neglect, municipal corruption and infighting over the division of spoils between politicians.

Depending on how you count, since one mayor made a brief repeat appearance, there have been nine mayors since 2019, each more useless than the previous.

Last month, Kabelo Gwamanda, of the minuscule Al Jama-ah party, was the most recent mayor ousted. He has since been arrested for allegedly swindling residents in a funeral insurance scam.

The countrywide response to the Jozi vs Jozi tweets is a measure of the continued importance of Egoli, the once-fabled city of gold. Johannesburg remains the financial and industrial hub, contributing 16%-20% of SA’s GDP.

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But the blows come thick and fast. On Wednesday, the Joburg Roads Agency admitted that 702 of the city’s 902 bridges are “in danger of structural failure”. A dozen, based on visual inspections, are in “imminent danger of collapse”, which is suspiciously fewer than the 25% that Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse assesses as “unsafe to cross”.

Johannesburg’s woes, replicated in every SA city, are a subset of Gauteng’s woes. Also this week, the Gauteng City-Region Observatory released its latest Quality of Life report.

The province is in continued decline and the index is at its lowest point since it was calculated 15 years ago.

Some politicians still don’t get the message. Herman Mashaba was at pains to exclude the DA, with its generally more efficient and honest governance record, from the Joburg mayorship deal he recently reached with the ANC.

He is sanguine about the city’s prospects. “Johannesburg is not as bad as Germany after World War II, which was nearly flattened. If the Germans can do it and the Rwandans can do it after their genocide, why not Joburg?”

Jozi’s anonymous tweeter has another view. “Johannesburg,” he told TimesLive, “is one of the greatest urban tragedies I have seen.”

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