South Africa

January 2005

  
Yeoville's rocky road, (The Star, 2005-01-22):-Time Square in Yeoville may never have quite lived up to its famous near namesake in New York - but for years it was the throbbing heart of Joburg's nightlife and the favoured watering-hole of stars like the late Brenda Fassie. Over the years, though, Yeoville's myriad problems changed the area's social and physical structure, driving it to the brink of becoming Hillbrow's twin. Today, walking along Rockey and Raleigh Streets, you can see the evidence of poor urban management and decay. The dilapidation of once vibrant streets is apparent. Yeoville ... became a bastion of apartheid defiance, spearheaded by a strong and heterogenous chapter of the ANC. . Gone are the synagogues, traditional businesses of note, bookstores, health shops and delis. Empty buildings stand in contrast to the plethora of bars that swamp the area. An economic depression is visible, tangible to many uninspired local and foreign entrepreneurs who try to make a living from selling the same wares - fruit and veg, arts and craft and telephony services - on the streets. Even more ruinous are the interweaving threats that hang over the community, including alcoholism, overcrowding in houses and flats, slack enforcement of by-laws, apathy, undercurrents of xenophobia and little empires being run by gangs. It wasn't always like this - and plans are afoot to restore the suburb to its former glory. Yeoville is one of Johannesburg's oldest suburbs. Once home to a large community of Hasidic and other Orthodox Jews, 90% of its occupants were whites; the only black people legally allowed to live there were domestic workers. Yet Yeoville became the melting pot of change long before the political winds brought democracy to South Africa. Maurice Smithers, a community activist and the director of facilities management in the Gauteng Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Environment (GDACE), recalled the days when Hillbrow was Johannesburg's traditional night spot. "For some reason in the late Seventies the centre of the entertainment space moved into Rockey Street, which was traditionally a residential place - an area of white immigrants, students and artists. "By 1985 there was a bohemian, trendy ambience to the place with clubs, bars, funky clothing stores, bookshops and record outlets occupying the commercial arena. "But parallel to this was a slow migration out of Yeoville and Bellevue from the original residents to the new suburbs on the outskirts of Johannesburg." Smithers said black people were also illegally moving into the area under the nominee system, whereby the names of white people were used to disguise their origins. An academic assignment titled Yeoville and the New South Africa, a Case Study in Urban Policy, noted: "Yeoville in the late 1980s became a bastion of defiance, spearheaded by a strong and heterogenous local chapter of the African National Congress." Karl von Holdt, who works for Cosatu's research institute called Naledi and is an executive member of the Yeoville Community Police Forum, remembers: "Increasingly over that period, black activists who were internally exiled and harassed by the police in their community stayed in the servant quarters, pretending to be servants, and hid out in Yeoville." At the same time Rockey Street was renowned for good times and nice meals. It was an "alternative community". Yeoville then represented what a "free South Africa" could look like. Historically, Rockey and Raleigh streets were the commercial hub where the needs of the community were served. Then, with the unbanning of the ANC in the Nineties, the suburb underwent radical change. In the book Confronting Fragmentation Housing and Urban Development in a Democratising Society, on racial integration and ethnic change in Johannesburg's inner city, the authors write: "With the removal of legislative constraints on residential locational decisions, black households have migrated to the inner city from the former townships and from rural areas, as well as from other African countries." This transformed the suburb. Coupled with the fact that landlords raised their lease prices, this change convinced many traditional businesses that it was time to move on. Many had also failed to embrace the political change in this transitional period. The whites gradually moved out to other suburban nodes such as Rosebank and Melville. Negativity ruled. Property plummeted, with banks red-lining areas in Yeoville, and urban management declined. Smithers, of GDACE, a Yeoville resident himself, said the post-apartheid council had inherited complex challenges of extending service delivery across Greater Johannesburg, which contributed to a general decline. But from the bottom of the barrel there was no way but up. And last month's announcement of the Yeoville regeneration initiative by the Johannesburg Development Agency's (JDA) has engendered hope. Raleigh and Rockey streets are poised for a R70-million rejuvenation. According to the JDA, it is "part of the City of Johannesburg's urban regeneration strategy, which aims to attract new investment into the area as well as to restore the street to its former glory as the symbolic heart and soul of Yeoville". JDA project manager Sibusiso Buthelezi said feasibility studies had been done on upgrading Raleigh and Rockey streets, and the strip had been identified as a "potential economic node". The street redevelopment is predicted to take five years, passing through the following phases: 1: Urban management, featuring by-law enforcement, a better buildings programme, an environmental awareness programme and the introduction of CCTV cameras and CID (City Improvement District) officers. 2: Built-form development in which the physical environment will be upgraded, the civic node developed, the road aligned and attention paid to parking and the taxi rank. 3: Economic redevelopment, incorporating an economic development plan, monitoring and evaluation of informal trade and a social development plan. 4: Marketing and branding, which will entail a marketing strategy plan and communication. Throughout this process, the City of Johannesburg will be involved with civic utilities and the JDA. Financed in part by the council, provincial government and private sector, the rejuvenation requires more funds, which are being sought from such sources as the lottery. But some of the challenges faced by this project concern urban management issues, such as enforcing by-laws. Once this was ironed out, said Buthelezi, "the rest would follow easily". Another challenge was getting support from the private sector: "It is there, but it needs to be concrete and sustainable. We would like to see the private sector responding to this by investing in the area, and property owners maintaining their properties. "There are businesses operating on land zoned for residential purposes, street hawkers operating in areas not designated for them, owners no longer maintaining their properties and not investing in them to make them attractive," said Buthelezi. Neighbourhoods would always change, but if change was not managed undesirable effect often followed, he added. Nomaswazi Mohlala, the councillor for Ward 67 (which includes Yeoville) said she believed the revamping of Raleigh and Rockey streets was just a beginning. "Since I came to Yeoville, the revamp is the first project from the government ... but even in the councillors' budget we will be extending the recreation centre and making it into a community centre. And it will take off before the JDA." Yeoville has a vision, and Smithers is passionate about its future. The Eighties won't be coming back, he concedes without regret: "Those days are gone. ... Yeoville now has a pan-African diverse cultural ambience." For him, making this area an African Cultural Precinct does not seem impossible "but the focus must be on serving the needs of the local community first". Von Holdt agrees: "We should take the good things [Yeoville has retained] and create something new."  
South African Migration Project (SAMP) - Queen's University - http://www.queensu.ca/samp