For those who have never lived in Joburg or visited it, it is a city of myth and legend. Up there with New York, Lagos, Rio de Janeiro and Kingston.

The skyline, with Ponte City towering over the Berea flatlands, the Hillbrow and Sentech needles puncturing the horizon, the rust-coloured koppies, the light, the beauty and the squalor render this one of the world’s iconic cities.

It is like a beacon on Africa’s southern tip which, for centuries, has drawn entrepreneurs, grifters, refugees, traders and swindlers.

Its pioneers planted the biggest urban forest in the world while they dug out the gold below. Its penti­mento is ever-present for those who remember or care to look.

So much so that Johannesburg features as a central character in just-published literary offerings by two great South African writers, Niq Mhlongo’s The City Is Mine and Ivan Vladislavić’s The Near North.

No other South African city gets that kind of cred.

Silence is golden

Last week I spent three days in Joburg for work – two nights in Westdene, bordering Sophiatown.

Many visitors to the region prefer Sandton or Rosebank as a landing spot – newer, shinier cities within the big city.

It’s the malls and the restaurants, the ease of movement with the Gautrain and e-hailing, and the uniformity of the buildings, shopping offerings, sidewalks and shops that lend Sandton an air of civility and panache.

The biggest developments have been glass tower blocks housing legal and financial headquarters, health industry big names and consultants. There are myriad upmarket “security villages” surrounded by eerily empty streets.

But it is in organic suburbs like Westdene, which is sandwiched between Melville and Sophiatown (formerly Triomf, formerly Sophiatown), Braamfontein and Auckland Park where the city shows its face without makeup.

It is also here where you can find and explore the heart of Joburg. It is outside those neat verges and borders of the shinier suburbs that the city’s creativity in food, fashion, art and culture blossoms and is at your fingertips.

For two nights and early mornings in Westdene, a Friday and Saturday, I stood outside listening to the sounds of the city. They’re as important as the sights.

There were party whoops and music late into the night, dogs barking, cars passing, but no sirens. I listened both nights but heard not one, unlike my suburb in Cape Town where they shriek at all hours.

The thing about sirens, as much as they are annoying, is that they are signs of life, human beings rushing to the aid of other human beings in distress.

Either no one was in distress those two nights in Joburg, or the vehicles equipped with sirens were busy elsewhere. More likely that emergency vehicles were not working at all, quipped a Johannesburger.

Whatever the reason, the silence was noticeable.

Blossoming

Though a trip to downtown Joburg, Joubert Park, Hillbrow and Braamfontein revealed a city bursting with life, worship and trade, the Pikitup strike left it looking as if a trash tsunami had hit.

Still, residents got on with their lives between the piles of steaming litter and political posters promising better.

They flocked to the dozen churches that line the city streets and offer succour; they bought and sold vegetables, as people do in Maputo and elsewhere.

All over there are signs of life, residents and businesses doing what a series of coalition governments has not been able to do. Some are cleaning their own verges, filling their own potholes and taking care of their own parks and recreation areas.

In Westdene, the founder of Madame Zingara, Richard Griffin, has opened a corner restaurant, Emzini, of a kind that has brought diners back to suburbs like these.

On the morning I had breakfast there, a brass band of youngsters marched through the streets, stopping here and there for a donation. In the parking lot a family set up a pop-up business braaing meat while washing cars.

Across the way is the Westdene Dam, which was set for a multimillion-rand makeover in 2016 already. Griffin has become involved in making the area blossom to its full potential and creating safe spaces.

Sewende Laan, Melville, inspiration for the long-running Afrikaans serial that came to an end in December, may not be what it was in the 1990s or 2000s, but nothing stays the same, ever – it just gets different. Today 7th Ave is pumping with restaurants and happy, young late-night revellers.

Joburg residents who have put up with endless water and power outages are angry with those elected and expected to lead this metropolis.

They deserve better, this they know, and hope that perhaps not in these elections, but certainly after the next municipal polls, Joburg could roll into a cycle of stability and growth run by people who care about and are proud of this uniquely African city. DM 

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35