An October 2025 Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article on Johannesburg titled “Welcome to Johannesburg. This Is What It Looks Like When a City Gives Up” has rankled more than a few Joburger feathers. Comments on the article’s Instagram suggest the one-sided point of view amounts to a smear campaign or propaganda.
For what purpose, none of us can be sure, but with the looming G20 summit, there are certainly many eyes on this “world-class African city”. Anyone living here can attest to the steady decline in infrastructure since 2010, but to say the city has given up reveals a lack of understanding of the people who live here.
In a city as sprawling and diverse as Johannesburg, asking residents how they feel about it will yield vastly different answers. Before you ask anyone what they think of Johannesburg, first ask where they live. Someone in Fourways or Midrand will have a different understanding of the city than someone in Parkview or Parkhurst, likewise residents of the inner city, Sandton, or Alex. The WSJ article went as far as quoting an ex-Joburger, now living in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Johannesburg’s diversity of neighbourhoods gives the city its electric character. Drive just a few kilometres and you’ll find yourself in a completely different world. This makes the city difficult to navigate as one needs to have a grounded understanding of its make-up. Yes, there are unsafe areas and places where infrastructure is particularly dismal, often those occupied by immigrants whose livelihoods are under threat from an increasingly xenophobic local government. But that’s a topic for another day.
What the WSJ article failed to do was listen to the people who actually live and work here, those who know Johannesburg’s complexities and contradictions better than most. This is what I am doing by talking to city tour guides. My PhD research on walking tour guides in Johannesburg has introduced me to some of the most committed interpreters of this city. In light of the WSJ article and the growing chorus of negativity about Johannesburg, I want to share three lessons I’ve learned from them. Lessons that can make us all better citizens: be curious, be active, and be understanding.
Be curious
Kennedy Tembo of MicroAdventure Tours is a self-described “corporate dropout”. He left the corporate world to start a tour company that encourages people to take mini adventures in the city, on foot or by bike, with coffee or a cocktail in hand. Kennedy is also an avid reader of Joburg’s history, fascinated by its colourful characters. His passion lies in “connecting the dots”: asking why places are named as they are and who the real role players were.
“I’m so passionate about this city,” he says. “It inspires me so much from where it started. And now, I appreciate Joburg more than before when I was in corporate... When you dive into the details, into how interesting it all became, it gave me a different love and passion for the city.”
Kennedy’s curiosity should inspire us all. It’s easy to fixate on what’s broken, but digging deeper, asking why things are the way they are, often reveals something far more compelling.
Another aspect of curiosity is letting go of the fear of being judged or targeted when you find yourself in unfamiliar spaces. Charlie Moyo of LocalPlaces is a collector of stories; on his tours, you’ll hear the stories of the people behind the businesses you visit. Charlie explains that “it’s hard to connect the city... it’s separated, yet it still feels very close”. Crossing the invisible lines between neighbourhoods, he says, is part of what makes Joburg so fascinating.
He uses the Ethiopian Quarter as an example.
“We go to the Ethiopian Quarter… you see a lot of Ethiopians and you are the only one there that is not Ethiopian; it’s a fear of being judged. But what you don’t realise is actually those people want you to come... They want to share their culture, their food, their stories.”
To not give up on a city is to be curious about its details and unafraid to explore. Johannesburg may lack vineyards, a sea or a mountain but it offers stories hidden around every corner for those brave enough to look.
Be active
Ayanda Mnyandu of City Skate Tours is another passionate advocate for Joburg. Growing up in Troyeville shaped his open-minded approach to the city and its people. He rejects the “victim mentality” that so often colours conversations about Johannesburg.
“Nothing will change if people see themselves as helpless victims,” he says. “I’m not saying it’ll change your life fundamentally, but just from a mentality perspective, by saying ‘I’m empowered, I can do something’, you fundamentally shift the way you see everything.”
He believes the same applies to how we look at Joburg.
“If all you ever focus on is the ugliness of Joburg, it’s the worst city in the world... We’re not saying it’s perfect. We know everything that’s wrong with Joburg. We go past some of those places every day. We just try to contextualise it.”
He distinguishes between structural issues (like infrastructure, which falls under government responsibility) and people issues, things ordinary residents can change, like littering, noise pollution or disrespecting shared spaces.
“There’s always something you can do to make it a bit better for yourself,” he insists.
The Johannesburg Heritage Foundation offers an example of collective action. Run by volunteers, the foundation campaigns for the preservation and use of heritage buildings, most notably leading protests that resulted in the reopening of the Johannesburg Library. On a recent Johannesburg Heritage Foundation tour, the guides highlighted one of the city’s major governance problems, a lack of consolidation: too many overlapping entities, too little coordination, and no clear accountability. As Charlie points out, even the Rea Vaya bus system suffers from this fragmentation, two different companies manage buses and scheduling, leading to dysfunction.
Volunteering for or donating to organisations that are working to fix these issues is one way to be an active citizen. The lesson is clear: progress requires not just complaint, but participation and a positive mindset.
Be understanding
City tour guides also teach context. They don’t claim Joburg is perfect, far from it, but they explain why it is the way it is.
“We contextualise,” Ayanda says. “We’re just trying to explain why Joburg is the way it is. Of course it’s going to change. It’s Joburg — it’s always changed.”
History supports this. As Kennedy reminds us, Johannesburg started as a mining camp, “a wild, wild West”. He explains that “Mother City Cape Town has always been a bit high and mighty. And there were some people who really despised Joburg. They thought Joburg was not going to make it. But it refused to let go and said, ‘Okay, I’ve got much more gold.’ And then everybody comes.
“When it came to the time of now, the riots, the uprisings, all this, the Inkatha at that time, this was the melting pot of everything.”
Joburg has long been a city of resistance, a place where upheaval, protest and reinvention happen in cycles. That legacy contributes to its uneasy reputation, but it’s also what gives the city its restless energy.
As Loren Kruger (2013) observes in Imagining the Edgy City, Joburg’s reputation has always swung between extremes, “the heights of enthusiasm and the depths of condemnation”. The city has been called everything from the “Golden City” to the “Monte Carlo on top of Sodom and Gomorrah”.
Gilda Swanepoel of Eenblond Tours sees this dynamic play out daily.
“Part of the problem,” she says, “is that people want to share the worst of what they saw in Johannesburg... We see mansions, cool places, historic sites. What do people post? The hijacked buildings and the dirty streets.”
To understand Johannesburg is to embrace its contradictions. Beauty beside decay, energy alongside exhaustion, hope amid frustration. Like a good tour guide, the city rewards those willing to look closer, ask questions, and keep walking.
Johannesburg hasn’t given up. If anything, it’s teaching us how to be more curious, more active, and more understanding — one street, one story, one tour at a time. DM