In my line of work, conducting oversight of the City of Johannesburg, I am often asked whether Joburg can be saved – and whether it should be.
The daily headlines tell one story: Egoli has lost its shine. Knowing what I do about the City’s financial position, infrastructure backlogs and repeated service delivery failures, I should be among the most pessimistic people in Johannesburg.
Instead, I see every day how residents, businesses and community organisations are preventing the city from collapsing. People are rolling up their sleeves, building partnerships and taking responsibility for the spaces around them.
The Braamfontein Improvement District is a powerful example of what is possible.
The difference between a managed City Improvement District (CID) and the surrounding areas is often glaring. As an example, in Braamfontein, the daily work of cleaning streets, reporting leaks and faulty traffic lights, improving public spaces and creating initiatives such as the Ameshoff Street revival has helped keep urban decay at bay.
And there are many more spread across the city’s seven regions doing the hard work needed to keep these precincts viable spaces for people to live, work and play.
These interventions do more than make an area look better. They help create safer, cleaner and more functional neighbourhoods. They encourage investment, support businesses and make public spaces more accessible. Most importantly, they create a sense of inclusion and optimism that reflects the real character of the City of Gold.
CIDs work. Johannesburg needs more of them.
The value of organised communities became especially clear in 2023. Johannesburg was rocked by the Lilian Ngoyi Street explosion, the deadly fire at the City-owned Usindiso building and the closure of the Metro Centre.
‘Not in my name’
Faced with these failures, the people of Johannesburg did not simply sit back. They said: not in my name.
I was volunteering for my local residents’ association at the time. Historically, residents’ associations may have been associated with church fêtes and neighbourhood security initiatives. Today, many have become the front line of service delivery.
They are adopting parks, repairing libraries, reporting failing infrastructure and helping residents through prolonged water and electricity outages. In my community, that has included installing backup water tanks.
In September, the Lonehill Residents Association crossed a major milestone by signing an MOU with the City that allows the residents association to repair potholes on City roads within its suburb.
Many other associations and organised groups are keen to follow their lead and we at JoburgCAN are actively assisting them in this process.
The obvious complaint is that this amounts to double taxation. Residents already pay rates, service charges and national taxes, yet many must also pay privately for security, healthcare, education, backup electricity and increasingly their own access to water.
For many households, these alternatives are completely unaffordable. The growth of community-led services should never be used to excuse the City from fulfilling its responsibilities.
Resilience
But it also demonstrates the resilience of Johannesburg’s people. Communities are refusing to allow a failing system to stand in the way of their survival or the city’s recovery.
I am part of the Presidential Johannesburg Working Group, an intervention involving national, provincial and local government, alongside civil society and business. Its work covers the City’s finances, water, electricity, roads, waste, safety, housing, heritage and the rejuvenation of the inner city and townships.
There are no genuinely quick wins in Johannesburg. Its problems are historical, complex and deeply entrenched. Progress in several areas has stalled, and concerns about the transparency of the working group are justified.
However, one conclusion from our numerous inspection walks, particularly through the inner city, has been unmistakable: managed precincts make a measurable difference.
Despite the public benefit created by CIDs, Johannesburg has not yet established the sustainable framework needed to support and expand them.
Special Rating Area
That is why JoburgCAN has been pushing the City to finalise its Special Rating Area policy.
A Special Rating Area would allow an additional charge to be collected through municipal rates accounts within a defined area, with the revenue used to fund agreed services and improvements in that precinct. This would provide CIDs with dependable funding while ensuring that all qualifying property owners contribute to the benefits they receive.
It would reduce the problem of some property owners benefiting from cleaner streets, improved security and better-managed public spaces while leaving others to carry the cost.
The City should now complete the policy, provide certainty and create a workable route for more communities and business districts to establish sustainable CIDs.
We should also explore formal agreements that allow capable improvement districts to do more. With the right oversight and clearly defined responsibilities, these partnerships could help maintain infrastructure, protect public spaces and develop practical solutions suited to individual precincts.
These are the changes that can make a real, long-term difference to Johannesburg.
Co-governance
Many residents are waiting to see what happens at the ballot box in November. Elections matter, but the future of Johannesburg will not be secured by a purely political solution. The work of rebuilding the city must continue between elections and will require government, businesses, residents and organised communities to work together.
Co-governance is central to JoburgCAN’s model. It works when strong relationships are established with the people inside the City who remain committed to public service and when communities are treated as partners rather than passive recipients.
Should Johannesburg be saved? Absolutely.
It remains the economic heart of South Africa, and its failure would have serious consequences far beyond its municipal boundaries. But there is also something unique, vibrant and deeply human about this city that cannot be measured only in balance sheets or infrastructure reports.
Can Johannesburg be saved? I believe it can. DM
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