25 September 2008
Soweto is about to embark on another big journey. The City of Johannesburg is taking steps to turn South Africa’s famous township into a vibrant centre of economic activity – and a major-league entertainment destination and tourist drawcard – over the next five years.
This icon of South Africa’s apartheid struggle, with its monotonous tracks of matching boxlike houses, is still a poor and dusty region. On 28 August, the Five Year Soweto Economic Development Plan for 2008 to 2013 was formally set in motion when it was approved by the council.
According to the city’s economic development department, the plan will focus on building an iconic region with a distinct brand.
“Soweto is already a brand. The issue is how to maximise that brand,” says Makhosana Msezana, the director for spatial economic development in the department of economic development.
Sobering statistics
Statistics paint a sobering picture of the hard work ahead. Home to almost half of the Johannesburg population, the area contributes a tiny four percent to the city’s total economic activity.
Over half of Sowetans are unemployed, while a large portion of employed residents scrape out a meagre existence from an employment sector born out of necessity, not choice – informal trading.
The community services sector contributes the biggest share to the Soweto economy, at 20 percent. As a result, officials working in government structures such as schools, clinics, hospitals and the various customer service centres of the city hold most of the local buying power.
But just more than a quarter of the R4.2-billion disposable income of these workers is actually spent in Soweto. To do their shopping, the majority still head to Johannesburg’s CBD or Southgate.
A view of the future
With this plan the city brings a new vision to Soweto, says Msezana. By 2013, it sees Soweto as a place where people can live, work, invest in, learn and visit.
“It is a very bold vision. It is about a transformed regional economy.” And because economic circumstances can change with the flip of a coin, the plan is also flexible, he adds.
For now, it provides a framework of common priorities around which the public, private, and community sector can focus their economic efforts and investment.
Soweto Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI) president, Nancy Nxumalo, says the plan is long overdue. “We are looking forward to this. There are a lot of small, medium and micro enterprises not in a state of achieving their best.”
Living in Soweto
In future, the jagged outlines of high and medium-rise developments will break the monotony of the urban landscape.
At least three massive mixed-use residential developments are in various stages of design and tender – Orlando Ekhaya, Jabulani central business precinct, and Lufhereng.
Orlando Ekhaya is the largest and most ambitious of the three, with townhouse developments, lakeside flats, shops, offices and entertainment all combined into one precinct.
Jabulani will be Soweto’s Melrose Arch. Housing and retail components will be integrated into this high density, mixed-use development. Clever urban design will be the defining characteristic, with buildings arranged around open spaces, and public and private spaces carefully combined. Pedestrians will take preference.
Lufhereng will be another Cosmo City. With an expected 25 000 houses comprising subsidised Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) houses for the poor; affordable housing for low income households; and middle- to high-income bonded housing, it is the biggest mixed-use, mixed-income housing development ever to be undertaken in Johannesburg.
“The plan also needs to facilitate a process where there is development of a vibrant secondary property market,” says Msezana. The Sowetan property market is one of the fastest growing in the country, but it needs sophistication, he believes.
The current trend is for residents to live all of their lives in one house. For this sophistication to take place, the market needs willing financial institutions, and willing buyers and sellers.
Visiting Soweto
Soweto is already known for its vibrant social life. This mainly takes the form of shebeens, informal bars and cafe-like restaurants, hangouts more suited to the streetwise locals than to visitors.
Part of the Orlando Ekhaya plan is to bring high-class entertainment to the township. On the cards are open air stages, exclusive retail, jazz bars, authentic Sowetan restaurants and bungee jumping.
There will also be the Soweto Theatre in Jabulani precinct, the first theatre for a township in South Africa. It will not be set in the typical theatre mould; designed by the Johannesburg Property Company (JPC), it will be flexible and innovative.
Construction of the theatre will start in February 2009, for completion in December.
Vilakazi Street is another visitor drawcard. A street rich in history as the home of both Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu, it will be turned into a semi-pedestrianised tourist precinct, with restaurants, bed and breakfasts, retail shops and other suitable visitor attractions.
The new attractions will diversify the current tourist package, which focuses mainly on apartheid struggle sites such as Kliptown and the Hector Pieterson memorial.
“We need to go beyond struggle credentials,” Msezana confirms.
Working in Soweto
But above all, residents will need jobs. With an expected 1.1-million tourists paying the township a visit by 2013, tourism will remain one of the key economic sectors.
That Soweto provides a huge snapshot of Johannesburg history will continue to work in its favour. Nationally and internationally, it enjoys iconic status, but as a whole it will need to work on general customer care and the safety and security of tourists, the plan notes.
The Johannesburg Tourism Company is working on a dedicated product development package for Soweto that will incorporate the township as a tourism destination at city level.
The plan also foresees the possibility of creating a satellite business process outsourcing (BPO) sector in the township, with the Soweto BPO precinct complementing the one in the inner city.
At the moment the economic development department is looking at the feasibility of various locations, with Nasrec perhaps the first choice because of its future broadband ability, confirms Monique Griffith, the director of sector support, growth and sustainability. Other sites being looked at are Soweto Campus, the Funda Centre in Diepkloof, and the Soweto Empowerment Zone (SEZ).
Lufhereng will also be Johannesburg’s first urban-agri estate. Small farmers already working in the area will be the beneficiaries of the plan which will look at promoting better farming methods to generate higher crop yields.
Investing in Soweto
The retail sector will also continue to grow. Sowetans now have a choice of five shopping centres, with Maponya Mall the latest and probably the most upmarket.
A number of large car dealerships have also stuck out their feelers. Toyota South Africa, Barloworld Automotive and the Maponya Group have plans to open Soweto’s first Toyota dealership soon.
“[An] increase of retail spending from R1.05-billion to R2.1-billion over a period of five years was projected, thus indicating that there would be a need for new shopping space in Soweto,” the plan adds.
The Jabulani and Orlando Ekhaya precincts again feature prominently. Between the two, up to 100 000m² of additional retail space will be provided, while Jabulani will also provide much-needed office space.
One economic sector poorly developed in the region is manufacturing. The SCCI has about 1 500 members, mostly representatives of small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) in the retail industry. The manufacturing industry represented in the SCCI is small in scale and needs to be grown to the point where companies can export their products, Nxumalo feels.
The sector will be boosted through the SEZ, a dedicated SMME industrial park with various manufacturing clusters such as automotive, furniture and homeware being developed. The economic development department is busy appointing cluster champions to set up shop in the zone.
Learning in Soweto
Sowetans generally still have low levels of basic skills in numeracy, literacy and communication technology which need to be addressed. Higher learning will get a boost with the University of Johannesburg Soweto Campus being upgraded to accommodate 10 000 students.
The existing workforce also needs to be re-skilled or skills need to be up-scaled. And the area needs people who can create more jobs.
“What is lacking is infrastructure and capacity. We need to build entrepreneurs,” Nxumalo agrees.
The informal sector will not be forgotten. The plan suggests that the current programmes in business skills development with CIDA City Campus and the universities of the Witwatersrand and Johannesburg, be extended to Soweto.
Too often the mistake we make is to formalise the informal sector, instead of helping businesses in the sector to become successful informal enterprises, Msezana believes.
“We want them to become better at their business.”
While it was designed along the same lines as all apartheid townships, Soweto has become a unique and vibrant place. “Soweto has become more sophisticated than other townships,” Msezana concludes.
With the help of the City of Johannesburg, the time has finally come for Sowetans to start building on this.
Source: City of Johannesburg
