Arrival City
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Hillbrow is considered to be the most diverse neighborhood located around Johannesburg: once home to European migrants - particularly from the United Kingdom, Germany, and Eastern Europe - Hillbrow is now an arrival city for new migrants from elsewhere in Africa. The diversity of its population contains a considerable linguistic and ethnic gamut.
Despite its reputation, severe physical degradation, high levels of population, unemployment, poverty, and crime, Hillbrow remains a popular urban realm. The resident population doubled from 1990 to 2010 as significant numbers of newcomers tended to first locate themselves in this inner-city neighborhood. Hillbrow, therefore, functions as a ‘port of entry‘ to Johannesburg for many who seek the perceived economic opportunities of the city. It is home to a diverse resident constituency, and at least 38% of its current population is foreign-born. This young city is distinguished by a changing population: almost always new, aspirational and ambitious.
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Image source:
Matshedisho
References
1. TANJA WINKLER, “On ‘Spaces of Hope’: Exploring Hillbrow’s Discursive Credoscapes,” in Changing Space, Changing City, ed. PHILIP HARRISON et al., Johannesburg after Apartheid - Open Access Selection (Wits University Press, 2014), 487, https://doi.org/10.18772/22014107656.29.
1. TANJA WINKLER, “On ‘Spaces of Hope’: Exploring Hillbrow’s Discursive Credoscapes,” in Changing Space, Changing City, ed. PHILIP HARRISON et al., Johannesburg after Apartheid - Open Access Selection (Wits University Press, 2014), 487, https://doi.org/10.18772/22014107656.29.