Gold Reef City

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Extraction, mining, and other man-made actions interfering with the ground result leaving behind a landscape full of patterns and formations that add to a uniqueness of that place. Johannesburg is well known for mining gold¹ and the development between the mines and the cityscape. However the life expectancy of those places raise the questions of what will happen after the end of the operation period. In many cases there are restrictions pushing the companies to regenerate the natural environment before moving to a different location. In other cases, like at Gold Reef City - or even in a similar context like Las Vegas - there is a development interest in creating large amusement complexes that will attract visitors for “unique experiences.”
        There are many types of tourism that focus on specific activities, experiences, or the uniqueness of places. Reef city is an amusement park in Johannesburg built on an old gold mine. The park is themed around the gold rush that started in 1886 on the Witwatersrand with the amusement-park facilities mimicking the architecture of the original camps. There are a combination of attractions and activities that entertain and inform the visitors of the place. One could characterize this as a type of tourism that focuses on the peculiarity of the ground as the visitors choose the reef based on their interaction with the geological characteristics of the surrounding region.
        The attraction from outstanding events that took place though time, led to raise the interest of visiting places connected with historical changes and thus develop special tourist types, like dark tourism.² This allows a place to recover through standing out their particularities by using them as advantages.

Image source: CMallwitz. English: Gold Reef City - View from Giant Wheel to Jozi Express and Johannesburg in the Background. February 16, 2008. Own work. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:20080216_97_Johannesburg_Gold_Reef_City.jpg.