Hillbrow

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Hillbrow
Hillbrow (South Africa)
Hillbrow
Hillbrow
Coordinates 26 ° 11 '20 "  S , 28 ° 2' 56"  E Coordinates: 26 ° 11 '20 "  S , 28 ° 2' 56"  E
Basic data
Country South Africa

province

Gauteng
metropolis City of Johannesburg
ISO 3166-2 ZA-GP
surface 1.1 km²
Residents 74,131 (2011)
density 68,639.8  Ew. / km²
Hillbrow with Telkom Joburg Tower
Hillbrow with Telkom Joburg Tower

Hillbrow is a district of the metropolitan municipality City of Johannesburg in South Africa . It belongs to the city region F, the inner city of Johannesburg.

geography

Hillbrow (German: "Hügelbraue") is located in the center of Johannesburg on the ridge of the Witwatersrand, which is up to 1773 meters high . In 2011 74,131 people lived there on an area of ​​1.08 km². The district is characterized by high-rise buildings, most of which are used as residential buildings. Hillbrow has a high rate of poverty and crime.

Hillbrow is north of Johannesburg Central Railway Station, Park Station . West of Hillbrow is the Braamfontein district , north Parktown , east Berea and southeast Doornfontein .

history

Street scene with Café Vienna (1980)

Hillbrow was the city's commercial center during apartheid times . According to the Group Areas Act , it was only allowed to be inhabited by whites. Numerous high-rise buildings were built from the 1950s onwards. Hillbrow had a progressive, cosmopolitan image; the constituency was a stronghold of the Progressive Federal Party . The South African gay and lesbian movement had its focus here. In 1987 the ruling National Party nominated an activist from the gay movement as a candidate for the National Assembly election , who narrowly won against the PFF candidate, but was later convicted of electoral fraud. Due to the actually illegal influx of non-white residents, Hillbrow became a gray area in the 1980s . At the same time, many whites left the district, often in northern districts such as Sandton . Buildings fell into disrepair and slums formed . In 2011 the proportion of whites was 0.4%.

Buildings

The Telkom Joburg Tower is a 270 meter high television tower that was built in 1971. It is the tallest African building with a passenger elevator and was known as the Hillbrow Tower until 2005 . The Ponte City residential building, built in 1975, is 173 meters high, has 54 floors and is cylindrical. At times it was illegally occupied until 2001 when the owner changed hands. To the west of Hillbrow on Constitution Hill is the Constitutional Court of South Africa, the constitutional court of the Republic of South Africa . The Johannesburg Art Gallery is located on the southern edge of Joubert Park near the southern border of the district.

Fictional works about Hillbrow

  • Phaswane Mpe: Welcome to our Hillbrow. 2001 novel with a focus on AIDS and xenophobia.
  • Norman Ohler : City of Gold. 2002, plays mostly in Hillbrow.
  • Lauren Beukes : Zoo City. Science fiction novel that appeared in 2010 and is largely set in Hillbrow.

music

Web links

Commons : Hillbrow  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b 2011 census , accessed on March 17, 2015
  2. ^ Marlise Richter: Imbalance on 'Prostitution Hill' - a white intellectual out and about in Hillbrow. on the Heinrich Böll Foundation website , accessed on March 17, 2015
  3. ^ Daniel Conway: Queering Apartheid: The National Party 1987 'Gay Rights' Campaign in Hillbrow. In: Journal of Southern African Studies, 2009 [Abstract]
  4. ^ When crooked politicians were not tolerated. bdlive.co.za, August 20, 2013, accessed March 17, 2015