31 July 2006
By Neil Fraser
I HAD a call from a journalist at the end of last week asking my opinion on the effect that the rash of retailing currently planned or under construction in Soweto will have on retail in the CBD.
The question, and the resultant short article in The Star last Monday, prompted me to give more thought than one can do when reacting to a number of unanticipated questions during a 10-minute telephone interview. (I dislike the phrase 'CBD' but I'm using it because it denotes the core area of the inner city and is understood as such.)
To get a clear perspective on the issue, I want to start by broadly tracing the history of retail in both areas - I have drawn extensively on Keith Beavon's Johannesburg - The Making and Shaping of the City and the quotations are all from his book unless otherwise stated.
Retail in the CBD
1886 Gold discovered - original street plan drawn up by surveyor Jos de Villiers reflected two separate sections, which became known as Ferreira's Camp and Marshall's Camp with an area between them occupied by the Randjeslaagte Syndicate. This original plan included a square named Market Square.
1887 Surveyor Auret Pritchard consolidated the two sections and the area between. Market Square (later to be named Library Gardens and currently Beyers Naude Square and under re-design threat due to the proposed Provincial Government Precinct) became the focal point of the developing mining town. This was where all goods arrived by ox-wagon for delivery to shops or for auction. The President Street frontage to the Square became a centre for major retailers such as Henwoods and Greenacres as well as Becketts - "sawyers, timber merchants, manufacturers of furniture, importers of machinery, wine and spirits and general merchants".
1888 Population had now grown to between 8000 and 9000 persons.
1889 The Palace Building was erected on the corner of Pritchard and Rissik Streets. Its ground floor 'smart shops' moved the focus of retail north and east of the Square.
1890 The first public transportation system (horse-drawn trams) influenced the emergence of Rissik Street while the establishment of Park Station influenced the emergence of Eloff Street as retail destinations.
1892 Thorne & Stuttafords opened a three-storeyed store on Pritchard Street.
1893 Pritchard Street became "the frontage for a large number of draper shops, ladies' and men's outfitters, shoe stores as well as jewellers, milliners, confectioners and other specialist businesses".
1895 Stuttafords moved into a new building diagonally opposite the Palace building.
1896 The population had risen to 73 690.
1897 Markham's established on the corner of Eloff and Pritchard.
1900 The retail core of Johannesburg had become firmly established.
1903 Cleghorn & Harris on Kerk Street and Cuthberts on Pritchard Street.
1906 The first John Orr's store was completed on Pritchard Street (and later rebuilt in 1935/1936.)
1911 The population had soared to 240 131 but there was then a slowing down in population growth which reached 295 533 by 1921 and then exploded to 537 217 by 1936.
1935 Ansteys "a very fashionable local departmental store" in a four-storey podium to a 17-storey "high quality apartment tower" on the corner of Jeppe and Joubert Streets.
1936 Woolworths Building, Kerk Street.
1937 OK Bazaars, Pritchard Street.
1939 Cleghorn & Harris, Kerk Street.
1950s By the end of the 1950s, retail had grown to about 600 000m², 94 000 of which was lower-end retail. There were some 45 400m² of retail in Hillbrow.
Between 1950 and 1965, the retail core expanded by 28.7 percent to 780 000m².
1973 The Carlton Centre retail came on stream - 38 000mē with two departmental stores and between 150 and 170 line shops, but the Carlton Centre never became the hoped for extension of the retail core.
Decentralisation had already started taking its toll. "By the late 1970s one third of all white shoppers made their purchases in suburban centres."
1976 "White-owned retail started moving north", a trend that accelerated through the 1980s.
1982 "Most of the big spending shoppers were lost to the CBD - John Orrs, Stuttafords and Greatermans closed. Their space was taken over by other retail but offering lower order and more utilitarian goods and services to match the pockets and needs of an ever more predominant but relative to whites lower paid African clientele."
Late
1980s Smal Street becomes the high pedestrian count retail street overtaking Eloff.
The suburban shopping mall
Accelerating decentralisation and the downgrading of the CBD retail.
1959 Randburg was proclaimed.
1963 First decentralised mall, Southdale, built in Robertsham.
1966 Killarney Mall.
1969 Sandton was established bringing 38 000m² of retail on stream in 1973.
1970s Mall of Rosebank and the Firs.
1978 Eastgate - 90 000m².
End 1993 - total leasable area of the large malls outside of the CBD totalled
970 300m².
End
1997 - additional 355 990mē added outside of the CBD.
Beavon quotes from a 1997 article in City Press by Sandile Memela: "All around Johannesburg there are iron rails and shutters on the windows of chain stores, boutiques, shops and outfitters - and this gives the city an eerie feeling."
(Recovery started in the late 1990s with a new Woolworths, Edgars and Game.)
At the beginning of 2002, a further 339 088m² was added outside of the CBD, with the northern suburbs malls and shopping centres now totalling 1 665 379m². At the beginning of this month, it was announced that eight new malls to be built to the north and east of the CBD will escalate this figure to in excess of 2 000 000m².
Retail in Soweto
It is easy to provide an overview of retail in Soweto because, historically, there was hardly any.
In terms of the Urban Areas Act, "specialist businesses that one would believe were essential to daily needs and ordinary consumer demands such as laundries, pharmacies, bookshops, drapers and outfitters were prohibited until late in the 1970s. Home-based businesses, even for qualified professionals such as lawyers and doctors, were not allowed. The only other commercial activity in which African people could participate was hawking."
The Council could license certain sites for 'approved' types of businesses, but did this minimally - therefore in 1949, some 201 600 people living in Orlando, Moroka, Jabavu and Pimville were served by only five milk shops, five fish fryers, five fresh produce 'shops' and 188 small general dealers.
In 1977, the list of 'approved' types of businesses was expanded and by the end of that year all restrictions were lifted.
By the early 1980s, the total amount of retail in Soweto amounted to 67 000mē serving between 800 000 and one million people. "Little wonder that 78 percent of Soweto's households preferred to shop in the CBD of Johannesburg than in Soweto itself, even though such trips generally resulted in no more than two shopping bags of goods - all that could comfortably be carried on public transport or in a crowded mini-bus taxi. Virtually all clothing, furniture, and half of all groceries purchased for Soweto came out of white stores in downtown Johannesburg."
"The most glaring open space is to the south-west, the area that contains Soweto. By 2002 it still had only one shopping facility of more than 10 000 square metres. Little wonder, therefore, that so many Sowetans continue to shop in the Johannesburg CBD, and that shops in the CBD of today cater more exclusively for Sowetan residents and those from other African townships in the south than for the tastes of those residing in the northern suburbs, most of whom long ago stopped shopping in the CBD."
So this is the dichotomy against which the retail roll-out in Soweto must be viewed.
- A CBD retail core that was aimed at a white population for nearly all of its first hundred years. A CBD retail core that was unable to compete with the massive mall explosion to its north. A CBD retail core that changed dramatically to survive by catering for a different clientele.
- A Soweto that was not only not provided with retail, but which had laws imposed restricting type and amount of retail. The result, in economic terms, can be seen from figures provided in the Soweto Retail Strategy: of the R4.2-billion currently spent by Soweto residents, only about R1.05 billion is spent in Soweto.
Next week I'll pick up on the Soweto Retail Strategy and what is actually happening on the ground.
Cheers, Neil
Permission to use web site material
Publishers may use material from this site free of charge, as long as:
- Credit is given to either the "City of Johannesburg website
(www.joburg.org.za)" or to "Johannesburg News Agency
(www.joburg.org.za)";
- If the article is used online, a link is provided to the original
article on this website;
- The name of the article's author is acknowledged;
-
The webmaster is informed of how and where the material is used (fill
in this brief online form).
Johannesburg News Agency is operated by BIG Media at 011-484-1400 |
