Luxury apartments in the roughest neighborhood in town? One small development group with big plans thinks it’s an easy sell. All you have to do is believe. BY TANYA PAMPALONE The ride up is bumpy. At every floor, the cramped elevator stops and bounces, as if it were hanging from a delicate bungee at the … Continue reading
THERE ARE TWO WAYS TO ENTER DAINFERN. One is through the Broadacres gate. It looks much the same as the William Nicol entrance — both have grand white wooden facades with grey roofing and boomed lanes for “visitors” and “residents” — but the Broadacres gate is a more fitting way to arrive. If you try … Continue reading
VICTOR IS FORTY-THREE AND LIVES in the backyard in a small room, maybe eight feet by eight feet. I would guess it is the size of a prison cell. It has no windows. There is no paint on the walls, just raw, grey concrete that is cool to the touch. The floor is the same, … Continue reading
THERE IS SOMETHING ABOUT doing 140km/h on a Jo’burg highway at 4:30pm on a weekday with no car in sight — except for the thousands of poor suckers who aren’t going anywhere, backed up and blocked from every onramp — that screams: hanging out with Michelle Obama is very, very cool. Africa’s economic capital came … Continue reading
WHEN PARIS HILTON ARRIVED IN SOUTH AFRICA two weeks ago, she posted a photograph of herself in a mini dress on Twitter, her long legs crossed high, seated atop her entire Louis Vuitton luggage set: a long trunk, and bag after luxurious bag, worth — contents excluded — more than the GDP of most small … Continue reading
THERE WAS A NIP IN THE AIR IN NEWTOWN one May morning and a small group of tourists were bundled in caps and scarves. They huddled in a small circle listening to a hulking Indian in bright white Nikes, a white T-shirt and a red Ohio State baseball cap who was telling them how it … Continue reading
THEY CAME TO LIVE THE AFRICAN DREAM. Now they sit on patches of browned grass on the edges of our cities, living in tents, their bodies battered, their homes burnt to the ground, their possessions crushed, stolen. Now they must start again. The True Believer He carries the Holy Bible with him everywhere he goes. … Continue reading
