Local Division Johannesburg: Fill & Download for Free

I was mainly on the West Rand, or more specifically, Roodepoort, that is part of the Greater Johannesburg Area despite being part of the West Rand as far as its location goes.I also did not venture into the downtown and instead spent a brief time in the affluent neighbourhoods surrounding the downtown to pick up an old friend before heading off to the Johannesburg Zoo to spend the day there.Also, I participated in some of my brother’s commutes to Randburg’s industrial district where he works.Topping it off was my trip to the affluent suburb of Northriding up in Randburg where the Ticketpro Dome is situated to frequent the mall there as well.The Ticketpro Dome is where many major concerts and events are hosted for both domestic and international acts.Here is what I can tell you.My brother and his wife are renting out a flat behind an old White Afrikaans couple and upon visiting them, I had nothing but friendly interactions with them to the point of even greeting their daughter and grandchildren when they visited from the neighbouring province of Mpumalanga.And for context, my brother’s marriage is interracial with his wife being of White Afrikaans and Norwegian descent who is primarily Anglophone.Roodepoort is traditionally a White Afrikaans domain so one would expect a good dose of conservatism there as the city still has a White Afrikaans cultural emphasis.However, it is well-integrated with many of the local small businesses owned by Pakistani, Indian, Bangladeshi, and Chinese immigrants.Furthermore, it has a large so-called Coloured community as the city is located in close proximity to many neighbourhoods that were zoned for the said community during Apartheid that is concentrated in Florida Lake.Also, there are many Bantu but most of them are presumably of Zulu and Tswana origin with a large number of other African immigrants, as opposed to the Xhosa that predominate in my hometown of Port Elizabeth.We also frequented the Clearwater Mall, that is affluent at least in sensibility, and encountered virtually no problems while shopping there.At the beginning of our trip, my father and I headed to a nearby bar that had a primarily white and working-to-middle class clientele to see whether my father could catch the rugby while I could get myself a drink.The reception was warm and friendly with some of the other patrons making jokes and throwing some banter over the way I drank my beer.The only reason why we headed back to my brother’s place was because we found it rundown but that did not affect the impression of the people we met there.As for the motorists, they are surprisingly courteous and we found them to be far less aggressive than Cape Town’s and even Port Elizabeth’s motorists.Our trip to the Johannesburg zoo and the various shopping complexes in both Roodepoort and Randburg were excellent with good customer service, helpful locals, and in the case of my brother and sister-in-law, friendly neighbours with good work colleagues.The only problem I had with the locals was the cooler and more business-like demeanor they display upon interacting with strangers, but even then, they were very polite towards us in our interactions.As for the racism, we found it to be largely muted and passive-aggressive in nature with overt racism being far less frequent than I anticipated.In fact, my family did not encounter any racism, or at least, overt racism during our stay up in Johannesburg.As for the neighbourhoods, just as I said about Roodepoort, they are more or less integrated with some of the traditionally white neighbourhoods now having a non-white population either making up a large percentage of the population or the majority of the population.This is especially true for Brixton due to the large and cosmopolitan student community attending the nearby universities of Johannesburg and Witswatersrand and the whole of Roodepoort as the black middle and upper class continues to grow and move into the area.Granted, our stay was brief with our interactions with the locals being primarily professional instead of casual with the more intimate interactions being only with my brother and sister-in-law’s landlords.I daresay the city’s biggest problem is not racial segregation, but rather, class division as the gulfs between the poorest and wealthiest residents can be likened to being a chasm.However, racism continues to permeate within these class divisions with structural problems affecting Black Johannesburg residents along with immigrants of other African and Asian origin of low socioeconomic class bearing the brunt of this.Nevertheless, middle and upper-class Johannesburgers regardless of racial, ethnic, and national origin continue to lead sheltered lives in leafy suburbs and gated communities to the point of being largely out of touch with the lives and realities of their less fortunate counterparts.One must note is that my findings are based purely on anecdotes and observational evidence thus may not reflect findings and records in official sources and statistics so what I am sharing in this answer I am submitting should be taken with a grain of salt.Overall, while Johannesburg still has a serious problem with racism, I personally found it to be less noxious than what even the media might report, or at least, say in their reports.It is safe to say the city has made a decent amount of progress and is not nearly as segregated as it used to be, but unfortunately, it still has a long way to go.

I would consider myself rather a typical representative of white, professional males in Johannesburg.Everything I write therefore has a class and regional dimensions, but here is daily life:I live in a flat in one of the older suburbs of Johannesburg. The suburb is atypical in that it is not mostly houses, but almost entirely blocks of flats. In the suburb, the current president still has a flat, along with two constitutional court justices, some aristocrats, heirs to some of the country’s largest fortunes, and some captains of industry, though these are not as representative. Think more either well-off retirees or professionals and executives to get the more average demographic. My flat is some 150 square metres, which is fine for myself and my wife. If I were to sell my flat, it would buy me a three-bedroom house with a large garden and a swimming pool in a more middle-class suburb and two or three smaller houses in the more working-class parts.my building is very secure, owing to electric fencing, 24-hour CCTV and guards, and private security patrolling the neighbourhood. If you park on the street, however, chances are your car might not be as safe, as there are thefts of and from vehicles. We have not had any major incidents of crime, though.my neighbourhood has a shopping centre, with about 100 shops. I suppose malls are malls, but for brief description’s sake, there are retailers, cinemas, travel agents, banks, post office, restaurants, and the like.our neighbourhood is en route to the feeder bus system that takes you to the underground transportation system, the Gautrain. This is neither here nor there because the system is rather new and does not cover the whole city. If I need to it will take me to most places I will need to go to but we only use it regularly to get to the airport because it cut down transit from 45 minutes to 15 minutes.we have high-speed fibre-optic internet at about 20 megs a second, which is not bad for Joburg. We don’t have a television but we watch most of our stuff on Netflix or torrent. This is as much class snobbery which considers television middle and working class as it is a product of poor offering. There are three government channels, one private one and satellite television that doesn’t offer all that much if you don’t watch sports or get your news from the internet. There is no cable.at home, I have pretty much everything I need. My dining room seats 10. The kitchen has a separate staff entrance. I keep two maids (domestic workers), which is unusual, but one worked for my wife and we find it hard to let her go just to realise a saving. One has a younger daughter, who will be going to school soon and we will be paying for her school fees. This is pretty common.I drive a 5-year old entry-level luxury German vehicle and I intend on driving it to death, but not because I cannot afford to upgrade. In Johannesburg, people are judged by their cars, but I don’t want to play that game, which makes me unusual, but I don’t believe in ostentation. It’s bad form to flaunt wealth. Money talks, but wealth whispers.I work in in the northern suburbs, which is about 15 km from home if you drive the most direct route and 20 km if you drive on the highway. I have at least 40 km commute daily back and forth, which is also fairly normal. Depending on the hours you work, this could mean up to two hours stuck in traffic, but for me it is usually less than an hour in both directions. if we go out and there is drinking involved we usually take Uber because the cops have been very strict in the last few years. You could probably still bribe them to let you off but I don’t want to push it.I have a busy social life, which is not normal for most Johannesburgers, who do little during the week, but hang out at the mall on at the pub on weekends, with obligatory drunkenness. I attend public lectures, gallery openings, book launches, wine tastings, antiques auctions, and various dinners as part of the social circuit most upper-class Johannesburgers are part of. If I accepted all the invitations, I could easily have something on most days of the week. This is probably atypical.I know the lay of the land fairly well, which is possibly also atypical. Many Joburgers know their neighbourhood and stick around it or around where they work. I can name most hipster hangouts in the rough-and-ready parts of town, because I go there regularly. I am grateful they improved the quality of coffee shops and galleries around town.I travel internationally 2–3 times a year, which is a bastard. South Africa is quite a flight away from most places one would go to, which means an overnight flight in cattle class. I fly economy, at least in part so that I have more to spend on arrival, where prices are likely much higher than Johannesburg, which is surprisingly affordable.every three or so months, my wife and I go away on a country weekend. There are many scenic places within a comfortable distance from Johannesburg. This is fairly typical. South Africa has great many public holidays, which often allow for long weekends. Joburg practically empties out on such occasions.I would rather not shop for groceries if I could avoid it, so we have a grocer that delivers. In USD, we probably spend about $300–400 on groceries every month, but this is probably higher than most. We like the odd indulgence and we have wine on most nights, which kind of adds up. Purely anecdotally it seems normal to have a bottle of wine a day. Just don’t tell my doctor. We spend probably about the same amount on dining out, which is typically $30–40 for the two of us with the proviso that we are not major eaters or alcoholics. We go out once or twice a week, which is probably on the frequent side in comparison to most.I gym about 2–3 times a week. My gym membership is about $25 a month and my gym is hypermodern, though it does not have a pool and a sauna. I just don’t need them. I am about 2–3 kg overweight and I have every intention of losing the extra tonnage, but a lot of craft beers get between me and my goals, for which I blame the hipsters. They made not only coffee and galleries better, but also brewing and dining.my wife and I collect contemporary South African art from up-and-coming artists. This is fairly common and one can pick up some nice pieces on auctions. Once I scored something for a quarter of its price. Collecting South African arts, together with South African antiques, is a form of patriotism in certain circles.my wife’s family live in the countryside and we visit them about once a month. They keep horses but this is more of a lifestyle proposition for them. The property is not commercial. This is probably not typical because most people in the countryside look to farm for profit.Johannesburg has easily the best weather in the world. It is now winter and the temperature outside is 20 degrees Celsius, which is about normal. I rarely wear a jacket.I have a close friendship circle of about half a dozen people and a wider circle of five or six dozen. Hardly a weekend goes by without a birthday party. I have a separate budget for gifts. About half of that circle is white South African. The rest is a mixture of other races and nationalities from South Africa, rest of Africa, Europe, the Americas and Australasia. By Joburg standards this is pretty mixed especially if you also add religious or sexual minorities. This is less typical. Most South Africans are tribal and whites generally hang out with whites, Indians with Indians and blacks with blacks though the situation is improving.I am a member of some of the more exclusionary social clubs in town, which I make regular use of, both for sports and socially. There are two types of members, the nice ones and the ones riddled in petty snobbery. Sometimes on purpose I push the boundaries on dress codes if I know it will upset some people I wouldn’t mind seeing upset.I sit on too many boards, committees, organisations, and who knows what. This is not atypical for the more civic minded. It takes a lot of time from my schedule, but simply put not much will get done in many aspects unless I do it. The authorities are not very good at providing what they are supposed to so many Johannesburgers form residents’ associations and the like to take charge of their surroundings. I also make small donations to 3–4 larger organisations that litigate against government inaction and incompetence.I must say the recent racial division in the press is getting rather annoying. Universities and media produce a crop of Young Bolsheviks to whom the white heterosexual male is the reason for all ills. One article in the local edition of the Huffington Post even argued that white males must be stripped of the vote to make up for Trump and Brexit.it pains me that the country is not what it can be because of poor leadership especially of the economy. Like most people in South Africa I am worried about the capture of state institutions who now serve private political interests and not the public. I keenly follow the politics to assess the prospects of South Africa turning into just another African country or whether it can live up to its ideal of a rainbow nation. Let’s just say there are indications for each of these outcomes.

The use of renewable energy is crucial to sustaining the environment and the human population, and Siemens Gamesa South Africa will be building 109 wind turbines across South Africa.The wind turbines are a part of the country’s shift towards the use of clean and renewable energy. The turbines will be supplied to two South African wind farms – the Kangnas farm near Springbok in the Northern Cape and to the Perdekraal East farm in Ceres, Western Cape.The internationally-owned company has entered a 10-year service agreement for both wind farms. The supply of electricity generated by these wind turbines is expected to reach 214 000 homes across the country.This project will provide relief across the nation, allowing the public access to electricity and other resources for development. The current issues surrounding the delivery of electricity, along with its maintenance, has extended a dire need for renewable energy sources.The project will commence at the start of 2019 and plans to be completed by 2020.A government power auction allowed Siemens Gamesa to win the opportunity to implement the wind turbines.Managing Director Siemens Gamesa’s South African division, Janek Winand, had the following to say: “We are proud to offer services with a localized team based in Johannesburg with long lasting experience and determined to generate value for South Africa by creating jobs, supporting local manufacturing and driving development projects within local communities.”