Maboneng is one of Joburg’s more recent urban renewal projects, offering shared office spaces, restaurants, bars, shops, and entertainment venues.
When I first moved to Johannesburg as a young student over 10 years ago, the Newtown Precinct was the up-and-coming area, the perfect location for creatives, students, and hustlers alike. But these days, it’s Maboneng, a compact neighborhood in the eastern end of Johannesburg’s central business district, a former industrial precinct that had become dilapidated and dangerous by the closing years of the 20th century. Maboneng (Sotho—a language spoken in the high grasslands of southern Africa—for “the place of lights”) is one of Johannesburg’s more recent urban renewal projects, and now has a carefully crafted reputation as a magnet for the city’s creative set, offering shared office spaces, restaurants, bars, shops, and entertainment venues. The force behind its rebirth is the Propertuity development group, which bought a cluster of 1900s-era warehouses in 2008 and fashioned them into mixed-use cultural and arts spaces and transformed the area into an investors’ haven.
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