South Africa: The borders of Johannesburg

Travels with David: Asia, Africa and The Balkans

It tells you something about how South Africa has changed that the sprawling townships of Soweto outside Johannesburg are now on the tourist bus routes. Soweto came to world attention in 1976, when police opened fire on 10,000 secondary school students marching to protest the policy of enforcing Afrikaans as the only language of instruction in schools, killing at least 176. Worldwide reaction increased pressure for economic sanctions and some historians regard the massacre as the beginning of the end for apartheid. Since the end of apartheid in 1991, the urban slum of Soweto has been transformed. Today, people actually move there from other districts because the housing is affordable, municipal services have improved, and the crime rate has dropped to close to the average for the city. There are malls, mega-churches, new highways and two huge soccer stadiums built for the 2010 World Cup.