7 October 2024 - Rainy Days and Dead Channel Skies
I once again am a transient. Not by misfortune, but by choice. Call it my cyberpunk tour. After Grandma passed last year, I sold the house and downsized the *stuff* that had managed to attach itself to me since my last move into a single shipping container. After a short and bracing dose of SARS COVID-19, I set sail on the friendly skies, in search of... Something else...
I've never been fond of suburbia. Not Australian suburbia, anyway. The newer (and cheaper) parts of it are distinctly cookie cutter -- soulless and without distinctive features. Generic houses; nice enough, but bland. Houses plopped on hankerchiefs of property, in a stutteringly repetitive landscpe punctuated by generic parks and serviced by generic malls populated with identikit big brand commerce. Don't get me wrong -- there are far worse places to live -- the crime rate is low, and everything works well. Melbourne (and Sydney) outer suburbia just lacks character. Not that this has prevented me from finding myself dwelling in generic suburbia for years at a time. The Narre Warren house was not my first suburban property, and may not be my last. Suburbia can be an expedient choice in various life circumstances. But for now, I am free of it.
My first stop was Johannesburg. Why? Because one of the characters I am writing is from there. A parallel Johannesbug to be sure, but hopefully one that is now better informed. A good enough reason for an adventure, isn't it? If Shanghai smells like Bladerunner (an earlier quote of mine), then Joburg tastes like William Gibson's sprawl. I again found myself in suburbia, this time in leafy Melville. Suburbia, yes, but to an Aussie, it is a parallel universe suburbia. At first glance Melville looks like a higher-end inner suburb of Melbourne. Grand old trees, and stately homes. Bohemian corner cafes and neighbourhood mini-malls featuring supermarkets, gyms and pharmacies...
It is only after I settled in that the parallelness of Johannesburg started to resolve in my sphere of perception. First you notice the big things: the camera pods on every street corner, every couple of hundred meters the guard boxes housing friendly -- but armed -- men in uniform. Soon the little things start to stand out, like the patches of disrepair: pot-holed roads and footpaths, half-complete repairs that may or may not be abandoned. Pits with water pipes that gush for weeks on end. The clunky plumbing retro-fits at street level. Then I noticed that that everything of value is behind a wall. And the walls have electric fences or razor wire on top of them. I noticed that every property has a local security company plaque.
Then I noticed that the internet outage I had on day one was no fluke. Johannesburg's internet is fibre-fast, until it isn't. The internet goes out intermittently throughout the day -- every day. Then you learn that the water cuts off in the evening, and sometimes dies out completely by early afternoon. The power cuts in and out. "Parking guys" swarm you and offer protection for a few Rand when you take your morning walk. Locals warn you to keep your phone out of sight when you are not in a shop or behind a gate. The street's Whats App channel tells stories of armed home invasions, being tied up in garages that weren't properly locked. The local rep of the security company posts tips on how to avoid and survive a home invasion. Video of suspicious cars -- taken by the ubiqitous home security cameras -- is regularly circulated by paranoid, vigilant residents. People constantly check if a neigbour's power or water is also out....
The disfunction is not for a lack of money -- the malls tell a story of opulence and exclusive-branded wealth. A much appreciated shower in the Johannesburg country club -- offered by a friend during a week-long water outage -- confirmed this reality. The problem in Joburg is not a lack of money, but instead issues with its distribution and freedom of circulation. Corruption and decay of systems of governance and maintenance has birthed a city of two worlds, attempting to co-exist in a space crowded by a gulf of massive wealth inequality. The gulf sits in the vacuum left by the "end" of apartheid. The rich just build their walls higher, install battery backed solar and JoJo tanks, hire more secutiry guards and pretend that their suburban fortresses are "normal" as their cyberpunk city -- a high-tech bubble of wealth floating on a sea of decay and poverty -- evolves into something.... Else.
I wonder about the future of Joburg. Has their resilience in the face of this weirdly textured adversity better prepared them for the new era that is about to engulf the west? Or are my friends in Joburg just ahead of the curve on the spiral into oblivion?
--------------------------------------------------------
♻️ (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) Bronzie Beat
Updated 20241008 Hua Hin Thailand