Soweto
Soweto (/səˈwɛtoʊ, -ˈweɪt-, -ˈwiːt-/)[3][4] is a township of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality in Gauteng, South Africa, bordering the city's mining belt in the south. Its name is an English syllabic abbreviation for South Western Townships.[5] Formerly a separate municipality, it is now incorporated in the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality, and one of the suburbs of Johannesburg.
For other uses, see Soweto (disambiguation).
Soweto
South Western Townships
200.03 km2 (77.23 sq mi)
1,632 m (5,354 ft)
1,271,628
6,400/km2 (16,000/sq mi)
98.5%
1.0%
0.1%
0.1%
0.2%
37.1%
15.5%
12.9%
8.9%
25.6%
Housing[edit]
The area is mostly composed of old "matchbox" houses, or four-room houses built by the government, that were built to provide cheap accommodation for black workers during apartheid. However, there are a few smaller areas where prosperous Sowetans have built houses that are similar in stature to those in more affluent suburbs. Many people who still live in matchbox houses have improved and expanded their homes, and the City Council has enabled the planting of more trees and the improving of parks and green spaces in the area.
Hostels are another prominent physical feature of Soweto.[49] Originally built to house male migrant workers, many have been improved as dwellings for couples and families.
In 1996, the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality awarded tenders to Conrad Penny and his company Penny Brothers Brokers & Valuers (Pty) Ltd. for the valuation of the whole of Soweto (which at the time consisted of over 325,000 properties) for rating and taxing purpose. This was the single largest valuation ever undertaken in Africa.[50]
Society and culture[edit]
Media[edit]
Being part of the urban agglomerations of Gauteng, Soweto shares much of the same media as the rest of Gauteng province. There are however some media sources dedicated to Soweto itself:
In popular culture[edit]
Films[edit]
The 1976 uprising is depicted in the film A Dry White Season (1989), starring Donald Sutherland, Marlon Brando, and Susan Sarandon, who portray white South Africans pursuing justice for the deaths of black Soweto residents which followed the demonstrations.
The American film Stander (2003) portrays the story of Andre Stander, a rogue South African police Captain who rebelled against the corruption of South African under apartheid by becoming a bank robber. The Soweto uprising are depicted as Stander's breaking point in the film.
Sara Blecher and Rimi Raphoto's popular documentary, Surfing Soweto (2006), addresses the phenomenon of young kids "surfing" on the roofs of Soweto trains and the social problem this represents.
The film District 9 (2009) was shot in Tshiawelo, Soweto.[70] The plot involves a species of aliens who arrive on Earth in a starving and helpless condition, seeking aid. The originally benign attempts to aid them turn increasingly oppressive due to the overwhelming numbers of aliens and the cost of maintaining them, and to increasing xenophobia on the part of humans who treat the intelligent and sophisticated aliens like animals while taking advantage of them for personal and corporate gain. The aliens are housed in shacks in a slum-like concentration camp called "District 9", which is in fact modern-day Soweto; an attempt to relocate the aliens to another camp leads to violence and a wholesale slaughter by South African mercenary security forces (a reference to historical events in "District Six", Cape Town, a mostly Coloured neighborhood subjected to forced segregation during the apartheid years). The parallels to South Africa under apartheid are both deliberate and obvious, but are not explicitly remarked upon in the film.
Films that include Soweto scenes:
