Tanya Zack and The Chaos Precinct: Johannesburg as a port city

 
On maps it is defined as the eastern edge of the original administrative area of Johannesburg. Those of us who have encountered the area of the city centre roughly bounded by Kruis, Pritchard, Troye and Bree Streets have coined various names for it. The Ethiopian quarter, Little Ethiopia and Little Addis are phrases we exchange in animated conversations about this unique entrepreneurial explosion. This exoticizes a booming makeshift shopping hub that emerged without any formal planning intention or support. Municipal officials speak informally of the area as the ‘Chaos Precinct’. But the traders in the area call it by the hallmark road - Jeppe. For them it is a place of opportunity and fevered trade – in which the annual revenue it generates is twice that of the largest South African shopping mall. Jeppe is a dynamic, exuberant hub that fosters entrepreneurship. Fortunes are made, loved ones back home are supported and commodities – particularly fast fashion  – flow across Southern Africa. Local and cross-border traders arrive on buses and taxis to buy shoes, t-shirts, dresses, underwear, jeans, suits, wallets, belts, nail clippers and cosmetics.  Though situated on the dry Highveld, Jeppe is an entrepôt which bears a close resemblance to major port cities.  

This is the setting for The Chaos Precinct.

The book presents a compelling, brave – at times, lyrical – narrative of how migrant Ethiopians have shaped a trading post in Johannesburg’s inner city. It humanises a bewildering place. It immerses readers in this extraordinary shopping hub by centring the innumerable conversations Tanya Zack has had with traders, street vendors, consumers, brokers, city officials, restaurateurs, the security forces and academics. The author shares her perceptive insights and heart-breaking experiences born of a fifteen-year immersion in the life of Jeppe. While undergirded by thorough research, The Chaos Precinct is a personal story which hosts the voices of countless others.

The Chaos Precinct invites us to think differently about Johannesburg as an African city. More specifically, it characterizes Johannesburg, counterintuitively, as a port city. It discerns in Jeppe a centre – if not the centre – of Johannesburg’s globalized trade in fast fashion. Not only are commodities from China sold in Jeppe, but they are also often resold – broadcast across the subcontinent in chains of value that are integral to the lives of hundreds of thousands of Africans. The orthodoxy is that the inner city of Johannesburg is declining. Zack tells a different story: of a burgeoning only tempered by restrictive bylaws, corruption and brutal policing.

Bio

Tanya Zack is a South African urban planner and writer whose work has focused on urban regeneration, contemporary migration, informal work, urban policy and affordable housing. Her writing in Wake Up This Is Joburg (Duke University Press, 2022) has been lauded for being amongst the freshest and most original material on an African city. It was included in the longlist of the 2024 Sunday Times/Exclusive Books Literary Awards. The products of her professional practice in Johannesburg's inner city, including an inner-city transformation policy, and a study of cross border shopping, are recognised as ground-breaking interventions. She grew up in a working-class suburb on the edge of the inner-city.