Joburg has lost its seat among the world’s iconic capitals

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Since early spring last year, I have spent three months away from home, visiting old friends in some of the world’s most iconic capitals.

In August, at the height of the northern hemisphere summer, I spent just under a month in London, returning to that city for the first time since 1999. 

How changed I found it — more cosmopolitan, more diverse and multicultural than I could have imagined when, as the foreign correspondent for Africa’s largest Sunday newspaper, I lived there in the 1990s.

There has been so much growth and development across London: the gentrification of places I used to live; the sprucing up of parks and public places; the cleaning up of hitherto dangerous neighbourhoods. Don’t get me wrong, there is much that does not work in London. But there are, at least, signs of maintenance — that they are trying to keep up with keeping the city functioning.

I remarked on how clean the inner city was when a friend pointed to the Union Jack bunting flying over high streets everywhere, reminding me it was just two months since the Queen’s Jubilee celebrations. Local municipalities and retail outlets had, she said, made a huge effort to pretty up shopping areas. “Well, that’s different,” was the thought that ran through my head.

Johannesburg sashays to its very own rhythm – a swagger that is at once cool and sophisticated

There were new landmarks that have changed the landscape of this city. The Shard thus called because, well, it looks like a shard of glass; the Gherkin, a giant bullet-shaped building that rises above its ancient neighbours; the Millennium Bridge — a footbridge that links the banks of the river Thames. It all feels like a city upgrading for the future.