Hotels, shopping malls come to South Africa’s changing Soweto FEATURE 03/31/2010

Hotels, shopping malls come to South Africa’s changing Soweto

FEATURE 03/31/2010 SOWETO — Giant black-and-white photos of a young Nelson Mandela smile across the broad halls of a four-star star hotel, looking over the dusty street market where he once hid from apartheid police. This is the new Soweto, a mix of upper-crust comforts and urban grit, where shopping malls and landscaped parks have sprung up among some of South Africa’s most important landmarks of the struggle against white-minority rule. It’s a side of Johannesburg that residents hope World Cup visitors will venture out to see, where one third of the city’s 3.8 million people live. “In the past, you would be ashamed of saying you come from Soweto — first of all because it was associated with crime... shantytowns and poverty. But now it has improved,” said Frans Malotle, a 48-year-old businessman.... MORE Source:  The Daily Tribune URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100331com3.html

COMMENTARY EDITORIAL Opening wide the cheating doors FRONTLINE Change? FEATURE Hotels, shopping malls come to South Africa’s changing Soweto HE SAYS Reflections SHE SAYS Ruminations FEATURE Singapore a key transit hub for wildlife smuggling focus ElBaradei takes Egypt reform campaign to the street