I lived in Hillbrow, Johannesburg, in the days when it was part of a ritual coming of age to live in Hillbrow.  The resident mix was eclectic:  students, young professionals, night-clubbers and elderly Eastern Europeans.  We gathered in Café Zurich for coffee, cake, newspapers and backgammon while overlooking Hillbrow Records and Estoril Books.  Cutting-edge theatre played at the Black Sun and No 58.  Mornings started with a sunrise stroll along syringa-scented streets to the bakery at 6am for fresh croissants, while the 24-hour Fontana was the place for hot roast chicken at 2 am.  You could – and did – cycle to Wits, walk to Braamfontein, take the train from Park Station with the Pierneef panels on the wall, admire the Christmas lights in Joubert Park, and window-shop along Commissioner Street.  The eastern side of the city was the place for haberdashers and hatters, and Ponte Towers – a hollow cylinder - was built amongst enormous debate in the ‘brutalist’ style (yes, ‘brutalist’ is a recognised architectural term).  Downtown Johannesburg by day was a hive of office workers, restaurants, shopping, cinemas and strolling.  At night the character changed completely and it became a neon haven of nightclubs and exotic eateries, with moonlit squares and gardens. On Sunday summer afternoons we used to drive north to the country for lunch (in those days the north WAS still country) – and coming home we were always greeted by the great skyline of Johannesburg silhouetted against the sky, the Hillbrow Tower blinking its lights, the buildings and billboards of the city distinctive against the purple sky of a thunderstorm.  Sigh.  There was something about central Johannesburg in those days that was magic, that hummed at night and buzzed during the day. Then in the early nineties the businesses all moved to Sandton and Rivonia, the yuppies moved to the suburbs, and the collapse of Hillbrow, Yeoville, Braamfontein, Doornfontein and Marshalltown was sudden and dramatic.  Nobody went to central Johannesburg any more, it was not safe and anyway, there was nothing there but derelict buildings, muggers and litter.  It was the death of what had been a great city. But there is good news.  Johannesburg has been busy with a decade-long inner-city refurbishment which has started to show results.  Having left Johannesburg 15 years ago I was not aware of the rejuvenation of the city centre (Johannesburg Tourism is very good at keeping these things quiet), so the first clue I got was when I heard about the opening of the 12 Decades Art Hotel on Main Street. I read the reviews with doubtful interest:  the concept sounded precious, and I wondered who on earth would want to stay in the dodgy east end of Johannesburg.  Intrigued, I decided to do a little digging.  And uncovered a few surprises. 12 Decades used to be an office block that was turned into a boutique hotel with 12 rooms, each of which has been done up by artists to represent a decade of Johannesburg’s history.  On its own, it sounded pretentious and a little dull but some further research turned up some far more interesting developments:  the 12 Decades Hotel is part of a number of new developments, or precincts, that are bringing café society back to the centre of the city.  The only problem is that while the place is abuzz during the week, it stands almost empty over weekends.  There is little interest in the city centre outside office hours, but there are signs that this might change.  Slowing everything down further is the Johannesburg City Council which, although singing all the right hymns, is not really in tune with the organist. I spoke to Neil Frazer, who headed up a company tasked with implementing Johannesurg’s inner city renewal for the last decade.  While he is optimistic about Johannesburg’s chances of regaining that cosmopolitan cache that so used to characterise the city, he is also scathing about the limp bureaucracy that allows iconic buildings like the Rissik Street Post Office to stand derelict. “At the moment, tourists still stay in the northern suburbs and take day trip sorties into the centre of Johannesburg to see the sights,” he says.  “It is going to take a long time for this to change, if it ever changes.  The problem is that the entertainment and restaurants and main leisure facilities are in the north, and there is still this perception that central Johannesburg is a business district and nothing else.” “The big businesses that relocated their head offices to the north are not likely to move back into the city centre, but they are opening branch offices and clerical offices in Johannesburg because of the new life that is coming to the city.” Most of this new life started quite unobtrusively.  With encouragement from the city council, developers were buying up old buildings – mainly derelict office blocks – and turning them into upmarket apartments and apartment hotels.   Some streets were pedestrianised, landscaping made them pleasant places to stroll, the famous ‘leaping-impala’ fountain was relocated to save it from vandalism, and each block was given a set of security guards for safety.  Streets are clean, shops are upmarket, gardens are kept up.  Areas are starting to develop character and personality. There’s a fashion precinct, a jewellery precinct, a sports precinct, Ponte Towers has gone upmarket, Main Street is a tree-shaded haven. It might be too soon to call central Johannesburg a tourist attraction but I know that on Heritage Day recently the Johannesburg Heritage Society ran architectural tours through the city. They were so successful that they might become fixtures.  At the moment I fear that the only types attracted to a Johannesburg tour will be those like myself who remember the glory days of Johannesburg.  But with enough interest we might be able to lure the visitors back to the city centre.  And even Hillbrow might be able to regain its cachet as the Manhattan of Africa.  Now wouldn’t that be nice!