The state of Johannesburg: Current context and conditions

Context

This GCRO Rapid Research Paper was prepared at the request of the Presidency, via Operation Vulindlela. The original paper was researched and written over three weeks ahead of President Cyril Ramaphosa's visit to the City of Johannesburg on 6-7 March 2025, and his inauguration of an intergovernmental intervention in the struggling city known as the Presidential Johannesburg Working Group (PJWG). The original paper was presented to various PJWG forums after submission, but not widely released. This published version has revised and updated the original submission.

Overview

paper provides a comprehensive, evidence-based assessment of the City of Johannesburg’s demographic, economic, social, spatial, infrastructural, governance and financial conditions. Prepared at the request of the Presidency via Operation Vulindlela ahead of a 2025 intergovernmental engagement, the report frames Johannesburg as a city experiencing a polycrisis: a convergence of mutually reinforcing crises that together drive a sustained decline in performance, service delivery, public trust and quality of life.

Demographic trends and growth uncertainty

Johannesburg’s demographic profile is marked by significant uncertainty. Census 2022 recorded just under 5 million residents and approximately 1.8 million households, figures that diverge sharply from Statistics South Africa’s Mid-year Population Estimates, which suggest a substantially larger population. This discrepancy presents serious challenges for planning, budgeting and fiscal allocations, particularly because population counts influence the equitable share of nationally raised revenue.

Independent demographic indicators, notably recorded live births, suggest that while Johannesburg continues to grow, its growth rate has slowed since around 2010. Slower growth could reduce future service backlogs, but may also reflect declining attractiveness of the city as a destination for migrants, raising longer-term concerns about economic dynamism and its absorptive capacity.

Economic performance and labour market stress

Johannesburg remains South Africa’s most significant urban economy and has consistently recorded the highest GVA per capita among metros. However, real GVA per capita has stagnated since the late 2000s and is no higher today than it was two decades ago. Economic growth has therefore failed to keep pace with population dynamics and rising needs.

Economic activity has also become increasingly spatially uneven. Core northern nodes such as Sandton, Randburg and Midrand continue to perform relatively well, while the CBD, townships, informal settlements and parts of the urban periphery have experienced economic decline. Manufacturing has steadily lost prominence over the last few decades, while finance, insurance, real estate and business services have grown in dominance. Although ICT investment has expanded rapidly, investment in construction, research and development, and industrial upgrading has declined since 2015/16, limiting future job creation and diversification.

Labour market outcomes reflect these structural weaknesses. Official unemployment rose from under 30% in 2015 to approximately 33% by 2024/25, exceeding both the national average and that of most other metros. When discouraged work seekers are included, unemployment is substantially higher at 36%. Employment recovery after COVID-19 has been weak, and the number of discouraged work seekers has grown dramatically since 2008, signalling deepening labour market exclusion. Unemployment is highly spatialised, with township areas and informal settlements facing extremely high joblessness, sometimes affecting the majority of working-age residents.

Poverty, inequality and livelihoods

Despite its economic scale, Johannesburg exhibits persistent and deeply spatialised inequality. The city has the lowest proportion of households living below the Food Poverty Line among Gauteng metros, yet poverty levels remain similar to those of a decade ago and well above pre-COVID levels. Income insecurity remains widespread, and reliance on social grants has increased steadily, underscoring both their importance as a safety net and the fragility of household livelihoods.

Food insecurity is a major concern. Around a quarter of households report adults skipping meals because of insufficient income, a proportion that has increased in recent years. Child hunger has declined slightly, likely due to school feeding schemes and social grants, but remains prevalent. Spatial income data shows stark contrasts between affluent northern suburbs and poorer southern and township areas, reinforcing Johannesburg’s enduring apartheid-era spatial inequalities.

Spatial transformation and housing

Johannesburg’s spatial development reflects slow progress in unravelling the distorted settlement patterns of apartheid, as well as a stagnant property market.

Formal housing continues to expand, but at a slower pace than in earlier decades, while informal dwellings have also increased, though more slowly than in Tshwane. Approximately 45% of housing in the city is informal or semi-informal, including backyard structures and informal settlements.

The residential property market is large but underperforming relative to Cape Town, with weak price growth since COVID-19. Both residential and non-residential building completions have been flat or declining, signalling reduced investor confidence. At the same time, the city faces a housing backlog estimated at around 500 000 units, alongside rising homelessness and overcrowding.

Inner city challenges

Police precincts such as Jeppe, Johannesburg Central and Hillbrow have experienced sharp increases in murders in recent years, reinforcing perceptions of disorder and decline in the inner city. Survey data reveals extremely low perceptions of safety: around 85% of inner-city residents report feeling unsafe walking at night. While some service satisfaction levels in the inner city remain marginally higher than the city average, deteriorating safety significantly undermines confidence, investment and stability.

Infrastructure and basic services

Infrastructure performance is a central pressure point. While access to piped water and adequate sanitation remains high, satisfaction with these services has declined sharply due to increasing interruptions and reliability problems. Water and electricity interruptions not related to loadshedding have risen dramatically since 2017/18.

Road infrastructure is in particularly poor condition, reflected in very low satisfaction levels and widespread complaints about maintenance backlogs. Refuse removal remains relatively stable, but emerging weaknesses suggest growing vulnerability if corrective action is not taken.

Non-revenue water and electricity losses are exceptionally high, with major financial implications for the city.

Environmental sustainability and resilience

Environmental pressures are intensifying. Public concern about water security has risen sharply, perceptions of water quality have deteriorated, and air quality remains a health concern. While some households are investing in alternative energy and water sources, the majority cannot afford to do so, raising concerns about unequal resilience and adaptation to climate-related risks.

Governance and political legitimacy

Governance challenges underpin many of Johannesburg’s difficulties. Since 2016 the city has been characterised by unstable coalitions, frequent changes in political leadership, high vacancy rates in senior management and weak policy continuity. Public satisfaction with local government has fallen to very low levels, while voter turnout and support for major parties have declined sharply, signalling deepening political disengagement and eroding legitimacy.

Safety and security

Safety and security represents one of Johannesburg’s most severe and visible crises. Crime trends show a long-term decline in serious crime rates since the mid-1990s, but this masks a troubling resurgence in violent crime, particularly murder, since around 2013 and especially after 2020. In 2024, the murder rate stood at approximately 40 per 100 000, significantly higher than a decade earlier. Several Johannesburg police stations feature among the top 30 nationally for community reported serious crimes.

Municipal finance and fiscal stress

Johannesburg’s financial position is increasingly precarious. While audit outcomes have stabilised and some municipal entities have returned to clean audits, the City as a whole has not achieved this benchmark. Liquidity has deteriorated significantly, with cash reserves falling to less than one month of operating expenditure, raising serious concerns about the city’s ability to absorb financial shocks.

The city has moved from regular operating surpluses to consecutive operating deficits in the last few years. Unrealistic revenue projections, persistent non-payment of rates and service charges, as well as imprudent or unanticipated operating expenditure well above original budgets, have all contributed to this shift.

Capital budgets and capital spending have stagnated in nominal terms for a decade, undermining infrastructure renewal in a city with extensive maintenance and replacement needs.

Overall assessment

The report concludes that Johannesburg’s challenges are systemic and mutually reinforcing. Economic stagnation, unemployment, poverty, crime, service delivery failures, infrastructure decay, governance instability and fiscal stress interact to produce declining quality of life and eroding public trust. Reversing this trajectory will require decisive, coordinated interventions that stabilise governance, restore financial sustainability, prioritise infrastructure maintenance and investment, and rebuild the social and economic foundations of South Africa’s most important city.

Suggested citation: Götz, G., Seedat, R., Arnold, S., Bell, J.F., Hamann, C., Khalil-Hassen, E., Khanyile, S., Miles-Timotheus, S., Mkhize, T., Modiba, M., Mosiane, N., Mushongera, D., Naidoo, L., Naidoo, Y., Singh, S. (2025). The state of Johannesburg: Current context and conditions. GCRO Rapid Research Paper, Gauteng City-Region Observatory. https://doi.org/10.36634/KUVI9326