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“Honey, Milk and Bile”: a social history of Hillbrow, 1894–2016
This commentary constructs a social history of Hillbrow, an inner-city suburb in Johannesburg, South Africa, based on a review of relevant published historical, anthropological and sociological texts. We highlight the significant continuities in the social structure of the suburb, despite the radica...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2017
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5498863/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28832287 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-017-4345-1 |
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author | Stadler, Jonathan Dugmore, Charles |
author_facet | Stadler, Jonathan Dugmore, Charles |
author_sort | Stadler, Jonathan |
collection | PubMed |
description | This commentary constructs a social history of Hillbrow, an inner-city suburb in Johannesburg, South Africa, based on a review of relevant published historical, anthropological and sociological texts. We highlight the significant continuities in the social structure of the suburb, despite the radical transformations that have occurred over the last 120 years. Originally envisaged as a healthy residential area, distinct from the industrial activity of early Johannesburg, Hillbrow was a prime location for health infrastructure to serve the city. By the late 1960s, the suburb had been transformed by the rapid construction of high rise office and apartment buildings, providing temporary low cost accommodation for young people, migrants and immigrants. In the 1980s, Hillbrow defied the apartheid state policy of racial separation of residential areas, and earned the reputation of a liberated zone of tolerance and inclusion. By the 1990s, affected by inner-city decay and the collapse of services for many apartment buildings, the suburb became associated with crime, sex work, and ungovernability. More recently, the revitalisation of the Hillbrow Health Precinct has created a more optimistic narrative of the suburb as a site for research and interventions that has the potential to have a positive impact on the health of its residents. The concentration of innovative public health interventions in Hillbrow today, particularly in the high quality health services and multidisciplinary research of the Hillbrow Health Precinct, creates the possibility for renewal of this troubled inner-city suburb. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5498863 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2017 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-54988632017-07-10 “Honey, Milk and Bile”: a social history of Hillbrow, 1894–2016 Stadler, Jonathan Dugmore, Charles BMC Public Health Commentary This commentary constructs a social history of Hillbrow, an inner-city suburb in Johannesburg, South Africa, based on a review of relevant published historical, anthropological and sociological texts. We highlight the significant continuities in the social structure of the suburb, despite the radical transformations that have occurred over the last 120 years. Originally envisaged as a healthy residential area, distinct from the industrial activity of early Johannesburg, Hillbrow was a prime location for health infrastructure to serve the city. By the late 1960s, the suburb had been transformed by the rapid construction of high rise office and apartment buildings, providing temporary low cost accommodation for young people, migrants and immigrants. In the 1980s, Hillbrow defied the apartheid state policy of racial separation of residential areas, and earned the reputation of a liberated zone of tolerance and inclusion. By the 1990s, affected by inner-city decay and the collapse of services for many apartment buildings, the suburb became associated with crime, sex work, and ungovernability. More recently, the revitalisation of the Hillbrow Health Precinct has created a more optimistic narrative of the suburb as a site for research and interventions that has the potential to have a positive impact on the health of its residents. The concentration of innovative public health interventions in Hillbrow today, particularly in the high quality health services and multidisciplinary research of the Hillbrow Health Precinct, creates the possibility for renewal of this troubled inner-city suburb. BioMed Central 2017-07-04 /pmc/articles/PMC5498863/ /pubmed/28832287 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-017-4345-1 Text en © The Author(s). 2017 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. |
spellingShingle | Commentary Stadler, Jonathan Dugmore, Charles “Honey, Milk and Bile”: a social history of Hillbrow, 1894–2016 |
title | “Honey, Milk and Bile”: a social history of Hillbrow, 1894–2016 |
title_full | “Honey, Milk and Bile”: a social history of Hillbrow, 1894–2016 |
title_fullStr | “Honey, Milk and Bile”: a social history of Hillbrow, 1894–2016 |
title_full_unstemmed | “Honey, Milk and Bile”: a social history of Hillbrow, 1894–2016 |
title_short | “Honey, Milk and Bile”: a social history of Hillbrow, 1894–2016 |
title_sort | “honey, milk and bile”: a social history of hillbrow, 1894–2016 |
topic | Commentary |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5498863/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28832287 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-017-4345-1 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT stadlerjonathan honeymilkandbileasocialhistoryofhillbrow18942016 AT dugmorecharles honeymilkandbileasocialhistoryofhillbrow18942016 |