Maponya Mall

Between 2005 and 2008 Soweto became home to four major new malls, Protea Bardens, Barmall, Jabulani and the most talked about, the huge Maponya Mall. Opened in late 2007, it’s the size of eight football pitches, with some 200 stores, cafes and restaurants, and an eight-screen cinema. While some see this as a sign that the township is on the up, others we spoke to were unimpressed, feeling that many of the jobs in the new malls were going to people outside of Soweto and not to those in the local community. A local shop owner told us that such malls were already putting home-based and street-front shops out of business. These shops were not for the wider community but ‘only for the rich’, she said.