JICP Celebrates 30 Years Through the Lives and Stories of Johannesburg’s People
In 1996, the Johannesburg Inner City Partnership (JICP) was born. That same year, across Johannesburg, a number of children were beginning lives that would unfold alongside the organisation and the changing city around them.
Thirty years later, some of those children now work on JICP programmes in the Inner City. As the JICP celebrates its 30th anniversary, they too are turning 30.
This remarkable connection lies at the heart of a special anniversary campaign bringing together their parallel journeys. As the JICP has grown, changed and found its place in Johannesburg, so have they. The story of the organisation’s first 30 years can therefore also be told through their lives: through the streets they have walked, the places that have shaped them and the experiences through which Johannesburg has become their city.
Founded in 1996, the JICP has spent three decades working alongside government, business, civil society and communities to support the regeneration of the Johannesburg Inner City. Rather than commemorating this history only through projects and institutional milestones, the JICP is marking the anniversary through the stories of people who have grown up alongside it.
A group of people employed through JICP programmes, all of whom turn 30 in 2026, have been invited to choose a place in the Inner City that holds particular meaning for them and to tell the personal story that lives there.
Their chosen places may be streets, parks, buildings or public spaces, but their stories are about much more than geography. They are about people, place and connection: the memories, relationships, opportunities and defining moments through which each person has formed a unique relationship with Johannesburg.
On Saturday, 22 August 2026, these stories will move from memory into the streets as the participants lead a special anniversary walk along the JICP’s Walkable Network.
The Walkable Network is more than a walking route. It is a framework aimed at concentrating and connecting investment along priority streets that link the places between which people move every day. By aligning residential, retail, office and commercial development with transport, public spaces and effective urban management, it enables each investment to strengthen the others – building a better Inner City, one Route at a time.
Members of the public are invited to join the walk, which will begin at Johannesburg’s grand old Rand Club and weave through the Inner City, stopping at places selected by the participants because of the role they have played in their lives.
At each stop, a storyteller will share why that place matters to them. Together, their stories will create a living portrait of Johannesburg over the past 30 years: not simply a record of how the city has changed, but an account of what it has meant to grow up, find opportunity, form relationships and build a life within it.
According to JICP Chief Executive Officer David van Niekerk, the anniversary offers an opportunity to see the organisation – and urban regeneration itself – through a much more personal lens.
“There is something genuinely magical about discovering that people working with us today were born in the same year as the JICP. We have occupied the same city and travelled through the same 30 years, although in very different ways. While the JICP was growing into its role in Johannesburg, these young people were growing into their own lives. The places they have chosen and the stories they tell allow us to reflect on our organisation’s history through their experiences of the city.”
“We often describe cities in terms of buildings, infrastructure, investment and plans. All of those things matter, but they are not what brings a city to life. A city comes alive through people: where they walk, work and meet; where they find opportunity; where they experience joy or difficulty; and where they begin to feel that they belong. That is also how we understand urban regeneration at the JICP. It is not an abstract idea. It has to change how people experience the city in their everyday lives.”
“We would love Joburgers to walk this route with us – to see these places through someone else’s eyes, to hear the memories held within them and perhaps to think differently about the places that have shaped their own relationship with Johannesburg.”
The walk will be documented by the Joburg Photowalkers, whose own story is deeply connected to experiencing Johannesburg on foot.
Founder Mark Straw began photographing the Inner City during a solo walk on 31 December 1999, which included a visit to the then very different Turbine Hall. Returning a decade later and seeing how dramatically the building had been transformed offered a powerful reminder that cities – and the meanings attached to their places – are never static.
Joburg Photowalkers grew from a group photowalk through Newtown in 2009 and has since brought photographers together to explore Johannesburg’s streets, neighbourhoods, architecture and public spaces on foot.
Their involvement in the anniversary is especially fitting. People who have spent years walking through and documenting Johannesburg will now capture the stories of a generation whose lives have unfolded alongside both the JICP and a changing Inner City.
The stories, videos and photographs created through the activation will form part of the JICP’s broader celebration of the people, partnerships, projects and places that have shaped its work since 1996.
“Johannesburg has always been a city of reinvention,” says Van Niekerk. “It’s buildings change, its neighbourhoods evolve and its public spaces take on new purposes. But none of those places has meaning without the people who inhabit them. Our own 30-year history is inseparable from the lives being lived around us. That is what this anniversary is really about – and that is what we want to celebrate.”
As the JICP enters its fourth decade, the principle on which it was founded remains unchanged: great cities are built through partnership, but they come alive through people.
Event Details:
- Date: Saturday, 22 August 2026
- Time: 10:00 to 13:00
- Venue: Rand Club, corner of Loveday and Fox Streets, Johannesburg
- Entry: Open to the public
About the Johannesburg Inner City Partnership
Established in 1996, the Johannesburg Inner City Partnership (JICP) is a non-profit organisation dedicated to supporting the regeneration, revitalisation and sustainable development of Johannesburg’s Inner City. Through strategic partnerships, urban management initiatives, placemaking interventions and community-based programmes, the JICP works to help create a cleaner, safer, more inclusive and economically vibrant city for all.
Connect with the Johannesburg Inner City Partnership (JICP) on social media:
Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn | YouTube
