The research idea emerged from years of living and reporting on the city. Johannesburg’s pan-African growth as a commercial and cultural hub has been exponential, but at the same time there has been a visceral decline in the democratic governance of the city.

This journalist-in-residence research project will explore what has happened in Johannesburg and seek to understand it beyond the dimensions of standard news reporting. The project will situate the metro’s challenges in the context of the organizational models adopted during the transition to local government, the administrative changes and reorganizations, and, more recently, the coalition governments. The project also considers the everyday life of the city in relation to state capture, and the research will need to explore whether the lens can legitimately be expanded to consider the impact of local extractive practices on cities. With the national and provincial elections delivering a shape-shifting result for South Africa, attention has quickly turned to the 2026 municipal elections. Specifically, the six metros, which are treated with a lack of complexity by a governance system that creates a one-size-fits-all model for the local sphere. It’s increasingly proving to be a bad fit.

As a work of observation, reporting and interviewing alongside desktop research, the project will be structured to answer big questions about public administration using smaller resonant frames.

The project will help develop concrete proposals for reform of metropolitan governance, adding a local government dimension to NSI’s work on public service reform.