Quite shockingly, very few city-makers start out with a plan – it’s often a case of just going building by building which has its charm, but seldom realises the collective potential of a place. This was certainly the case for Jonathan Liebmann of Propertuity, who started with a small collection of abandoned warehouses in inner-city Joburg. This was 2007 and at that time, his city was a no-go zone – crime ridden, filthy and all but forgotten. Transforming them into what is now known as Arts on Main, these warehouses have become the cultural cornerstone of the Maboneng precinct.

Propertuity have now delivered over 1,000 apartments, a hotel designed by David Adjaye, 300 office spaces in the neighbourhood and created a network of streets that support independent retailers and arts organisations. Knowing that a great city is about more than just offices and apartments they’ve also commissioned over 30 large-scale public artworks, planted thousands of trees and opened innovative education and community centres.

Following a week-long immersion in Maboneng, Right Angle worked with Jonathan and his team to develop a census research-led 2020 Vision document for Maboneng, which would help understand their current people and then grow the community to 20,000 people to achieve the necessary scale to become a truly remarkable neighbourhood. Drawing upon our experience as urbanists, retail strategists and business owners, we developed a document that spoke to investors, owner-occupiers and businesses, not just about their past success, but about their ambition and core values of balancing social impact and profitability. Titled ‘The Unfinished City’ it was part prospectus, part rally-cry to work together to bring the city back