ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the Maboneng Precinct and the community that Propertuity promotes in downtown Johannesburg. Johannesburg's biggest transformation is at the hands of private initiatives, such as Play Braamfontein and South Point in Braamfontein, and the Propertuity in Jeppestown and Doornfontein. Through H. Lefebvre's idea of lived space as "the personal experience of space in everyday life", the chapter observes the daily experience of this community in relation to housing, sociability, security and economy/business. The chapter interrogates whether a temporary renter community qualifies a "community of place making" or rather as a community of market making. It highlights similarities between the elite circles of professionals, locally gathered and internationally connected, and the previous colonial elite. Using as a starting point the work of the Proyecto Modernidad/Colonialidad, the chapter intends to deal with the subject of gentrification as a result of the maintenance of a colonial logic, interconnected with a modern ideal.
