{"id":6995,"date":"2013-07-11T06:32:40","date_gmt":"2013-07-11T06:32:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/praag.org\/?p=6995"},"modified":"2013-07-11T06:37:03","modified_gmt":"2013-07-11T06:37:03","slug":"6995","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=6995","title":{"rendered":"Johannesburg is not a ‘world class city’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"jeppe01\"<\/a>The city of Johannesburg has been ordered to stop running part of its \u201cworld class African city,\u201d campaign by South Africa’s advertising authority, which ruled it was \u201cmisleading.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Advertising Standards Authority upheld a complaint by resident Steven Haywood, who argued the city’s long-running marketing campaign \u201ccontain blatant untruths.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johannesburg, population 4.5 million, is sub-Saharan Africa’s richest city and the region’s economic hub.<\/p>\n

While many parts of the city are leafy, urbane and well-to-do, its inner-city and poor townships are plagued by unemployment, crime, poor housing and limited public utilities.<\/p>\n

Haywood took issue with one particular radio advert that implored listeners to imagine themselves living in a recession-busting environmentally friendly \u201cworld class African city.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cImagine a city where you can rest assured, knowing that it is financially stable; that there is on-going electrification of homes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA city that is saving the environment through different energy-efficient interventions. A city that continues to create new jobs despite the economic downturn. Can you imagine living in such a city? You do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Haywood argued that the advert was misleading, since the city’s finances had received three consecutive qualified audits and was struggling to repair roads, while garbage often lies uncollected.<\/p>\n

The advertising authority on Monday agreed and ruled that the commercial should be withdrawn immediately \u201cin its current form.\u201d<\/p>\n

It said it had \u201cno option but to find that the commercial appears to be communicating a misleading message.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fred Mokoko, a spokesman for the mayor of Johannesburg, told AFP Wednesday they would appeal the ruling.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur lawyers are busy preparing the appeal documents, we are appealing… we were never offered a chance to state our case,\u201d said Mokoko.<\/p>\n

He said the \u201cworld class\u201d statement was the city’s 2040 growth vision, coined in 2005, and can be seen on billboards and glossy inflight magazines.<\/p>\n

This year, Johannesburg unveiled a $10 billion (about R100.3 billion) ten-year infrastructure development plan, which includes housing and roads improvement. – Sapa-AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The city of Johannesburg has been ordered to stop running part of its \u201cworld class African city,\u201d campaign by South Africa’s advertising authority, which ruled it was \u201cmisleading.\u201d The Advertising Standards Authority upheld a complaint by resident Steven Haywood, who argued the city’s long-running marketing campaign \u201ccontain blatant untruths.\u201d Johannesburg, population 4.5 million, is sub-Saharan … Continue reading “Johannesburg is not a ‘world class city’”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6996,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[239,3866],"class_list":["post-6995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-south-africa","tag-johannesburg","tag-world-class-african-city"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/jeppe01.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6995"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6995\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6999,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6995\/revisions\/6999"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}