Thick clouds of dust rise once again across Soweto, the black South African township that came to symbolise the long struggle against apartheid.

This time they are not caused by brick-throwing rioters, police baton charges, rubber bullets or teargas, but construction sites. Thirteen years after the country’s first democratic elections, Soweto, home to more than a million mainly black people, is booming. Street lamps, tarred roads, paved footpaths and rows of neat new houses with freshly planted trees have changed it beyond recognition.

This month it will take a further giant step away from its past with the opening of a shopping mall the size of eight football pitches and boasting all of the country’s main retail outlets. For years such shops were to be found only in the upmarket, mainly white, northern suburbs. In the township where Nelson Mandela and other top leaders of the banned African National Congress plotted the end of white minority rule, blacks had street-side stalls.

The £40 million Maponya Mall, built by the Sowetan-born businessman Richard Maponya, will also house the first fully fledged cinema complex in the township. It will dwarf two other smaller malls that opened last year on the other side of the area, and there are plans to open at least three more next year.

During apartheid, going to the cinema was linked to “white culture” and seen as a privilege that black people would not want to share. Postapartheid South Africa, however, boasts a vibrant, multiracial film business, winning an Oscar for Best Foreign Film last year for Tsotsi, a depiction of gang life in Johannesburg.

“This is not just my dream, it is Soweto’s dream,” Mr Maponya, now in his eighties, told The Times. “For years the people who contributed most to Johannesburg’s wealth had nowhere themselves to go and shop and benefit from the consumer goods their labour had helped produce.”

Yesterday teams of workers were busy trying to finish the remaining work before the projected opening day on September 27. “Every day we see a big difference. I am sure we are going to make the opening on time,” Charmaine Dhlamini, a manager at the construction site, said.

Developers say that the 65,000sq m (700,000sq ft) Maponya Mall is only the latest jewel in the Sowetan crown. A five-star hotel was completed recently on the edge of the refurbished Freedom Square, where the ANC’s Freedom Charter was declared in 1955. Dozens of tourists visit Soweto daily to view historic sights connected with “the struggle”, but few can spend the night. “That will all change. The hotel and the mall are indications of how life is changing. They are black-owned and run,” Mr Maponya said.

Behind the talk of dreams, however, lie hardheaded economics. Soweto is home to about a third of the population of Johannesburg, but contributes only about 4 per cent to its economic activity.

City economists published a study recently showing that more than 80 per cent of the township’s disposable income was spent elsewhere, having a huge impact on local employment.

At the end of apartheid, average incomes in white areas were five times higher than those in black areas, but latest statistics show that the emerging black middle class – credited with creating the biggest economic boom in South Africa since the Second World War – is now responsible for more than a quarter of the country’s purchasing power of £44 billion.

Nowhere is that more visible than in Soweto. The roads are full of luxury cars, driven by fashion-conscious young executives. Restaurants and clubs have opened in many of the township’s more affluent areas.

Rows of squatters’ shacks still exist, but they are being replaced slowly with blocks of low-cost housing. House prices have rocketed over the past four years as more and more middle-class blacks enter the property market.

“I can’t believe this is the Soweto I grew up in,” Nelson Chauke, 37, said as he looked at the glass-and-steel frontage of the mall. “In my wildest dreams I never thought I would see something like this here.”

Mixed fortunes

1.2m: number of people living in Soweto

50%: the unemployment rate in Soweto

80%: of those employed have jobs outside the area 90% of households have fallen behind with their electricity bills

16%: of adults are infected with HIV

1,700: number of tourists who visit Soweto daily in peak season

Sources: Johannesburg Council; Independent News & Media South Africa; Soweto South Tours

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