[imagesource: YouTube / Carte Blanche]

Way back in the day, Hillbrow was the sort of place you went to watch a movie or enjoy a night out.

Those days have long come and gone and now it’s mostly in the news for violent crime and falling into a state of disrepair and lawlessness.

When I was last in Jozi, I asked the Uber driver who picked me up at the airport about Hillbrow and he just shook his head and said, “no, we don’t go there.”

Carte Blanche does, however, and a segment on Sunday focused on one night in the area:

Overcrowded, restless, volatile. A neighbourhood where anything can happen, and life is cheap…

Hillbrow-born and raised, Carte Blanche meets a guardian fighting to keep chaos and lawlessness at bay. With his invisible army of undercover informants and patrollers keeping an ear to the ground, he works to tip the odds in this dog-eat-dog suburb where buildings are hijacked and stripped bare, alcohol and violence flow freely, and drug addicts camp out on the streets.

It’s a full-time job for a security company working to keep some spaces safe for the area’s residents and remaining businesses.

You know things are getting real when Derek Watts opens with a trigger warning about violence, alcohol, and drug abuse.

[source:carteblanche]