JOHANNESBURG — This is a tale of two cities. One is Africa's richest metropolis: glitzy shopping malls, gated estates, swanky restaurants and leafy streets. The other — where 76 people died in an inferno that engulfed a derelict building on Thursday — has garbage rotting in the gutters, jobless men drinking morning beers and an abundance of ads for abortion clinics and funeral parlors.
The building that caught on fire is in what's still called the Central Business District, even though big corporations have long moved out to the safer suburbs, leaving behind abandoned office spaces that, in South African parlance, have now become "hijacked."
