[4][5] Today, it is widely known and celebrated for its diverse, pan-African population but notorious for its high levels of crime, poverty and degradation.

Yeoville was proclaimed as a suburb in 1890 (four years after the discovery of gold led to the founding of Johannesburg) by Thomas Yeo Sherwell, who came from Yeovil in the United Kingdom.

[7] The area was advertised as a "sanitarium for the rich" in which the air was purer because it was up on a ridge overlooking the dirty, smoke-filled mining town that had sprung from nothing out of the (then) Transvaal bushveld.

[15] Both Kasrils and Slovo attended Yeoville Boys Primary School, as did the cricketer Ali Bacher.

[16] Sinclair Beiles, a beat poet settled in Yeoville and was part of the 1980s artistic milieu at the time.

[18] In 1939, notable architect, Harold Le Roith built the San Remo apartment building in the neighbourhood.

[7] As Hillbrow entered into a period of decline from the late 1970s, several nightclubs and art galleries relocated to Yeoville.

[2] However, this came at the expense of existing community shops that were unable to meet the rising rent costs or were converted into cafes and clubs.

[2] Shopkeepers on Rocky-Raleigh were also beginning to see a decline in trade as Sandton developed a commercial centre, attracting shoppers away from the CBD and surrounding neighbourhood.

[2] The social makeup included a growing number of artists, musicians, writers, filmmakers, students and political activists.

[4] The progressive politics in the neighbourhood and concentration of artists led to levels of racial mixing that were then uncommon in the apartheid era.

[2] The changing clientele and an increase in poorer residents meant that several established shops and businesses were no longer viable to operate from the neighourhood.

[21] The agreement was made, as the DP incumbent, Harry Schwarz prepared to vacate the seat to take on the role of South African ambassador to the United States.

[23] In 1995, the murder of a Jamaican restaurateur, Ridley Wright placed increased attention on the presence of drug dealers in the neighbourhood.

In their absence, squatters have posed as the legitimate owners and charge rent to tenants, while often refusing to maintain the buildings.

This has been driven by the arrival of refugees and immigrants from Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi, Nigeria, Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

[2] A collapse in service delivery, government neglect, corruption, xenophobia and a consistently high crime rates are some of the primary challenges in the neighbourhood.

[20] The infrastructure challenges include a lack of access to consistent running water, unreliable garbage disposal and a rise in illegal dumping sites.