Johannesburg - The small shop in the township will soon be as dead as the Dodo if the influx of shopping malls into these residential areas continues at its present pace.
Experts and property developers agree that the first decade of democracy in South Africa has increased the spending power of black communities.
And where more to catch this newfound liquidity than in the townships themselves?
There are, however, critics of these retail malls who, while welcoming the concept, feel they could be run differently.
Balfour Makhetha, the president of the Greater Soweto Chamber of Commerce, said retail malls should offer equity to black people if they wanted to operate in the townships.
"Fighting apartheid was fighting for equity. It would have been a natural progression if these malls had been black. This is a black man's initiative.
"As long as they are white, we have no interest in them, they have no interest in us. The war is not over.
"We challenged the first situation and we defeated it. The challenge is now on us as black people in the townships.
"White capital has got its own agenda," said Makhetha.
Whatever the difference of opinion, the fact is malls are everywhere, including the rural areas.
Before 1994, white capital or business was not allowed by law to own property in black areas and vice versa.
Leading the pack is Futuregrowth, the fund management company. Its Community Property Fund has invested in retail property development in the townships and rural areas in all but one province.
To date, it has completed 15 shopping centres with a combined value of R500 million.
The only exception is the Northern Cape. Wayne van der Vent, Futuregrowth's head of development funds, said the province was found not to have a big enough population in most areas to carry a retail centre.
Futuregrowth has recently completed retail construction in the Eastern Cape in Motherwell and Mdantsane, and in Mitchells Plain in the Western Cape. In July, it opened a multimillion-rand shopping complex in Mkhuhlu township in Limpopo.
The centres are anchored by Shoprite Checkers, Score Supermarket, Pep Stores, Mr Price, Boxer, the JD Group, Ellerines, Lewis and the four big banks.
In 2002, Ithala Bank announced that it was pumping R250 million for malls in the townships and rural areas of KwaZulu-Natal, which would result in 32 commercial centres.
But, the province that is attracting the most retail mall development is Gauteng, the economic locomotive of South Africa.
Soweto, the biggest township in the province, already has two malls on its outskirts: the Dobsonville and Southgate malls.
Five malls are under construction or are about to be built there.
The Marriott Group is involved in the biggest project so far in the township, the Soweto Triangle, near the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital.
Chris Lawrence, the executive director of retail for Marriott, said the property developer expected completion by October 2006.
Pick 'n Pay had offered to pick up 10 000m2 in the complex.
This would be the first time the food chain had made its presence directly felt in Soweto. In the past, it has used its proxy, Score Supermarket, which caters for low-income earners.
The only food chain that has entered the township in some way is Shoprite Checkers, with two outlets.
Greenwold Properties is building the Protea and Jabulani malls, as well as the Bothokwa Plaza outside Polokwane.
Shanduka Properties, led by former ANC politician Cyril Ramaphosa, is developing the Diepkloof Plaza, on a site that was the Mandelaville informal settlement at one time. It will cost R60 million to construct.
The Kliptown Freedom Square, where the Freedom Charter was adopted in 1955, is also going to have its mall. It is being built by the Johannesburg Development Agency and will be managed by its subsidiary, the Johannesburg Property Company.
About R375 million has been set aside for the revival of the entire square, including the construction of the mall.
In 2003, Ebrahim Rasool, the former Western Cape MEC for finance and economic development, opened the R400 million Promenade mall in Mitchells Plain.
The complex is a partnership between the provincial government, Liberty Properties and the local community, and has Pick 'n Pay as its anchor tenant.
Lawrence said: "In the past there has been less enthusiasm in building malls in the townships.
" the past 10 years has seen an increase in the black consumer spending. This is a reflection of the growing income of the black population."
This view was supported by two leading researchers on the subject: Sheny Medani of Market Decisions and Dirk Prinsloo of Urban Studies.
Medani said it was incorrect to classify South Africans in racial terms.
People had to define themselves, and the same applied to their purchasing patterns. "A consumer is a consumer in terms of their spending pattern, not their race."
She said it was only natural that retail property developers had an interest in Soweto, with its R4.5 billion consumer spend.
Medani did not believe that the construction of malls inside the townships would threaten the earnings of those on the outskirts as township malls were targeting low-income earners.
"The government must use the retailers in the townships to improve the lives of the residents," urged Medani.
Prinsloo said that in the townships, there was more potential for smaller malls than for larger ones. Meadow City mall in Soweto, for example, which though small, was very successful.
He did not expect the larger malls outside the townships to suffer because there was a big usage of these. It was important for older malls to offer good shops.
Prinsloo felt location was critical for a mall, for instance, that it was on a taxi route.
George Skinner, the executive director of the SA Association of Shopping Centres, said 10 000m2 would be the right size of a mall in the township.
Late trading hours would be crucial for these township malls and they would have to be very focussed.
Skinner said township people would still go to the regional malls because the trip was an outing for them and their families.