Mount Pleasant, Harare

Mount Pleasant is a residential suburb of Harare, Zimbabwe, located in the northern part of the city. Originally a farm, the area was developed for housing in the early 20th-century and was a white suburb until Zimbabwe's independence in 1980. Today, Mount Pleasant is a multiracial community and is one of Harare's more affluent suburbs.
Mount Pleasant contains a number of shopping centres and businesses. The suburb is home to three secondary schools and five primary schools. The University of Zimbabwe, the oldest and top-ranked university in Zimbabwe, is located in Mount Pleasant, as are Zimbabwe Open University and Arrupe Jesuit University. There are two athletic clubs in Mount Pleasant, the Old Georgians Sports Club and Mount Pleasant Sports Club. The area is represented in Parliament by the Mount Pleasant constituency. Mount Pleasant is bordered by the Avondale West, Vainona, Emerald Hill, Belgravia, and Marlborough suburbs.
History.
Mount Pleasant was originally a farm, also named Mount Pleasant, until it was developed for residential housing beginning in 1902.Little is known about the genesis of Farm No 10, which was called Mount Pleasant, as the original owner is not known. John Kiddle sold it to Mollie Colenbrander for £100 after owning it for just five days. However, because of water issues, no development took place until 1902 when it was acquired by the Cape Town property developer and recent immigrant Alfred Blackburn, who also acquired and subdivided Avondale, and developed both areas into residential subdivisions. By the end of the Second World War, Mount Pleasant had become an extremely desirable place to live and was forever changed by the opening of the University of Zimbabwe in 1953.
Geography.
Mount Pleasant is located in the northern part of Harare, and is bordered by the Vainona, Pomona, Emerald Hill, Belgravia, and Marlborough suburbs. From the postwar era to the 1980s, generations of wealthy residents built dozens of stately homes in the area in various styles, including Beaux-Arts architecture, Edwardian, Cape Dutch and post-war modern styles. Along with their homes, the university added much to the vibrancy of the neighbourhood, with bookstores, cafes, restaurants and other amenities creating a bohemian, academic atmosphere, distinguishing it from the quieter suburban enclaves of wealthy families to its North East and the gritty CBD. Other than the homes, landmarks include the Arundel Village and the campus of the University of Zimbabwe. The Mount Pleasant branch of the Harare Library serves the greater area.
The neighborhood is well preserved and maintained, however some of the historic homes have been torn down, renovated into businesses, or transferred to institutional use. The northern part of the neighborhood is dominated by the University of Zimbabwe. In the post-war years the area was home to affluent Anglo-African families evidenced by churches such as All Souls Anglican Church on Westcott Rd and Northside Community Church on Edinburgh Ave. Today the population is more diverse, albeit with a plurality of upper middle class Shona people, as the wealthiest former inhabitants moved further eastward to Glen Lorne and Borrowdale or emigrated entirely. Left behind were mostly middle-class white Zimbabweans, and a mix of incoming Shona and Indian Zimbabweans along with a transient expatriate population. Today, upper middle-income black Zimbabweans of various ethnicities form a majority of the population.
Economy.
Mount Pleasant also contains a number of office parks and shopping centres, notably Arundel Office Park, Arundel Village Shopping Centre, The Bridge Shopping Centre, Bond Shopping Centre and Pendennis Shopping Centre. The Zimbabwe School Examinations Council is also headquartered in Mount Pleasant. It also houses the Agriculture and Research Trust (ART) Farm, which engages in research and development of agricultural practices. Mount Pleasant Business Park is home to a number of businesses, including the headquarters of the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe.
Education.
Mount Pleasant is home to three universities, three secondary schools, and five primary schools, including both public and private educational institutions. Mount Pleasant's public schools are within the North Central District of Harare Province. Mount Pleasant has two public primary schools, North Park Primary School and Groombridge Primary School. The private schools in Mount Pleasant are Correspondence School, Goldbrook Junior College, and Northwood Adventist Primary School, a Seventh-day Adventist Church-affiliated school. Northwood, which opened in 2014 with 273 students, was ranked one of the top 100 grade 7 schools in Zimbabwe in 2014.
Mount Pleasant is served by one public high school, Mount Pleasant School. There are two private secondary schools in Mount Pleasant: Arundel School, a boarding and day school for girls ages 12–18, and Harare International School, a coeducational day school for students grades Pre-K–12; both schools have enrollments of around 500 students. All three of Mount Pleasant's high schools were included in a 2014 ranking of Africa's top 100 secondary schools. Arundel was ranked 48th, Harare International at 54th, and Mount Pleasant School placed at 65th.
The main campus of the University of Zimbabwe, the oldest and top-ranked university in Zimbabwe, is located at the southern edge of the suburb. Zimbabwe Open University, a distance education institution and the largest university by enrollment in Zimbabwe, is based in Mount Pleasant. Mount Pleasant is also home to Arrupe Jesuit University, one of two Catholic universities in Zimbabwe and one of only two Jesuit universities in Africa.
Community diversity.
Mount Pleasant is one of Harare's more racially diverse neighborhoods. Since the 1980s Mount Pleasant had developed into a neighborhood fairly integrated among economic classes and races, albeit with the price of housing rising the further north one travels. Beginning in the mid-twentieth century, Mount Pleasant could boast of numerous prominent residents, many of whom were affiliated with the University of Zimbabwe. Affiliated with the University of Birmingham and multiracial from the start, the university quickly became a liberal bastion of resistance against the oppressive Ian Smith government.
Mount Pleasant's location as the academic and intellectual centre of Harare as well as its large population of well-to-do residents have made it an important cultural and bohemian hub of the city, noted for its independent bookstores, including the Book Club and House of Books Co-op bookstore, on Redhill Road. Nearby Bond Street offers numerous restaurants, bakeries and cafes, along with small grocery stores, hair stylists, and dry cleaners, which add much to the vibrancy of the area.
Mount Pleasant Heights.
Mount Pleasant Heights is a newer neighborhood of mostly family homes in the far north of Mount Pleasant to the north and northwest of Harare. The Heights neighborhood is an enclave of residential homes, trees and undeveloped parkland. The neighborhood borders Mount Pleasant proper, and is bounded by the A11 motorway to the west, Ashbrittle to the southwest, and Vainona and Borrowdale to the southeast.
This neighborhood was originally inhabited by wealthy black residents, mostly doctors, lawyers, and other professionals. Most of these families moved to the area as it developed in the nineties to about 2005. Mount Pleasant Heights was initially entirely residential, with no commercial zoning, and single family and rambler houses on very large parcels. The neighborhood is suburban, separated from the roar of life in the nation's capital.
Today the area remains quite suburban, and largely characterised by detached and larger properties, unlike the more dense south, and small neighbourhood businesses and commercial areas to service the growing population. There are also swaths of park land cutting through the neighborhood, such as Wingate Park.
The area is part of the Mount Pleasant Association and residents consider themselves residents of Mount Pleasant. The neighbourhood is known for its abundance of trees, green space and proximity to Wingate Park Golf Club. Most of the neighborhood's housing stock was built in the 1990s, however since 2005 the area has become increasingly popular with non-resident Zimbabweans as an alternative to the pricey Northeast, resulting in higher prices, uneven development and growing sprawl, with many of the original families emigrating or moving out of the area, as hyperinflation favored international buyers, while diminishing locals' savings. Heights students are zoned to Montrose Primary School with many going on to attend high school in Mount Pleasant proper and Emerald Hill.
Government and politics.
Mount Pleasant does not have its own police station and relies on the police station in Marlborough . Irregular city garbage collection and littering are problems in Mount Pleasant.
Notable people.
The following are notable people were either born in or have lived in Mount Pleasant at one point or another: