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We’re on the road to nowhere…

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Update: There was a good response to my original post on Cape Town’s unfinished freeways. Ella Smook wrote a follow up article in the Cape Argus on 01 September (see full story below), following which John Maytham picked up the debate on Cape Talk radio.

What do you think? Should the Foreshore Freeways be:…

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Come rain or come shine… we walk the city to discover our history

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I took a group of 25 international journalists on a walking tour of the Cape Town Central City this morning. The weather was awful, a typical wet Cape winter’s day, but true to our motto – we walk, come rain or shine – we set off in good spirits. The group is…

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‘The Little Girl walks with her arms outstretched, dreaming she could fly…’

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If you ever needed an excuse to walk on the Sea Point Promenade, now’s the time to go and see Walking the Road, an inspiring public art project by Marieke Prinsloo. I’m not going to tell you what the story is about – you must experience it yourself.

Once you’ve…

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The UDF was born in song

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Steve Gordon’s moving tribute to the late Robbie Jansen in the Mail and Guardian this weekend (The last blow for freedom) reminded me just how important music was to the culture and ethos of the United Democratic Front (UDF) in Cape Town in the 1980s.

Who can forget…

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The ‘unhappy compromise’ shows signs of coming of age

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The Cape Town Foreshore has been described as an ‘unhappy compromise’ resulting in series of ‘wind-blown stretches of asphalt and concrete, filled with car parks and roaring traffic, inaccessible to pedestrians.’* Yet on a still winter’s morning, in the early dawn light, on foot, the Foreshore can almost be beautiful.…

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‘Not soon. Not just now. Now. Because if you don’t, who will?’

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One of the unexpected treats of the 2010 World Cup was having something other than political wrangling to read about on the front pages of our newspapers every day. For a whole month.

No disrespect intended, but sometimes we in South Africa get a little obsessed with what politicians are saying and doing. I…

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Cape Town Squared (or how some of our most valuable public assets are not being properly used)

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Do you remember the popular zebra artworks dotted around public spaces in Cape Town during the World Cup? Well, they’ve now migrated to the Artscape Piazza on the Foreshore.

The 33 zebras form an exhibition entitled ‘Not all is Black and White’, by the World for All

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“Work. Learn. Share. Change the World.”

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One Saturday morning, a few weeks ago, I took my youngest son, Angelo, for a robotics lesson in the East City. Hidden behind a pair of small red doors in Buitenkant Street, we stumbled upon a magical world of creativity at the Open Innovation Studio.

“Work. Learn. Share. Change the World.” This is the

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Cape Town Fan Walk lives on through citizen action on Mandela Day, 18 July

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Jacquie Biess is a Capetonian who enjoyed the experience of walking the Fan Walk during the 2010 World Cup. Now she is doing it again for a cause.

On Mandela Day, Sunday, 18 July, Jacquie and her three daughters, all of Charly’s Bakery in the East City, will be on the…

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Storming the ramparts: How the Castle of Good Hope can become part of city life

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One of the good things about hosting a large global event like the 2010 World Cup is the way we were able do things that previously seemed impossible. Like regular road closures to create safe pedestrian spaces, reliable public transport, dressing the city in bright colours, colourful wall murals and outdoor advertisements,…

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Ten reasons why the Cape Town 2010 Fan Walk worked so well

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The Cape Town Fan Walk has become one of the talking points of Cape Town’s World Cup experience. The editorial in today’s Cape Argus described it as a ‘masterstroke’. John Robbie of 702 Talk Radio asked me yesterday to what we as a city owed the success of the Fan…

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Navigating the Cape Town Central City

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As part of our efforts to make the Cape Town Central City more navigable for tourists (and local suburbanites!) during the 2010 World Cup, the Cape Town Partnership and CCID asked Chip Snaddon, well known local cartoonist and illustrator at the Cape Argus, to draw us a humerous guide which showed,…

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